Wrap-up: An editorial view Michael Lynch, Cornell University

1
Wrap-up An editorial viewMichael Lynch,
Cornell University

• STS The Next 20
• Conversations within and beyond the field
• Harvard University
• April 8, 2011

2
What can an editor say about the next 20?

• I read 150 plus new submissions a year
• many by students and recent PhDs
• we reject the vast majority
• Dont trust me, Im a gatekeeper a blunter of
  cutting edges
• STS provides strong arguments with which to treat
  its own success as contingent and fragile.
• Be wary of talk of progress!
• Plan an impression of current state of the art
  -- a Borges list -- followed by a near-term
  problem and possible responses.

3
Current trends

1. The decline in studies of hard cases physics
   and mathematics and the proliferation of studies
   of sciences of the particular (Shapin).
2. Increased isolation from HPS, increased closeness
   to anthropology cultural studies.

4
Trends (cont.)

• Post-pomo decline in overt contentiousness.
  Arguments about relativism, constructionism, and
  postmodernism fade into background.
• Tendency to invoke STS, themes, literature
  without explication.
• to assert that science is (socially) constructed,
  rather than to argue for that position to cite
  (Latour, 1987) without saying what is relevant or
  how.
• (name, date no page number) citation format
  encourages this (call me a format determinist).
• Much of what we publish has no clear connection
  with a single guiding theory or ideology.

5
Trends (cont.)

1. A normative turn, but not a ballet. A renewed
   tension between epistemography (P. Dear),
   ontography, and ethigraphy and work that claims
   STS as a basis for epistemology, ontology, or
   ethics.
2. Big-P Politics and Big-I Institutions are more
   prominently featured than their lower case
   counterparts.

6
Trends (cont.)

• Symbolic enrolment of the global south.
• Global south is an increasingly prominent theme
  in STS lit, conference program
• N. America / N. Euro still prevail in English
  language literature
• More participation from E. Asia, Brazil, India

7
Some short-term trends

• Public engagement exercises (e.g., GM Nation)
• Funding initiatives in UK, Europe
• Critical participation by STS
• Interest in futures embedded in presents e.g.,
  sociology of expectations.

8
Unity in hybridity

• Interconceptuality an alternative to
  interdisciplinarity
• A love of hybrids and an aversion to dichotomies,
  binaries, distinctions
• Borderlands trading zones, boundary objects,
  boundary work, boundary organizations
• Coproduction, coconstruction, interactional
  expertise
• Bio (biosociality, biocitizenship )
• Displacements and respecifications mutable
  mobiles

9
Silence Studies and the New Science War

• The polemical theme of silence about
• Latours (1984) criticism of critique
• NY Times quote from Republican strategist
• Should the public come to believe that the
  scientific issues are settled, he writes, their
  views about global warming will change
  accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to
  make the lack of scientific certainty a primary
  issue.
• Artificially maintained controversies.
• Example A witness for the defense of
  intelligent design against establishment
  science

10
Symmetry toward certainty uncertainty?

• Symmetry and impartiality should apply no
  less strongly to claims about uncertainty than to
  claims about certainty
• General constructionist arguments differ from
  particular arguments in specific controversies.
• The two are readily confused when STS studies
  science of the particular - interests,
  corporate and political alignments, etc. are
  overtly part of dispute.
• Administrative objectivity

11
Responses?

• Pick our fights wisely use arguments about
  certainty and contingency selectively, for
  political purposes we support
• Deploy STS arguments for hire
• Collins Evans - neo-demarcationism
• Position ourselves as neutral experts about
  expertise, controversy, consensus
• A reversion to pre-SSK (social) realism?
• Can it handle the (new) hard cases (climate
  change)?

12
Case-embedded critique

• Not an application of general STS or
  constructionist position
• STS arguments provide initial incentive to pursue
  case
• STS theory is thin
• Immersion in the study the case-in-context
  provides the basis for normative judgment and
  critique (when relevant)

13
Conclusion

• History of last 20 (actually 40) years of STS
• Cast doubt on any attribution of abstract norms
  to science
• Questioning conventional foundationalist
  demarcationist programs of advice
  administration
• Still, many of us hanker for something more
  than a descriptivist, anti-conventional programs
• Easy route is to mature into a new
  conventionalism, forgetting the fields history
  of arguments
• Does this summit forecast a harder path?