4S Mission

Fostering interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship in social studies of science, technology, and medicine across the globe.

Latest 4S News

Confronting the world’s 21st century colonial genocide

Published On: Mar 25, 2025

Commonplace analyses of Israel’s genocide against Gaza have attributed responsibility in concentric circles. Starting with the innermost circle of Israeli politicians and armed forces, bigger circles have included Israel’s settler-colonial political culture, the USA’s massive military aid, Western imperialism and more broadly global racial capitalism. Extending the latter analyses, this essay situates Israel’s ongoing genocide in the wider, deeper world of colonial modern...

Interspecies Agencies: Controversies, Ontologies, and New Forms of Cohabitation (Part 2)

Published On: Mar 24, 2025

This report on an EASST/4S 2024 panel is the second in a three-part series about interspecies agencies. Part Two highlights methodologies for studying multispecies relationships.

Editor(s), Open-Access Journal Engaging Science, Technology, and Society

Published On: Jan 17, 2025

Deadline: Mar 31, 2025

The Publications Committee of the Society for Social Studies of Science solicits nominations and proposals for Editor(s) to lead the 4S-sponsored diamond open access journal, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. ESTS is a vibrant peer-reviewed venue for addressing how science and technology infuse the world in which we live.
The journal publishes peer-reviewed content in both long-form and short-form genres: original research articles, thematic collections, engagements, perspectives, an...

4S Publications

Science, Technology, and Human Values

For more than forty years, Science, Technology, & Human Values has provided the forum for cutting-edge research and debate in the field of science and technology studies.

From Obsolescence to Abandonment: Exploring the Precarious Use of Cochlear Implants in India

Michele FriednerAuthor Biography Michele Friedner is an associate professor in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago.

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Cochlear implants are considered the gold standard in intervening on deafness and hearing loss. However, “success” is predicated upon routine and consistent use, which...

Bearly Recognizable: Facial Recognition and the Wild

Emily WandererDepartment of Anthropology, 6614University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
While big tech companies are growing more circumspect about the use of facial recognition for humans, interest in nonhuman facial recognition is surging. The identification...

Between Code and Culture: The Evolving Role of Conversation Designers and UX in AI Development

Elizabeth Rodwell1Department of Information Science Technology, 14743University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Artificial intelligence (AI)-related technologies available to consumers have been rapidly advancing but without parallel insight into the social process of their design....

Practices of Coordination in a Conservation–Tourism Partnership in South Africa

Wisse Van Engelen, Annet Pauwelussen, Esther Turnhout

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
Conservation–tourism partnerships are often promoted as win–win solutions to the twin problems of underfunded conservation and unsustainable development. Critics on...

“Kids are Kids”: Benevolent Ignorance and the Omission of Race in Developmental Justice Reform

William Wannyn1Institute for Society and Genetics, 8783University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Science, Technology, & Human Values, Ahead of Print.
The criminal culpability of juvenile offenders remains a controversial and contested issue in the legal and public arenas in the United States. Since the mid-2000s, juvenile...

Engaging Science, Technology and Society

Engaging Science, Technology, & Society is an online, open access publication of The Society for Social Studies of Science.

Transitioning ESTS

Published On: Mar 7 2025

Grant Otsuki, Clément Dréano, Noela Invernizzi, Ali Kenner, Angela Okune, Duygu Kaşdoğan, Sujatha Raman, Tim Schütz, Federico Vasen, Amanda Windle, Emily York

Contributions to this issue focus on a wide range of domains and problematics—environment, extractivism, air pollution, climate change, digitalization, automation, care, surveillance—that offer a thought-provoking commentary...

Volatile Atmosphere: A Tkaronto Archive

Published On: Mar 10 2025

Sophia Jaworski

This article delves into the history of petrochemical-derived gas emissions in Toronto, focusing on their emergence and regulation from the end of World War II and up to 1980. Drawing on archival materials, I trace local knowledge...

