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The Energy Fictions of Cure and Dependency

Published On: Sep 22 2025

Can energy enliven political ecology’s relationship to disability? Dr. Emerson Cram has been lingering with this question as they feel through remnants of poor farms, state asylums, and other carceral institutions negating “abnormal” dependencies.

Assemblage Thinking for Studying Digital Artifacts: Promises and Challenges

Published On: Sep 8 2025

This report shares insights drawn from the panel “Navigating the Grey: Assemblage Thinking and Digital Artifacts” conducted during the 10th Annual STS Italia Conference hosted in Milano (11–13 June 2025). The panelists and authors of this post investigate the ways in which assemblage thinking might assist STS analyses of digital artifacts.

Some recent evidence of the vibrancy of the STS scholarship in Taiwan

Published On: Sep 5 2025

Click along if you wish to know more about the Taiwanese STS scholarship.

Exploring Lay Knowledge in a Chinese Village During the COVID-19 Period

Published On: Aug 18 2025

In this post, Siyi Chen discusses the emergence of a distinct form of lay epidemiology, in China's Hanan Province, prompted by a local HIV/Aids crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

4S Backchannels is Hiring Assistant Editors!

Published On: 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

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.

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...

The stuff of taxonomic nightmares: the frustrating volatility of color

Published On: May 22 2025

Roos Hopman reflects on the slippery place of color within natural history

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