Message posted on 08/06/2019

cfP - Connection, Sharing, and Entanglement in Postcolonial Studies of Technoscience

                Dear colleagues,
<br>
<br>We are looking for submissions for a special issue of Tecnoscienza on 
<br>“*_Reconsidering Assumptions about ‘Conjugated Subjects’: Connection, 
<br>Sharing, and Entanglement in Postcolonial Studies of Technoscience_*” 
<br>(see CfP below and in attachment).
<br>
<br>Please spread the word and don’t hesitate to contact the guest editors  
<br>if you have any further questions.
<br>
<br>
<br>All the best, The editorial team of TECNOSCIENZA: Italian Journal of 
<br>Science & Technology Studies
<br>
<br>
<br>-----
<br>
<br>
<br>    Reconsidering Assumptions about ‘Conjugated Subjects’: Connection,
<br>    Sharing, and Entanglement in Postcolonial Studies of Technoscience
<br>
<br>*Deadline for abstract submissions: September 20^th , 2019. *
<br>
<br>This special thematic issue of /Tecnoscienza/ aims to provide a forum to 
<br>revisit concerns raised by Warwick Anderson (2009: 389) about what he 
<br>perceived to be the ‘minor postcolonial agenda in STS’ becoming subsumed 
<br>‘as scholars choose now to fetishise “globalisation”.’ At that time, as 
<br>Maureen McNeil (2005: 106, 111) observed, the term ‘postcolonial’ was ‘a 
<br>rather ambiguous term’ touching on ‘both the impact and legacies of 
<br>formally deposed imperial regimes and to new forms of exploitative 
<br>global relations,’ noting that ‘colonial legacies are never simply 
<br>“leftover” from the past, they are reanimated, recast and reappropriated 
<br>in new forms and new ways, with new resistances.’ Anderson, in turn, 
<br>described the uneven and unexpected consequences produced by two 
<br>overlapping directions within postcolonial STS, one concerned with 
<br>‘subjugated knowledges’ and the other with ‘conjugated subjects.’ The 
<br>critical study of subjugated knowledges placed emphasis on 
<br>understandings of power, history, identity, and epistemology that have 
<br>been marginalised or made invisible within Western society (cf. 
<br>Palladino and Worboys, 1993; Hess, 1995; Visvanathan, 1997; Harding, 
<br>1998). Anderson (2009: 389) created the term ‘conjugated subjects,’ on 
<br>the other hand, to ‘hint at postcolonial hybridity and heterogeneity.’ 
<br>His aim was to reveal ‘a more complicated and entangled state of 
<br>affairs’ (2009: 389-390). He also noted that ‘postcolonial theory and 
<br>insight rarely have been mobilised explicitly in attempts to explain the 
<br>transaction, translation and transformation of science and technology’ 
<br>(2009: 390). The critical study of conjugated subjects raised doubt 
<br>about the comprehensiveness and efficacy of prevailing narratives in 
<br>which social, cultural, and political formations of technological 
<br>imperialism are depicted as one-way relationships of ‘sending’ 
<br>colonisers and ‘receiving’ colonial subjects (e.g., Watson-Verran and 
<br>Turnbull, 1995; Abraham, 2006; Seth, 2009). Moreover, it established 
<br>grounds for a challenge to what Anderson (2009: 392, 397) described as 
<br>global (or universalist) claims about patterns of local transactions 
<br>that seem ‘quite abstract, strangely depopulated, and depleted of 
<br>historical and social content’ brought into being by a ‘[r]eluctance to 
<br>recognise and engage directly with the postcolonial spectre haunting 
<br>globalisation.’
<br>
<br>Ongoing consideration and review of what Anderson originally described 
<br>as the ‘hybrid, partial and conflicted’ conjugated subjects of 
<br>postcolonial STS, we submit, provides opportunities to come to terms 
<br>with what Suman Seth (2017: 77) has recently called ‘the socially 
<br>imbricated, tentative, and complex coming-into-being of the categories 
<br>and binaries [that have been taken to characterise colonial modes of 
<br>thought and governance].’ What have since been called, variously, 
<br>‘connected,’ ‘shared,’ and ‘entangled’ histories of technoscientific 
<br>co-production permit, we believe, a foretaste of what can be achieved by 
<br>untangling and reconnecting local histories of technoscience in ways 
<br>that stress processes of mutual influencing across borders (cf. Philip, 
<br>Irani, and Dourish, 2012; Kowal, Radin, and Reardon, 2013; Brandt, 
<br>2014). Accordingly, we propose to open up and develop the discussion 
<br>surrounding conjugated subjects of postcolonial STS by soliciting papers 
<br>that include (but are not limited to) studies of the ‘connected,’ 
<br>‘shared,’ and ‘entangled’ relationships of technoscience that:
<br>
<br>  * have occurred between colonial powers and independent former colonies;
<br>  * have occurred under (pre- or post-1989) first-second-third world
<br>    international relationships;
<br>  * have occurred in the course of supranational and/or international 
<br>    technoscientific projects involving collaborations between so-called
<br>    developing and developed nations (e.g., Human Genome Projects, LIGO
<br>    Scientific Collaboration, UN Convention on Biological Diversity,
<br>    Millennium Seed Bank Partnership).
<br>
<br>
<br>Abstracts (in English) with a maximum length of 500 words should be sent 
<br>as email attachments to *redazione@tecnoscienza.net* 
<br> and copied to the guest editors. 
<br>Notification of acceptance will be communicated by October 2019. Full 
<br>papers (in English with a maximum length of 8,000 words including notes 
<br>and references) will be due on *March 30^th 2020 *and will be subject to 
<br>a double blind peer review process.
<br>
<br>For information and questions, please do not hesitate to contact the 
<br>guest editors:
<br>
<br>William Leeming, bleeming@faculty.ocadu.ca 
<br>
<br>
<br>Ana Barahona, ana.barahona@ciencias.unam.mx 
<br>
<br>
<br>-- 
<br>
<br>[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pdf which had a name of Call for papers_SI 2019.pdf]
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