Technoscientific Imaginaries
Technoscientific Imaginaries

Author: George E. Marcus

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1995-04

Total Pages: 574

ISBN-13: 9780226504445

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What is it like to be a scientist at the end of the twentieth century? How have shifts in power and in assumptions about knowledge affected scientific practice? Who are the people behind the new technologies, and how do they address the difficult moral and professional issues during a time of global change? Techno-Scientific Imaginaries explores these and other important questions at the approach of the new millennium. In these penetrating essays, twenty-four distinguished contributors from a broad range of fields present the voices of the scientists themselves—through interviews, conversations, and memoirs. We hear from Lithuanian physicists who discuss science after Communism and their own fantasies about what Western science is; a Japanese-American woman struggling with her ambivalence over designing nuclear weapons; political activists in India who examine relations among science, environmental politics, and government ideology in the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster; and many others, including biologists, physicians, corporate researchers, and scientists working with virtual reality and other cutting-edge technologies. The contributors to this volume are Mario Biagioli, Maria E. Carson, Gary Lee Downey, Joseph Dumit, Michael M. J. Fischer, Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Hugh Gusterson, Diana L. L. Hill, James Holston, Herbert C. Hoover, Jr., Gudrun Klein, Leszek Koczanowicz, Irene Kuter, Kim Laughlin, Rita Linggood, George E. Marcus, Kathryn Milun, Livia Polanyi, Christopher Pound, Simon Powell, Paul Rabinow, Kathleen Stewart, Allucquere Rosanne Stone, and Sharon Traweek.

Dreamscapes of Modernity
Dreamscapes of Modernity

Author: Sheila Jasanoff

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-09-02

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 022627666X

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Dreamscapes of Modernity offers the first book-length treatment of sociotechnical imaginaries, a concept originated by Sheila Jasanoff and developed in close collaboration with Sang-Hyun Kim to describe how visions of scientific and technological progress carry with them implicit ideas about public purposes, collective futures, and the common good. The book presents a mix of case studies—including nuclear power in Austria, Chinese rice biotechnology, Korean stem cell research, the Indonesian Internet, US bioethics, global health, and more—to illustrate how the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries can lead to more sophisticated understandings of the national and transnational politics of science and technology. A theoretical introduction sets the stage for the contributors’ wide-ranging analyses, and a conclusion gathers and synthesizes their collective findings. The book marks a major theoretical advance for a concept that has been rapidly taken up across the social sciences and promises to become central to scholarship in science and technology studies.

Drone imaginaries
Drone imaginaries

Author: Andreas Immanuel Graae

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2021-06-15

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1526145928

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There should no longer be any doubt: drones are here to stay. In civil society, they are used for rescue, surveillance, transport and leisure. And on the battlefield, their promises of remote protection and surgical precision have radically changed the way wars are fought. But what impact are drones having on our identity, and how are they affecting the communities around us? This book addresses these questions by investigating the representation of civilian and military drones in visual arts, literature, and architecture. What emerges, the contributors argue, is a compelling new aesthetic: ‘drone imaginary’, a prism of cultural and critical knowledge, through which the complex interplay between drone technology and human communities is explored, and from which its historical, cultural and political dimensions can be assessed. The contributors offer diverse approaches to this interdisciplinary field of aesthetic drone imaginaries. With essays on the aesthetic configurations of drone swarming, historical perspectives on early unmanned aviation, as well as current debates on how drone technology alters the human body and creates new political imaginaries, this book provides new insights to the rapidly evolving field of drone studies. Working across art history, literature, photography, feminism, postcolonialism and cultural studies, Drone imaginaries offers a unique insight into how drones are changing our societies.

Biocapital
Biocapital

Author: Kaushik Sunder Rajan

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2006-04-24

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9780822337201

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DIVAn ethnography about the work of genome scientists, entrepreneurs, and policy makers in biotech drug development in the United States and India./div

Genomics and the Reimagining of Personalized Medicine
Genomics and the Reimagining of Personalized Medicine

Author: Richard Tutton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1317129407

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Drawing on insights from work in medical history and sociology, this book analyzes changing meanings of personalized medicine over time, from the rise of biomedicine in the twentieth century, to the emergence of pharmacogenomics and personal genomics in the 1990s and 2000s. In the past when doctors championed personalization they did so to emphasize that patients had unique biographies and social experiences in the name of caring for their patients as individuals. However, since the middle of the twentieth century, geneticists have successfully promoted the belief that genes are implicated in why some people develop diseases and why some have adverse reactions to drugs when others do not. In doing so, they claim to offer a new way of personalizing the prediction, prevention and treatment of disease. As this book shows, the genomic reimagining of personalized medicine centres on new forms of capitalization and consumption of genetic information. While genomics promises the ultimate individualization of medicine, the author argues that personalized medicine exists in the imaginative gap between the problems and limits of current scientific practices and future prospects to individualize medical interventions. A rigorous, critical examination of the promises of genomics to transform the economics and delivery of medicine, Genomics and the Reimagining of Personalized Medicine examines the consequences of the shift towards personalization for the way we think about and act on health and disease in society. As such, it will be of interest to scholars and students of the sociology of medicine and health, science and technology studies, and health policy.

