Science & Technology Studies https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/ <div class="region region-content-intro"> <div id="block-block-6" class="block block-block"> <div class="content"> <p>Science &amp; Technology Studies is an international peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the advancement of scholarly studies of science and technology as socio-material phenomena, including their historical and contemporary production and their associated forms of knowledge, expertise, social organization and controversy. This includes interest in developing Science and Technology Studies' own knowledge production techniques, methodology and interventions. The journal welcomes high quality contributions to that are based on substantial theoretical or empirical engagement with the multidisciplinary field of science and technology studies, including contributions from anthropology, sociology, history, philosophy, political science, educational science and communication studies.</p> <p>Science &amp; Technology Studies is the official journal of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Finnish Association for Science and Technology Studies.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> </div> </div> European Association for the Study of Science and Technology and Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studie en-US Science & Technology Studies 2243-4690 <p><strong>Terms &amp; Conditions</strong></p> <p>This Science &amp; Technology Studies website ("Site") is owned and operated by <em>The Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies</em> (“Society”). <em>The Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies</em> and its publication <em>Science &amp; Technology Studies</em> are non-profit organizations.</p> <p>By accessing or using the Site, you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions below ("Terms and Conditions"). 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For example (but without limitation), you may not use the Site to conduct any business, to solicit the performance of any activity that is prohibited by law, or to solicit other users to become subscribers of other information services. Similarly, you may not use the Site to download and redistribute public information or shareware for personal gain or use the facilities and/or services to distribute multiple copies of public domain information or shareware.</p> <p><strong>Trademarks</strong></p> <p>All trademarks appearing on this Site are the property of their respective owners.</p> <p><strong>Links to Other Sites</strong></p> <p>The Site may contain hyperlinks to other sites or resources that are provided solely for your convenience. Science &amp; Technology Studies is not responsible for the availability of external sites or resources linked to the Site, and does not endorse and is not responsible or liable for any content, advertising, products or other materials on or available from such sites or resources. Transactions that occur between you and any third party are strictly between you and the third party and are not the responsibility of Science &amp; Technology Studies. Due to the fact that Science &amp; Technology Studies is not responsible for the availability or accuracy of these outside resources or their contents, you should review the terms and conditions and privacy policies of these linked sites, as their policies may differ from ours.</p> <p>Last revised: 3 Aug 2020</p> Climate Change Assessments, Publics and Digital Traces of Controversy https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/107662 <p>Recent scientific assessments of climate change have shifted towards evaluating solutions for removing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CDR). This paper reports a participation experiment in which we involved an interdisciplinary group of researchers in mapping issues relating to two CDR approaches: afforestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). We describe the responses of individual researchers when presented with visualisations aggregated from posts about afforestation and BECCS on the platform Twitter. We then compare the researchers’ responses with a qualitative analysis of a subset of the Twitter data. The analysis highlights challenges the researchers experienced in identifying issues and relating these visualisations to their own research on afforestation and BECCS. We discuss the prospects for bringing experimental approaches to mapping issues, publics and participation into closer relation with science and technology assessments. The paper concludes with reflections on the value of qualitative traditions of STS research for digital controversy analysis.</p> <p> </p> Laurie Waller Jason Chilvers Copyright (c) 2022 Laurie Waller, Jason Chilvers https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 2023-02-15 2023-02-15 36 1 2 23 10.23987/sts.107662 Living Well with a Healthy Weight https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/110580 <p>This article troubles the intervention of the Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator from the National Health Service (NHS) website (www.nhs.uk) through a situated experiment involving my body. Specifically, it demonstrates how the assemblage of online location, the BMI calculator, and my male body are entangled in generating political effects for my healthy eating, healthy weight and wellbeing. By exploring the NHS website’s online intervention tool, I present how evidence-based repertoires allow the production of collateral realities of my body governed by my BMI result.</p> <p>This provokes a discussion about how different effects of numbering governance are possible through applying care-based intervention practices and through a situated intervention. One response to the outcomes of this analysis might be the possibility to change the logics and mechanics of an Internet-based intervention from exercising specific, fixed and standardised norms to more carefully enacting care as situated and relational.</p> Piotr Maron Copyright (c) 2022 Piotr Maron https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 2023-02-15 2023-02-15 36 1 24 41 10.23987/sts.110580 Surveillance, Discretion and Governance in Automated Welfare https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/100490 <p>Several scholarly studies and journalistic investigations have found that automated decision-making in welfare systems burdens claimants by forecasting their behaviour, targeting them for sanctions and surveillance and punishing them without revealing the underlying mechanisms driving such decisions. This article develops an analytical framework combining three areas of concern regarding automation: how it might introduce surveillance and social sorting, how it can entail the loss of human discretion, and how it requires new systems of governance and due process. This framework steers investigations into whether and how automated decision-making welfare systems introduce new harms and burdens for claimants. A case study on automation processes in Germany’s unemployment benefit service’s IT system ALLEGRO applies this approach and finds that this system does allow for broad human discretion and avoids some forms of surveillance, such as risk-assessments from historic data, though it nevertheless increases surveillance of claimants through sharing data with external agencies. The developed framework also suggests that concerns raised in one area – whether loss of human discretion, surveillance, or lack of due process – can be mitigated by attending to the other two areas and urges researchers and policy-makers to attend to the mitigating or reinforcing factors of each concern.</p> Louisa Well Morgan Currie James Stewart Copyright (c) 2022 Louisa Well, Morgan Currie, James Stewart https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 2023-02-15 2023-02-15 36 1 42 58 10.23987/sts.100490 Relationality, Individuality and Entanglements of Helping in the Context of a Touristic Vaccine Trial https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/113032 <p>This article explores the idea of relationality and distributive agency in the context of a clinical vaccine trial. The diarrhoea vaccine trial was conducted in Western Africa, but as a unique element, recruited Finnish adults as trial participants, who travelled to the trial site to West Africa. Engaging with previous research on clinical trials in the global South that has emphasized the relationality and social embeddedness of Southern trial subjects, this article argues for an enacted social-material relationality of <em>any</em> research subject. As the vaccine trial under study transformed into practices and ideas of <em>helping</em>, the analysis illustrates forms of relational subjectivity and distributive agency by focusing on the notion of helping. The analysis is based on the trial participants’ accounts and practices, and draws on qualitative interviews (51) and ethnographic observation conducted between 2017 and 2019 at the trial site in West Africa.</p> Katriina Emilia Huttunen Copyright (c) 2022 Katriina Emilia Huttunen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 2023-02-15 2023-02-15 36 1 59 74 10.23987/sts.113032 Dimbath Oliver (2022) Oblivionism. Forgetting and Forgetfulness in Modern Science https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/119567 Bart Penders Copyright (c) 2023 Bart Penders https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 2023-02-15 2023-02-15 36 1 75 77 10.23987/sts.119567 Tupasela Aaro (2021) Populations as brands: Marketing national resources for global data markets https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/120626 Brígida Riso Copyright (c) 2023 Brígida Riso https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 2023-02-15 2023-02-15 36 1 78 80 10.23987/sts.120626