Science & Technology Studies

How Matters of Concern Invade Technologies

Franck Cochoy — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Markets have evolved from classic markets to concerned markets – that is, markets that focus not only on economic efficiency and the utilitarian matching between supply and demand but also on the negative externalities produced by market products and exchanges. The menstrual cup is used as a good example to address such matters. This device has supplemented disposable tampons and pads, and if the original focus on practical and material dimensions remains (absorbency, lightness, smallness, disposability, etc.), new concerns have invaded the scene. Significantly, in the advertisements for menstrual cups, reusability, recyclability, safety or hypoallergenic issues have replaced the past quest for efficiency and feeling carefree. How have matters of facts and of concern been involved and with what implications? I propose to address this question based on a computer-assisted analysis of 5,235 consumer reviews (posted on Amazon.com) about the Star Cup (pseudonym), a leading product on the market for menstrual cups. The analysis points out that health and sustainability are only two of the many reasons behind the current use of menstrual cups. Various and often conflicting concerns are intertwined in cup consumption. This helps us understand that the development of sustainable technologies requires taking many more elements and dimensions into consideration than mere environmental friendliness.

Pigs and Chips

Ann Bruce, James Lowe — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0300

This paper presents a longitudinal case study in UK biotechnology covering some 30 years during which genomic technologies were introduced into pig breeding. This case study demonstrates how co-innovation involving existing small and medium sized enterprises, together with contributions from academics, has enabled companies to obtain the resources needed for value creation. Important contributions at critical junctures from public funding, pivotal contributions of individuals, and entry of new enterprises supplying essential resources, have enabled the fruitful realisation of new value creation. This paper contributes to the literature by taking a historical perspective, demonstrating how enabling long-term networking relationships including relevant academics, research institutions, funders and knowledge brokers has the potential to generate an innovation ecosystem that can respond effectively to a range of external challenges and take advantage of new techno-scientific opportunities.

The Production of Infrastructural Value and the Extension of the Electricity Grid

Mette Kragh-Furbo, Gordon Walker, Mitchell Curtis — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Infrastructures have recently been conceptualised as in process and dynamic rather than fixed and obdurate. We introduce the notion of infrastructural value to draw attention to the specific value that can be produced in something in relation to its participation in an infrastructure, its operation and management. We analyse demand-side response (DSR) as a case of infrastructural extension where value is produced in already-existing electricity consuming devices, generating a return for their response to the ends of grid management. We track the work of aggregators who enrol clients and their devices into providing combined synchronised responses contracted with the grid operator. This involves aggregators in activities of temporal prospecting, legitimation, optimisation and coordination. We argue that the notion of infrastructural value helps to articulate the relations between the fluidity and flexing of infrastructural boundaries and value making practices and consider other ways that this category of value might be explored.

Constitutive Tensions of Transformative Research

Andrea Schikowitz, Sabine Maasen, Kevin Weller — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0300

Living labs and Reallabore are policy attempts to provide infrastructures for societal transformation towards sustainability. They attempt to do so through facilitating experimental modes of societal learning and innovation in inter- and transdisciplinary environments. We suggest that building and maintaining such infrastructures includes simultaneously relying on continuity by following conventions of knowledge production and allowing for contingency as a resource for surprise. Both are necessary, inevitably prompting a “constitutive tension”. Based on a pilot study of two living labs on urban mobility in Austria, we ask how specific labs inscribe continuity and contingency into their infrastructures. Our analysis shows that the living labs attempted to connect to diverse communities, providing a source for contingency. At the same time, however, we observe a tendency to mitigate contingency when the production of outcomes is at risk. Based on the discussion of this exploratory case study, we reflect upon the transformative potential of living labs.

Elliott Anthony (2023) Algorithmic Intimacy. The Digital Revolution in Personal Relationships

Paul Trauttmansdorff — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0300

West Darrel M and Allen John R (2020) Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence

Pedro Robles, Daniel Mallinson — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0300