Conference theme: STS (In)Sensibilities.
Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), 2017
Boston, Massachusetts, August 30 – September 2, 2017
Sheraton Downtown
Conference theme: STS (In)Sensibilities
If sensibility is the ability to grasp and to respond, how might we articulate the (in)sensibilities of contemporary technoscience? How, similarly, can we reflect on the extent and limits of our own sensibilities as STS scholars, teachers, and activists? The conference theme invites an open reading and exploration of how the world is made differently sense-able through multiple discourses and practices of knowledge-making, as well as that which evades the sensoria of technoscience and STS. Our aim is that the sense of ‘sense’ be read broadly, from mediating technologies of perception and apprehension to the discursive and material practices that render worlds familiar and strange, real and imagined, actual and possible, politically (in)sensitive and ethically sensible.
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Cold War Science, Technology, and Policy: The Americas in a Global Perspective
Chair & Presenter: Barbara Silva, Universidad Catolica de Chile
Time: Fri, September 1, 4:00 to 5:30pm Place: Sheraton Boston, 3, Beacon D
Cold Stars: Astronomy, Politics and Identity in Chile during the Global Cold War Barbara Silva, Universidad Catolica de Chile
Abstract
Cold Stars: Astronomy, Politics and Identity in Chile during the Global Cold War During
the 1960s, North American institutions (Carnegie, AURA), international holdings such as ESO (European Southern Observatory), and Soviet scientists (Púlkovo) went to Chile at the same time, to look for places to set big scale astronomical telescopes. After negotiations with local politicians, academics and scientists, they all began to build enormous observatories in the northern area of Chile. The choice of Chile as the place for astronomical observation was mostly due to its geographical conditions, but also because of political and identity features of the country. The country’s political stability, the relatively small size of the institutions involved in the negotiations, and governmental reliability enhanced the opportunities that Chile’s physical landscape provided.
Subaltern Research on Emission Standards to Abate Arsenic Pollution
In Event: Can the Subaltern Research? III
Presenter: Cecilia Ibarra
Sat, September 2, 4:00 to 5:30 pm, Sheraton Boston, 3, Beacon D
Abstract
Chile is one of the few countries in the world challenged by arsenic pollution control. Arsenic derives from natural volcanic activity in the Andes mountains and from anthropogenic sources – copper mining and smelting activities, which are fundamental to Chilean’s economy. Arsenic affects water, air, and soils, and human exposure to it relates to cancer diseases. Abatement began in the 1970s with water treatment plants, to remove arsenic from contaminated waters, and regulation for drinking water standards. Epidemiological studies carried out during the 1980s and 1990s showed higher rates of cancer in the zones with higher exposure to arsenic.
In the 1990s, public health concerns on arsenic pollution coupled with economic threats to Chilean copper exports based on environmental standards. The regulation was urgent; it should reduce health impacts and impose feasible abatement measures. The high levels of arsenic unique to Chile and the economic consequences of mitigation did not allow copying standards applied in other countries. There was the need for intense local research on health effects, emissions and contamination levels, control technologies and related costs.
This study focuses on researchers’ experiences and career impact after taking part in a research project to provide evidence for arsenic regulation in Chile. Results show high commitment and satisfaction from relevance to the country, and multiple tensions derived from dialoguing and validating results from a subaltern position, pressures from interested parts, tensions with the university assessment system, and stress for results being scrutinized by international experts.
Martin Andrés Perez Comisso, School of Future of Innovation, Arizona State
University.
Person Summary
Thu, August 31
1:00 to 4:00 pm Sheraton Boston, 2, Grand Ballroom
In Traditional (Closed) Panel: Making and Doing Presentations
In Paper Abstract: Technological theory for all: Teaching experiments on STS in Chile
Presenter
Sat, September 2
Chair & Presenter
9:00 to 10:30 am Sheraton Boston, 3, Hampton B
In Traditional (Closed) Panel: In the making, On the Move: Global Perspectives on Technology Appropriation I
In Paper Abstract: Is Technology Appropriation a Central Concept in STS?
Abstract
Technology can be understood through internalist and externalist relations. On the technological externalism, the concept of technological appropriation rests central in the configuration of individual-artefact relations, being described by several models. Even so, technological appropriation is insufficiently described from science and technology studies. This work explores the rational model of technological appropriation (Quezada and Pérez Comisso, 2016) where, based on a comparative theory methodology, it argues about the need to construct integrative models in technological theory, capable of incorporating different disciplinary perspectives of study to through a narrative of how technology changes us. The rational model of technological appropriation describes the phenomena of access, learning, incorporation, transformation and evolution of technology from various comparative cases of ICT (Carroll, 2001), technological history (Proulx, 2007), anthropology of technology and engineering studies, showing its versatility in Redefinition of an inherently technological concept, such as appropriation.
Solar Energy Technologies: Contingency and Trajectory of an Intermittent Duration Neglected. Cross Check of History of the Technology and STS.
In Event: Historical (In)Sensibilities II: STS and the History of the Present and the Absence
Presenter: Nelson Arellano-Escudero
Fri, September 1, 11:00 am to 12:30 pm, Sheraton Boston, 3, Hampton A
Abstract
STS and history of the technology can develop a fruitful relationship connecting their interdisciplinarities fields, this somehow it was demonstrated with the interaction of STS and history of the environment and their historiography of absence, constructivism, expertise, and boundary-works.
It seems proper not only to join and to mix historiography with social theories, that otherwise remain isolated, but that we need to build a more thick dialogue between social sciences, humanities, and the arts.
An approach to the history of solar technologies was built throughout sources of visual representations of technologies, traditional archives, and eyewitness. All these materials, from several places in the world, compose a body-expedient that demonstrate at the same time that: only the alive people makes History, and that we need research in order to have a more deep knowledge about viable alternatives instead of those technologies perpetuated by the selection.
The problem of the intermittent duration of solar technologies allows us to discuss differents paths in order to understand not only contingency but trajectory and recover the sense of ‘sense’ about our concept of the time to help to explore again sensitivities of techno-somatic-systems.
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Además, otrxs investigadorxs de Estudios de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad de Chile presentarán sus comunicaciones aceptadas. Para mayores informaciones ver: http://www.4sonline.org/meeting
labhcts.org 