Dear colleagues,
We would like to invite you to submit abstracts for the panel *“46. Corona
Truth Wars: Testing and Contesting Knowledge in a Hyper-Mobile Pandemic”
*at
this year’s 4S-conference in Toronto
from October 6-9, 2021.
*Abstract:*
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic created a global crisis challenging humankind to
develop as quickly as possible reliable knowledge about the virus and its
devastating effects on our bodies and societies in order to minimize such
harms. This situation of great uncertainty and enormous stakes incited a
historically unique international knowledge producing effort by
institutionalized scientists and research groups. While debate and
disagreement exists within these scientific communities, more controversial
are the various competing “outside” forms and sources of information on
the
virus and its mitigation strategies. Some are clear disinformation
campaigns or far-fetched conspiracy theories, others are legitimate
challenges to the temporary status quo. In the hyper-mobile context of
knowledge production during an evolving pandemic, it is often hard to tell
the difference. Questions such as ‘what information is reliable?’,
‘which
experts should we follow?’, and ‘what (epistemic) authorities are to
trust?’, take center stage in public debates. Prevalent clear-cut
distinctions between “real” knowledge controversies and “fake”
disruptions
of scientific progress obscure the fact that the global quest for truthful
knowledge about the virus is entangled with various (geo)political
dynamics, government policy pressures, media reporting, platform moderation
and public understandings of it all. STS scholars are perfectly equipped
with concepts, theories and methods to help understand these complex
dynamics involving uncertainty, changing insights, and (covert)
manipulation. In this panel we invite scholars working on such “corona
truth wars”: we welcome both empirical and theoretical studies on the
cultures, politics and technologies of today’s corona knowledge
contestations.
Further reading:
https://sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/article/view/99550
Submissions: https://www.4sonline.org/meeting/call-for-submissions/
Deadline: March 8, 2021
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Jaron Harambam
KU Leuven, Institute for Media Studies | jaron.harambam@gmail.com
Ehler Voss
University of Bremen, Department of Anthropology and Cultural Research |
ehler.voss@uni-bremen.de
_______________________________________________
EASST's Eurograd mailing list
Eurograd (at) lists.easst.net
Unsubscribe or edit subscription options: http://lists.easst.net/listinfo.cgi/eurograd-easst.net
Meet us via https://twitter.com/STSeasst
Report abuses of this list to Eurograd-owner@lists.easst.net
view formatted text
