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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....

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 ...

4S Backchannels is Hiring Assistant Editors!

Published On: Jul 14 2025

4S Backchannels is Hiring Assistant Editors for its Global North team!

CfP | Special Issues in Science, Technology, & Human Values

Published On: Apr 13 2025

Deadline: Jun 21, 2025

The editorial group of Science, Technology, & Human Values is happy to announce the journal’s annual Call for Proposals for Special Issues. Since 1972, Science, Technology, & Human Values has provided a forum for cutting-edge research and debate in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). This is a collectively edited, peer-reviewed, transnational, interdisciplinary journ...

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

Published On: Jul 6 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.

CfP | Science as Culture Special Issue: Colonial Relations in Modern Techno-Securitisation

Published On: Nov 11 2024

Deadline: Apr 30, 2025

‘Security’ has become an increasingly dominant frame in recent decades, linking issues such as climate, biodiversity, borders, energy, food and military activities. Ever-more societal issues have been framed as security problems, even as existential threats. These frames seek to justify pre-emptive management through technoscientific expert systems, imagining control over everything an...

The field talks back: listening to Southeast Asia after the book

Published On: Jun 16 2025

An STS scholar researching social media and society in Southeast Asia reflects on a whirlwind book tour that became an unexpected journey of “post-publication listening”—where dialogue with regional publics reanimated the book’s arguments and affirmed Southeast Asia as a microcosm of global digital politics.

BOOK REVIEW: 'On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America from Starvation to Ozempic' by Dana Simmons

Published On: Jun 9 2025

On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America from Starvation to Ozempic (2025; UC Press) is a timely and compelling contribution to Science and Technology Studies (STS) and History of Science (HOS). Extending common threads woven throughout their prior work on vital minimums, Dr. Dana Simmons addresses an enduring pattern in United States history: the production of hunger. This book traces the produ...

Cancer in multiple realities, medical technologies and their political implications

Published On: Jun 2 2025

Tainã Queiroz discusses the incorporation of medical technologies for oncological treatments in the Brazilian health system, focusing on the challenge of combining multiple realities.

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