103. Reconfiguring knowledge production of China in the “new normal”
Yuchen Chen; Chang Liu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Chuncheng LIU, University of California San Diego; Alex Jiahong Lu, University of Michigan
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês
This panel aims to (re)unite scholars to reflect on the impacts of the ongoing geopolitical “new normal” on science and technology studies in and/or about mainland China. We particularly focus on the shifting relations between the United States and China since 2016 and COVID-19 pandemic, which increased xenophobia in academic, economic, political, and ideological dimensions in both societies. This panel invites STS scholars to articulate new tensions, issues, solutions, and potentials facing new challenges in the knowledge production of China as collective and individual lived experiences and theory-making processes. We center identities and positionalities of scholars to reflect on “communities of practice.” The panel concerns three themes: 1) Navigating everyday tensions in qualitative, quantitative, and digital research activities (e.g., How to do geopolitical tensions impact research design, access, data analysis, and reporting?); 2) Politics of knowledge production (e.g., How can China be positioned in the Anglophone production of knowledge?); and 3) Future of STS and geopolitics (e.g., How does the geopolitical lens contribute to STS’s decolonial commitments?).
The underlying contribution of this panel is 1) to provide a community-building platform for scholars to theorize methodologies and politics of knowledge production with the new normal of domestic and international backdrops, 2) to retheorize China’s role in global knowledge production in relation to its reconfigured global position, and 3) to relate the specific regional and transregional challenges practitioners face in their research to broader STS concerns in triangulating methods, knowledge production, and geo- and techno-scientific politics.
