4S Backchannels is an online platform publishing at the intersections of science, technology, and society. As part of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), our platform brings a global community of scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS), History of Science (HOS), Medical Humanities, and adjacent fields into communication. ‘Backchannels’ refer to direct lines of communication that bypass many obstacles and limitations, facilitating the timely publication of emergent work and current themes. 4S Backchannels publishes research projects, scholarly reflections, conference/event reports, and book reviews submitted by established and emerging scholars, and other contributors thinking critically about the articulations of science, technology, and society.
The mission of 4S Backchannels is to support the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) and the global STS community by publishing scholarly, timely, and media-rich works on our platform.
Please refer to our Publication Guidelines for information on submitting to Backchannels, and familiarize yourself with our Editorial Team.
Oct 6 2026
강미량 Miryang Kang reports on the 2026 Science, Technology, & Human Values (ST&HV) "STS School" in Seoul, where early-career researchers shared their work and received feedback from peers and mentors. She reflects on the transnationalization of STS, the role of language in shaping knowledge production and sharing, and how conversations across different worlds can shape STS as a field.
Sep 28 2026
What can art teach us about the brain that science alone cannot? In this report, Lina Pinto-García reflects on a gathering in Medellín where artists, scientists, and scholars came together to explore new ways of understanding neurological experiences, care, and brain health.
Sep 14 2026
In this reflection, available in both English and Spanish, María Paula Hernández Ruiz proposes the notion of racialised risk and examines how infrastructure, racialisation, and inequality shaped the emergency response to the earthquake that struck western Colombia on 10 August 2026. Focusing on the country’s road network, she explores how infrastructural inequalities deepen risk for Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and peasant communities in the Pacific region, while considering t...
Sep 21 2026
Galls or cecidia are vegetal tissue outgrowths generated when insects or other organisms meet plants. They are resourceful common life entanglements, transdisciplinary by nature.
Sep 7 2026
In Making Do, Conservation Ethics and Ecological Care in Australia (2026), Mardi Reardon-Smith (University of Monash) provides ethnographic insights to the ways in which 'care' brings humans, nonhumans, and landscapes of Cape York together through the practices and politics of 'making do'. This book review features stunning photography taken by Reardon-Smith during their time in the field, and an interview with the author.
Aug 17 2026
This bilingual article (English and Portuguese) traces the creation of the Brazilian scientific journal Revista Brasileira de Estudos CTS (RBCTS), dedicated to STS, and its role in consolidating the field in Brazil and Latin America. It reflects on journals as infrastructures for knowledge circulation, exchange, and collective memory. The article discusses the challenges of building an open-access, interdisciplinary, and socially engaged space for STS scholarship.
Aug 3 2026
This article introduces 'technobotany' and the entanglements of botany and technology that shape the nature of science and society. It examines the new space race as a technobotanical frontier featuring photosynthetic technologies designed to power lunar outposts and Martian colonies, anticipating the extraction of rare metals and minerals for energy-intensive societies on Earth.
Aug 3 2026
This report reflects on the establishment of the Science, Technology and Society (STS) Committee of the Chinese Society for the History of Science and Technology, formally founded during a national symposium at Beijing Normal University in June 2026. The milestone marks a significant step in the institutionalisation of STS in China, bringing together scholars from across the country while strengthening connections with the international STS community.
Jul 27 2026
In 2025, a controversy erupted over a study into the safety and “non-specific effects” of the hepatitis B vaccine among children in Guinea-Bissau. This post traces the life of the concept of “non-specific effects”, from the early 1990s to the political context of the mid-2020s.
Jul 20 2026
Anton Novenanto writes a thought-provoking reflection, offering to understand STS initiatives in Indonesia as projects countering the neoliberalisation of knowledge. The text is available in Indonesian and English.