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Call for papers: “Science, technology and society” – working group at the Annual conference of the Westermarck Society

The Annual conference of the Westermarck Society will be held under the theme “Excess and Owerflows” at the University of Tampere on 23.-24.3.2017. The keynote speakers are: prof. Christian Borch (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark), prof. Sarah Green (University of Helsinki, Finland), prof. Annemarie Mol (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and prof. Iddo Tavory (New York University, USA).

STS Helsinki is hosting its own working group and announces call for papers:

Working group 29. Science, technology and society

Coordinators: On behalf of the STS-Helsinki group at the University of Helsinki: Jose A. Cañada, Lotta Hautamäki, Mikko Jauho and Mianna Meskus. Please direct possible inquiries to lotta.hautamaki@helsinki.fi.

Science and Technology Studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary field of study that examines the interaction between society, science, and technology. STS pays attention to how different fields, such as law, politics, and everyday life, become intertwined with science and technology. This becomes especially relevant when thinking about heatedly debated topics as diverse as climate change, the role of experts, medicine, genetics, gender, robotics or organic food. The field calls for a deeper understanding of the development, processes, practices and outcomes of such phenomena through problematizing them as social phenomena. In the process, STS explores the mechanisms behind knowledge claims and ontological assumptions that guide our everyday. Or, how one of the most prominent STS scholars, Steve Woolgar, has said in a rather provocative way: look at how the world defined by science and technology “could be otherwise”.

STS-Helsinki calls for theoretical, methodological and empirical papers on current research in social studies of science. Papers both in Finnish and English are welcome. The aim of this working group is to offer a forum to discuss social phenomena at the crossroads between science, technology and society: how is scientific knowledge established and negotiated? How do historical processes contribute to the establishment of certain fields of study or to the development of certain technologies? What are the practices that contribute to the shaping of technoscientific objects and subjects? We also welcome papers discussing the specific topic of excess and surplus. But beyond more specific pressing questions, this working group is defined as a meeting point for both Finnish and international scholars to share and discuss their work with others studying science, technology and society.

The abstract should be sent using Lyyti. (Note that once you are on Lyyti, you can change the language from the upper left corner of the page).