2026 David Edge Prize

Edge Prize 2026:
Sharad Pandian and Ian McGonigle

Sharad Pandian & Ian McGonigle (2024): “Engineering Trust in Singapore’s Covid-19 Response.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 19(3): 393–416.

This paper offers a timely and compelling intervention into debates surrounding misinformation, expertise, and the role of the state, engaging these issues with remarkable clarity and depth. Its conceptual contribution is especially strong, as it provincializes Science and Technology Studies (STS) by bringing attention to an underexamined region (Singapore) while simultaneously challenging established theoretical assumptions within the field.

Pandian and McGonigle’s case study of Singapore’s COVID-19 response demonstrates both strong local specificity and global relevance. Through its incorporation of postcolonial perspectives, their analysis challenges the existing binary between democratic pluralism and technocracy that is taken for granted in many STS analyses. They introduce the concept of “political technocracy” as a third option, highlighting how the Singaporean government, as the democratically elected ruling party, asserts its right to “shape the epistemic and moral landscape of the country.” Pandian and McGonigle thus demonstrate that democracy and technocracy are not necessarily in opposition. The analysis encourages greater critical reflection on how democracy is conceptualized and practiced in contemporary societies.

The work is exceptionally well conceptualized, making important contributions to discussions of misinformation, the manipulation of trust, and the relationship between expertise and governance. By examining how misinformation operates through state structures, the paper speaks not only to STS scholars but also to broader interdisciplinary and public audiences concerned with democracy, governance, and information integrity.

Acceptance Statement

We are deeply honoured to receive the David Edge Prize and thank the Prize Committee for this recognition. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic disoriented and immobilised the world, scholars from sixteen countries across the globe counter-mobilised virtually to pool information and expertise to make sense of the emergency under the umbrella of the Comparative COVID Response (CompCoRe) project. This paper emerged from this specific collaborative encounter and so we would like to express our gratitude to the CompCoRe leadership (Sheila Jasanoff, Stephen Hilgartner, and Onur Özgöde) for facilitating those exchanges, as well as to all the other country teams for teaching us about their national contexts and for pushing us to clarify what was distinctive about Singapore’s response. We would also like to thank the editors of East Asian Science, Technology and Society who championed this work and the two anonymous referees whose generous comments developed the piece in unexpectedly rewarding directions.

Biographies

Sharad Pandian

Photograph of a man wearing glasses and a blue shirt with high-rise buildings and trees in the background. Sharad Pandian is a graduate student in the History of Science program at Princeton University. He is interested in transnational histories of science, standardisation, and administration, particularly those involving South and Southeast Asia. His current research project explores how measures of extreme heat developed alongside understandings of bodily and environmental normality and danger, from the nineteenth century to the present.

Ian McGonigle

Studio portrait of a man with dark hair leaning forward at a table, resting one hand against the face. The person wears a brown leather jacket over a light-colored shirt and several rings. A dark, softly lit background creates strong contrast, with the subject centered and looking toward the camera. Ian McGonigle is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Maynooth University. He received his PhD in Middle Eastern Studies & Anthropology from Harvard University. His first book, Genomic Citizenship (MITP), explores science and identity in the Middle East. He also co-edited, with Rachel Feldman, Settler-Indigeneity in the West Bank (McGill- Queen’sUP). Recently, he made two multi-award-winning films about science, identity, and religion.

Honorable Mention

The David Edge Prize Committee would like to extend an Honorable Mention to—Pietro Benedito and Emilia Sanabria for their 2026 journal article: “Psychedelic Nation? (De)Provincializing the Psychedelic Renaissance from Brazil.” Science, Technology, & Human Values (ST&HV), 51(3): 475–502.

The 2026 Edge Prize Committee: Dana Powell (Chair), Upali Bhattacharya, Aalok Khandekar, and Nicole C. Nelson.