On the 6-7th June 2024, Helsinki University hosted the Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies (FSSTS) Symposium titled: ‘How to make a scientific contribution: from intellectual exercise to scientific agency’. The event was built around the question: what exactly does it mean to make a contribution to science? The answers posited by attendees included reflexive takes on becoming and being an STS scholar, and critical evaluations of the commitments and practices that produce knowledge about science and technology. The event was also an exercise in community building that provided a relaxed and amicable atmosphere with plenty of time for questions and discussion. Although fairly small in scale it was rich in content, providing a wonderful opportunity to exchange emerging ideas in STS. Talks featured work from Finnish and international contexts, including a strong contingent of early career researchers.
Keynotes: technology and human lives
The symposium featured keynotes from highly regarded scholars including Teun Zuiderent-Jerak (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Noortje Marres (University of Warwick), and Minna Ruckenstein (University of Helsinki). The talks offered insights into contemporary ways of doing STS, but also scrutiny of technoscientific activity in other areas of society.
Noortje Marres and Minna Ruckenstein both offered examples of how technology is not always developed with respect for human lives. Ruckenstein highlighted the need for ‘breathing space’ in technoscientific processes, something many digital platforms are designed to reduce. Think of the breathlessly self-scrolling newsfeeds employed by so many apps today, and the weaponised psychology and behaviour-tracking systems that underlie them. The notion of ‘breathing space’ was offered as a way of understanding human autonomy and the gaps between our actions and self-images (Savolainen & Ruckenstein, 2024).
Marres offered a critical analysis of ‘testing’ and its use as a smokescreen to roll-out intrusive technologies to unsuspecting publics, such as facial recognition or machine learning . ‘Testing’ in these cases differs greatly from traditional testing, and provided a stark reminder of why ‘breathing space’ can be so useful when thinking about technological developments. This theme returned later in a presented paper on ‘slow science’ by Michiru Nagatsu and Anna Rainio, which examined how logics such as productivity, speed and efficiency can negatively impact scientific processes.
Zuiderent-Jerak offered a striking case of how newer methods, such as sentiment analysis, can be paired with qualitative techniques to help incorporate patient perspectives into health guidelines. This mixed methods approach produced guidelines that take patient expertise seriously, and show how STS can contribute to scientific processes without becoming beholden to them. Teun described this process as STS and other areas of research ‘contaminating’ one another fruitfully, a twist on the conference theme of ‘contribution’.
Pre-conference workshop
The conference also featured a summer school on publishing in STS for early career researchers. The school was led by two members of the Science and Technology Studies editorial team, Antti Silvast and Heta Tarkkala. This session provided valuable insights into the publishing process and a forum for discussion about publishing norms, writing techniques, and gaining experience as a journal editor. A highlight from this session included excerpts from a book on thesis rejections in Finland since the 1600s (Väliverronen & Ekholm, 2020). The reasons given ranged from the academic (unwarranted paradigm shifts) to the personal (unwanted colleagues). Another activity saw participants trying to summarise one another’s work after only a minute or two of discussion, providing valuable opportunities to get to know one another (and one another’s research topics).
Themes
The next two days showcased a broad range of research from established and early-career scholars. Talks were organised in several streams (see the book of abstracts). The first focused on bringing new empirical phenomena into science studies. This goal was vividly exemplified by Boglarka Kiss’s talk on innovation in bacteriophage research. Kiss’s focus on human-microbe relations foreshadowed several talks by members of Helsinki’s Centre for the Social Study of Microbes. Stream two focused on how to make theoretical contributions to STS, science, or other societal processes. Alongside stream three (‘what constitutes a methodological contribution?’) these sessions saw a series of talks that further developed themes from the keynotes. Many examined how innovative STS methods can diversify our contributions to knowledge generation, often by by scrutinizing knowledge generation processes themselves.
Speakers discussed the use of auto-ethnography in the context of pollution exposure guidelines (Sam van der Lugt); network analysis in social work and caring environments (Samuel Salovaara); and ‘methodological immaturity’ in the study of emerging digital technologies (Kirsikka Gron). These talks demonstrated STS’s ability to contribute to science and society without converging on a single methodological approach. Another stream concentrated on societal impact. Speakers examined how knowledge is brokered between different organisations (Tommi Kärkkäinen), and how digital platforms can make flows of health data accessible to some audiences and not others (Heta Tarkkala). Examinations of societal impact continued in a later session exploring the relation between scientific contributions and activism, for example in conservation science (Selen Eren). A final set of talks featured ruminations on microbes (including immersive-artwork on multispecies care by Riina Hannula) and the problems and promises of conversational AI as a teaching aid (David Moats).
Looking to the future
The event was an excellent opportunity to meet other researchers working in STS from many countries, learn about their work, understand Finland’s long-standing contribution to STS, and enjoy the beautiful (and uncharacteristically sunny) weather and in Helsinki. It also set the stage nicely for the EASST-4S conference in Amsterdam, and demonstrated the importance of knowledge production, multispecies relations and technological innovation in STS, science more broadly, and society generally.
I would like thank to the organisers, supporters and attendees for putting such an excellent event together, and look forward to the Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies’ 40th anniversary celebrations next year.
References
Savolainen, L., & Ruckenstein, M. (2024). Dimensions of autonomy in human–algorithm relations. New Media & Society, 26(6), 3472–3490. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221100802
Väliverronen, E., & Ekholm, K. (2020). Tieteen vapaus & tutkijan sananvapaus. Vastapaino.
Author biography
Elis Jones is a postdoctoral researcher working at the interface of STS, philosophy, and the marine sciences. He is based at the Konrad Lorenz Centre for Cognition and Evolution Research in Vienna, and is engaged in various efforts to foster dialogue between marine researchers and science studies scholars.
