Consolidating the Strata: Geoscience and Underground Territory in South Korean Radioactive Waste Disposal

Sungeun KimDepartment II, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
In South Korea, the nation with the world's highest density of nuclear power plants, the disposal of high-level radioactive waste has become a pressing sociotechnical concern....

Between Code and Culture: The Evolving Role of Conversation Designers and UX in AI Development

Elizabeth Rodwell1Department of Information Science Technology, 14743University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Artificial intelligence (AI)-related technologies available to consumers have been rapidly advancing but without parallel insight into the social process of their design....

Machine's Eye View: Postmodern Data Science and the Politics of Ground Truth

Jathan SadowskiEmerging Technologies Research Lab, Faculty of Information Technology, 2541Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
This paper advances the critical analysis of machine learning by placing it in direct relation with actuarial science as a way to further draw out their shared epistemic...

Making the Global Local: The Case of Chinese Research and Innovation Evaluation Systems

Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, Alan Irwin, Xuan Li

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Starting with China's increasingly prominent role in the global politics of science, this paper considers the case of Chinese policies for the evaluation of Research &...

The Park Multiple: Practices of Coordination in a Conservation–Tourism Partnership in South Africa

Wisse Van Engelen, Annet Pauwelussen, Esther Turnhout

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Conservation–tourism partnerships are often promoted as win–win solutions to the twin problems of underfunded conservation and unsustainable development. Critics on...

The Difference—and Promise—of ESTS

Published On: Dec 31 2025

Aalok Khandekar, Clément Dréano, Noela Invernizzi, Ali Kenner, Duygu Kaşdoğan, Grant Jun Otsuki, Angela Okune, Sujatha Raman, Tim Schütz, Federico Vasen, A N Windle, Emily York

In this final editorial for the 2020–2025 Editorial Collective, we reflect on how we have worked to action on our key editorial commitments, which included: cultivating greater transnationalization in the field, deepening open...

What Do We Mean When We Say Carbon Capture and Storage? STS and the Open Questions of a Technology in Emergence

Published On: Dec 31 2025

Vivian Underhill, Jessica Smith

Carbon sequestration is a relatively recent phrase that refers to a broad suite of technologies meant to minimize the amount of carbon emitted to the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and many scientific...

How Transnational is 4S? Institutional Scaffolding and the Long Road to a Global STS

Published On: Dec 31 2025

Noela Invernizzi, Sofía Foladori-Invernizzi

This article examines the transnationalization of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), analyzing its evolution from a predominantly North American and Eurocentric organization to a more globally inclusive scholarly...

When ‘Open’ is Still Far from Good Enough: The Work of Counter-Mapping with Political Software

Published On: Dec 31 2025

Luis Felipe R. Murillo, Erin McElroy

What does “openness” mean when it comes to crafting digital tools and infrastructures for housing justice action research? This question is particularly urgent as global internet companies unleash new geospatial technologies...