Imagined Futures in Science, Technology and Society
Imagined Futures in Science, Technology and Society

Author: Gert Verschraegen

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-04-07

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1315440830

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Imagining, forecasting and predicting the future is an inextricable and increasingly important part of the present. States, organizations and individuals almost continuously have to make decisions about future actions, financial investments or technological innovation, without much knowledge of what will exactly happen in the future. Science and technology play a crucial role in this collective attempt to make sense of the future. Technological developments such as nanotechnology, robotics or solar energy largely shape how we dream and think about the future, while economic forecasts, gene tests or climate change projections help us to make images of what may possibly occur in the future. This book provides one of the first interdisciplinary assessments of how scientific and technological imaginations matter in the formation of human, ecological and societal futures. Rooted in different disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, and science and technology studies, it explores how various actors such as scientists, companies or states imagine the future to be and act upon that imagination. Bringing together case studies from different regions around the globe, including the electrification of German car infrastructure, or genetically modified crops in India, Imagined Futures in Science, Technology and Society shows how science and technology create novel forms of imagination, thereby opening horizons toward alternative futures. By developing central aspects of the current debate on how scientific imagination and future-making interact, this timely volume provides a fresh look at the complex interrelationships between science, technology and society. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students interested in Science and Technology Studies, History and Philosophy of Science, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Political Sciences, Future Studies and Literary Sciences.

The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, fourth edition
The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, fourth edition

Author: Ulrike Felt

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2016-12-23

Total Pages: 1210

ISBN-13: 0262035685

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The fourth edition of an authoritative overview, with all new chapters that capture the state of the art in a rapidly growing field. Science and Technology Studies (STS) is a flourishing interdisciplinary field that examines the transformative power of science and technology to arrange and rearrange contemporary societies. The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the field, reviewing current research and major theoretical and methodological approaches in a way that is accessible to both new and established scholars from a range of disciplines. This new edition, sponsored by the Society for Social Studies of Science, is the fourth in a series of volumes that have defined the field of STS. It features 36 chapters, each written for the fourth edition, that capture the state of the art in a rich and rapidly growing field. One especially notable development is the increasing integration of feminist, gender, and postcolonial studies into the body of STS knowledge. The book covers methods and participatory practices in STS research; mechanisms by which knowledge, people, and societies are coproduced; the design, construction, and use of material devices and infrastructures; the organization and governance of science; and STS and societal challenges including aging, agriculture, security, disasters, environmental justice, and climate change.

Keeping Autonomous Driving Alive
Keeping Autonomous Driving Alive

Author: Göde Both

Publisher: Verlag Barbara Budrich

Published: 2020-04-20

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 3966659832

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Eine radikal neue Alternative zum Studium von Visionen: Aufbauend auf Literatur aus den Bereichen Science & Technology Studies, Wissenschaftskommunikation und Gender Studies untersucht der Autor die Ambivalenz und Fragilität von technologischen Visionen, Videodemonstrationen und Straßenversuchen in den Händen von Forschenden, die sich mit selbstfahrenden Autos beschäftigen. Das Buch ist für Soziolog*innen und Anthropolog*innen mit Fokus auf Technik, Geschlecht und Mobilität von interessant, die sich mit der Unsicherheit in der technologischen Forschung und mit den widersprüchlichen Anforderungen bei der Vermittlung von Wissenschaft beschäftigen. Gleichzeitig bietet die Studie Wissenschaftler*innen in den Bereichen Robotik, künstliche Intelligenz und Automobiltechnik eine Möglichkeit, über ihre Beteiligung am selbstfahrenden Auto nachzudenken.

Post-Automobility Futures
Post-Automobility Futures

Author: Robert Braun

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-03-04

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1538158868

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This book presents an in-depth phenomenological and deconstructive analysis of the automobility imaginary, which is none other than the mundane automobility reality within which we dwell in everyday life. A successful transition to a post-automobility future will require new ways of thinking about and conceptualizing automobility, one of the most significant and powerful imaginaries of contemporary neo-liberalism. This book offers such a view by reconceptualizing automobility in its entirety as both an imaginary and a dreamscape. In order to address the challenges, externalities and tragedies that automobility has brought upon us, automobility, we argue, must end as we know it.

Sustainability for Whom?
Sustainability for Whom?

Author: Hanna Sjögren

Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press

Published: 2017-04-26

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 9176857824

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Global initiatives regarding environmental change have increasingly become part of political agendas and of our collective imagination. In order to form sustainable societies, education is considered crucial by organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union. But how is the notion of sustainability imagined and formed in educational practices? What does sustainability make possible, and whom does it involve? These critical questions are not often asked in educational research on sustainability. This study suggests that the absence of critical questions in sustainability education is part of a contemporary post-political framing of environmental issues. In order to re-politicize sustainability in education, this study critically explores how education—as an institution and a practice that is supposed to foster humans—responds to environmental change. The aim is to explore how sustainability is formed in education, and to discuss how these formations relate to ideas of what education is, and whom it is for. This interdisciplinary study uses theories and concepts from cultural studies, feminist theory, political theory, and philosophy of education to study imaginaries of the unknown, nonhuman world in the context of education. The focus of the empirical investigation is on teacher education in Sweden, and more precisely on those responsible for teaching the future generations of teachers – the teacher instructors. With help from empirical findings from focus groups, the study asks questions about the ontological, political, and ethical potential and risk of bringing the unknown Other into education.