Linguists first used the term backchannel to refer to the spontaneous responses and signals that provide interactivity to what is only apparently a one-way communication. Social media users have adopted the term to refer to the unofficial, multi-directional online conversation that parallels formal academic exchange at a lecture or conference. The Backchannels blog is intended to have a similar relationship to scholarly discourse in STS. It provides an outlet for alternative-format scholarly communications, publishing shorter, timelier, media-rich communiques of interest to the global STS community. The editors welcome proposed contributions.
Nov 3 2025
In Feminista In Vitro, Fernanda Mariath explores how feminist perspectives can reshape biomedical science—bridging cells, stories, and the social dimensions of research. Drawing on her laboratory experience and her journey as an early-career feminist STS researcher in Brazil, she reflects on how science can be reimagined through a feminist lens. Her research inspired a podcast of the same name, featuring interviews with STS feminist scholars from Brazil and other parts of the world.
Oct 22 2025
In the midst of a national crisis, when the president declared martial law, the Korean Association of Science and Technology Studies (KASTS) was hosting its annual STS conference on disasters and care.
Oct 13 2025
In this multi-media report, Holly O'Neil shared drawings and reflections from AusSTS 2025 to consider not how signal and noise might be separated, but how they are continually redefined. This report invites the reader to explore the knowledge systems that determine these categorical registers, and how noise might in fact provide productive understandings through which to work creatively with the flotsam and jetsam of signals.
Oct 11 2025
In this blog post, Nelly-Helen Ebruka reflects on the implications of space-based earth observation data sharing within the context of Africa–EU relations.
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.
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.
Sep 5 2025
Click along if you wish to know more about the Taiwanese STS scholarship.
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.
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.
Jul 14 2025
4S Backchannels is Hiring Assistant Editors for its Global North team!