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)
Interspecies Agencies: Controversies, Ontologies, and New Forms of Cohabitation (Part 2)
Interspecies Agencies: Controversies, Ontologies, and New Forms of Cohabitation (Part 1)
Understanding Misinformation. International Symposium, 9 December 2024
Backchannels content is contributed by our members to highlight news relevant to their work.
Making and Doing: STS Beyond the Four Corners of the Paper
STS News
Items submitted by the community and emailed to members monthly.
Editor(s), Open-Access Journal Engaging Science, Technology, and Society
The journal publishes peer-reviewed content in both long-form and short-form genres: original research articles, thematic collections, engagements, perspectives, an...