4S Mission

Fostering interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship in social studies of science, technology, and medicine across the globe.

Latest 4S News

In Loving Memory of Michel Callon

Published On: Aug 13, 2025

We are saddened here at the Society to share the passing of one of our field’s luminaries, Michel Callon. His foundational work in actor network theory has inspired generations of STS scholars, and Callon was president of 4S from 1998 to 2000. He was awarded the Bernal Prize in 2002. We thank the Center for the Sociology of Innovation for sharing this in memorium: https://www.csi.minesparis.psl.eu/en/featured-articles/michel-callon-1945-2025/

Disposable Plastics, Enduring Bonds

Published On: Aug 7, 2025

In this post, Tridibesh Dey reflects on an ethnographic case from summer 2023 in Canning, the last town and railway terminus in India at the fringes of the Sundarban. This post proffers situated insights into why a single-use plastic product continues to be popular.

New Book | Decentralizing Knowledges: Essays in Distributed Agency

Published On: Jul 8, 2025

In recent decades, there has been a call for decentering knowledge in the social sciences and humanities, bringing to light perspectives from previously ignored or undervalued groups or areas of the world. Feminist epistemologies and postcolonial studies have led this trend. However, there has been less interest in the specific infrastructures and practices that make decentering possible. Drawing from science and technology studies, Decentralizing Knowledges examines how to bring about such chan...

4S Publications

Science, Technology, and Human Values

For more than forty years, Science, Technology, & Human Values has provided the forum for cutting-edge research and debate in the field of science and technology studies.

Bearly Recognizable: Facial Recognition and the Wild

Emily WandererDepartment of Anthropology, 6614University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
While big tech companies are growing more circumspect about the use of facial recognition for humans, interest in nonhuman facial recognition is surging. The identification...

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...

Agriculture by Algorithm: Big Data, Digitalization, and Biotechnology Under Climate Change

Yıldı‌z Atasoy1Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 1763Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Based on textual analysis of publicly available documents published by the Food and Agriculture Organization, Bayer, and its partner delivery start-ups, this paper provides...

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 &...

Engaging Science, Technology and Society

Engaging Science, Technology, & Society is an online, open access publication of The Society for Social Studies of Science.

Situating Microbes

Published On: Jul 13 2025

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

Issue 11.1 includes the thematic collection “Situating Microbes.” The collected essays on microbe studies in STS aims to situates microbes in complex ecologies beyond their pathogenic formations. All the articles in this issue...

Situating Microbes Within Complex Ecologies

Published On: Jul 25 2025

Jose A. Cañada, Salla Sariola, Matthäus Rest

The role of microbes in society has traditionally foregrounded their pathogenic character. However, this framing is being increasingly problematised as new research has shown the complex and nuanced role they have, not only in...

Development Histories, AMR Futures, and the Biosociality of a ‘Hotspot'

Published On: Jul 31 2025

Andrea Butcher

Paul Rabinow identified ‘practices of life’ as a potent site of twenty-first-century knowledge and power, arguing that instruments of genomic characterisation will reshape contemporary social relations, thus establishing a...

Racism and Vibrio cholerae: A Sociogenic Approach to Understanding Pathogenicity

Victoria Koski-Karell

After its pandemic debut in 1817, cholera became the most feared disease of the nineteenth century. Its source, a toxigenic bacterium: Vibrio cholerae. There is little coincidence that the prolific and far-reaching spread of this...

4S Blog: Backchannels

BOOK REVIEW: 'A Place for Science and Technology Studies: Observation, Intervention, and Collaboration' by Jane Calvert

Ludovico Rella (Durham University)
Aug 11, 2025
Ludovico Rella (Durham University) reviews 'A Place for Science and Technology Studies: Observation, Intervention, and Collaboration' by situating Calvert's insights on STS and place through the lens of Geography and space. This is the first of a two-part series, including a forthcoming interview with Dr. Calvert discussing the place of this text within the shifting landscape of STS.

Disposable Plastics, Enduring Bonds

Dr. Tridibesh Dey
Aug 07, 2025
In this post, Tridibesh Dey reflects on an ethnographic case from summer 2023 in Canning, the last town and railway terminus in India at the fringes of the Sundarban. This post proffers situated insights into why a single-use plastic product continues to be popular.

4S Backchannels is Hiring Assistant Editors!

Editor, Aaron Gregory (UC Riverside)
Jul 14, 2025
4S Backchannels is Hiring Assistant Editors for its Global North team!

India Going Global: Ayurveda, Standardisation and the Cultural Politics of Globalisation

Purbita Das
Jul 06, 2025
Purbita Das advocates for a policy framework to safeguard Ayurveda’s regionality, plurality and its epistemological richness in light of increasing efforts to standardise its practices for the global health market.

Backchannels content is contributed by our members to highlight news relevant to their work.

STS News

Items submitted by the community and emailed to members monthly.

CfP | Disasters: Understanding the Textures of Loss, Love, and Recovery Amidst Forced Social Change

Aug 21, 2025
Globally, in a world of interlocking networks, the likelihood that most residents will experience a major disaster in their lifetimes is increasing significantly. Whether caused by natural, technological, synergistic, social, cyber, or new means, disasters are becoming more complex, frequent, stronger, longer-lasting, and more devastating in their impacts. As each disaster receives only limited national attention, the extended, slow recovery process forces change and transition at all levels of ...

University of Texas Medical Branch | Bioethics and Health Humanities Tenure-Track Faculty

Aug 08, 2025
The Department and Institute of Bioethics and Health Humanities (BHH), housed in the School of Public and Population Health at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, is recruiting tenure track faculty member. This person will teach 2 small graduate seminars per year (30% education effort) and the remaining 70% effort will be for research. The research area is open, and we strongly encourage people whose work interfaces with law/policy or environmental health to apply.

Princeton | Anthropology Department Lecturer

Jul 08, 2025
The Department of Anthropology at Princeton University is accepting applications for a lecturer position in environmental anthropology and/or the social studies of science and technology for the 2025-2026 academic year, with an expected start date of September 1, 2025. Responsibilities include teaching four courses: an introductory environmental anthropology course and three thematic courses in the candidate's area of expertise. Additionally, the lecturer will mentor undergraduate students worki...

Call for Nominations: Engineering Studies Paper Prize

Jul 08, 2025
Please nominate publications for the International Network for Engineering Studies' 2025 Paper Prize. The prize celebrates an excellent refereed journal paper or book chapter addressing the relationships among the technical, social and philosophical dimensions of engineering practices, and how these relationships change over time and from place to place. This year, the prize committee is calling for articles published in 2024 or 2025 in media other than the Engineering Studies journal.