Dear Colleagues,
we would like to draw the attention of all STS scholars working in
German Institutions to the lunch meeting at the EASST2018 meeting in
Lancaster on
Thursday 26th 12:30-14:00 hrs in the "Markedplace" in the County South
Building at Lancaster University
The meeting aims at taking the first step towards forming a German
Association for the Studies of Science & Technology (deSTS). Suggestions
will be collected about which areas and formats to mobilize to reach
this aim. The meeting furthermore aims at gathering the people
interested in contributing to transforming the ideas into action.
Below, you'll find further information about the background and ideas.
Any STS scholar not attending the EASST2018 meeting is encouraged to
e-mail their reactions/ideas/expressions of interest to
estrid.sorensen@rub.de
All best,
Tanja Bogusz (Kassel), Endre Danyi (Frankfurt), Tahani Nadin (Berlin),
Jörg Niewöhner (Berlin), Martin Reinhardt (Berlin), Martina Schlünder
(MPIWG), Estrid Sørensen (Bochum)
deSTS e.V.
Preamble
This initiative is a platform-in-becoming, a network connecting
like-minded STS groups and scholars.
The objective is a) to foster the production of interdisciplinary,
international, explorative and reflexive knowledge in the area of
science and technology – knowledge that is good to think with and invent
around; and b) to create better visibility and appreciation of STS in
the academic landscape, with funding agencies and with political bodies
in Germany and beyond.
Germany has a strong tradition in the study of science and technology
and is home to different groupings dedicated to and active in this area.
Their contributions have been central to the recent noticeable increase
in institutional and scholarly interest in STS in Germany. Our
initiative owes its formation to this work, and it is our intention to
support this diversity and nourish partial connections. Together with
existing associations, deSTS Germany aims at collectively establishing
STS as a generative and integral element within national and
international research.
We believe that this is best done through shared intellectual practices
that grow and unfold beyond single acts of representation.
What is STS?
STS is an umbrella term for a set of thought styles and research
practices that strive to better understand and intensify informed
engagement with the complex dynamics of science and technology. The
cornerstones of STS are interdisciplinarity, international scholarship,
exploration and reflexivity. We value STS as an open scientific
community that thrives on generative tensions with established
scientific disciplines.
Scope
Since the late 1970s, STS has been enormously successful in
demonstrating the historical and socio-material contingency of
scientific knowledge and technology. It has grown internationally into a
sizeable community of scholars. Its seminal works have found their way
into many disciplines. Even though STS has not departed from its
originally strong emphasis on constructivism, the challenge for STS
today is to develop research practices that care for and engage with de-
and reconfigurations of science and technology in society.
Advances of this ethos will likely come from heterogeneous sources: from
experimental and explorative forms to new forms of digital and
quantifying methods. Key will be the close and continuous exchange with
the disciplines that currently shape the phenomena we study: natural and
life sciences; economics, politics, and governance; planning and design;
law, informatics and engineering.
We thus suggest the following scope for deSTS:
The German Association for the Studies of Science and Technology (deSTS)
is a scientific platform for all STS scholars dedicated to the
scientific study of the societal dynamics of science and technology in
all their aspects. The platform assembles empirical, conceptual,
experimental and exploratory social research and fosters practices of
co-laboration within and across disciplines. It also cultivates
exchanges beyond academia, with politics, enterprises and activists.
deSTS supports the diversity of intellectual practices.
deSTS will represent its members nationally and internationally in
scientific, funding and political contexts. deSTS will support the
development of such practices through its annual meetings,
interdisciplinary panels, workshops and conference sessions,
publication-support networks, pre-submission support for funding
applications and other formats. In doing so, we seek to foreground the
need to nurture the craft of 'doing STS'.
--
Prof. Dr. Estrid Sørensen
Faculty of Social Science
Chair of Cultural Psychology and Anthropology of Knowledge
Centre for Anthropological Knowledge in Scientific and Technological Cultures - CAST
Ruhr-University Bochum
Universitätsstr. 150
44801 Bochum
Building: FNO 02/15 and GB 04/149
Tel.: +49-(0)234 32 27947
Fax: +49-(0)234 32 14744
Secretary: irene.scamoni-selcan@rub.de / +49 (0)234 32 - 28167
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