Origin Stories of the ‘Grants Uranium District’ in Northwestern New Mexico: Archives, Memoirs, and Exploratory Boreholes in the Production of Geological Regions

Published On: Mar 7 2025

Thomas De Pree

The “Grants uranium district” of northwestern New Mexico yielded more uranium ore than any other mining district in the United States during the Cold War Period (1947-1989). After the national market for uranium collapsed...

Farmers’ Creativity and Cultivated Senses: The Immediacy of Embodied Knowledge in Alternative Agriculture

Published On: Mar 7 2025

Dimas Dwi Laksmana

The Indonesian government has promoted several forms of alternative agriculture in response to the productivity orientation and top-down bureaucratic institutions in intensive agriculture. Implemented in the late 1980s, the Integrated...

4S Blog: Backchannels

Interspecies Agencies: Controversies, Ontologies, and New Forms of Cohabitation (Part 3)

Gonzalo Correa and Arthur Arruda Leal Ferreira
Apr 01, 2025
This report on an EASST/4S 2024 panel is the third in a three-part series about interspecies agencies. Part Three rethinks STS through the lens of multispecies relations.

Interspecies Agencies: Controversies, Ontologies, and New Forms of Cohabitation (Part 2)

Arthur Arruda Leal Ferreira and Gonzalo Correa
Mar 24, 2025
This report on an EASST/4S 2024 panel is the second in a three-part series about interspecies agencies. Part Two highlights methodologies for studying multispecies relationships.

Interspecies Agencies: Controversies, Ontologies, and New Forms of Cohabitation (Part 1)

Gonzalo Correa and Arthur Arruda Leal Ferreira
Mar 17, 2025
This report on an EASST/4S 2024 panel introduces a three-part series about interspecies agencies, highlighting territorial conflicts first.

Understanding Misinformation. International Symposium, 9 December 2024

Kim M. Hajek, Paul Trauttmansdorff, Sabina Leonelli
Mar 03, 2025
In this post, Kim M. Hajek, Paul Trauttmansdorff, Sabina Leonelli report on the “Understanding Misinformation” international symposium held on December 9th, 2024, at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

Backchannels content is contributed by our members to highlight news relevant to their work.

STS News

Items submitted by the community and emailed to members monthly.

Editor(s), Open-Access Journal Engaging Science, Technology, and Society

Jan 17, 2025
The Publications Committee of the Society for Social Studies of Science solicits nominations and proposals for Editor(s) to lead the 4S-sponsored diamond open access journal, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. ESTS is a vibrant peer-reviewed venue for addressing how science and technology infuse the world in which we live.
The journal publishes peer-reviewed content in both long-form and short-form genres: original research articles, thematic collections, engagements, perspectives, an...

Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis

Mar 17, 2025
“Systemic Risks of Artificial Intelligence” invites qualified experts to apply for two open tenders on the systemic risks of artificial intelligence (AI): 1) Systemic environmental risks of AI: Development and roll-out of AI have accelerated dramatically in recent years and show no signs of slowing down. Simultaneously, AI consumes vast amounts of resources and may have complex secondary effects that pose systemic risks to the environment. We call on experts to assess causes, pathway...

Online course | Conscious and Inclusive Language in Academic Contexts

Mar 17, 2025
Drs. Thoko Kamwendo and D. Scott have created an online course on using conscious and inclusive language in academic teaching and writing. The course consists of 15 lessons, with accompanying transcripts, exercises, and links to relevant resources, as well as an extensive annotated list of resources, organized by issue. Participants go through the course at their own speed and have access to Q&A Zoom calls with the course organizers several times a year. The course is particularly suitable f...

CfP | Murmurations in Avian Technoscience

Mar 03, 2025
Murmurations in Avian Technoscience; A Special Section of Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. In this special section, we invite birders, that is, those who notice avian relations, to explore how birds enter, become, confound, or mutate technology (expansively defined). We seek to engage in how the stuff of birds—their beaks, bones, and feathers—is datafied, mechanized, and digitized. We are also interested in constellations in flight that reflect on avian boundaries and break...