Science and technology profoundly shape the world today. Over the last two centuries, they have become powerful engines of change, accounting for some of the most important forms of human activity, inseparable from social, political and economic life. Analyzing their modes of production, the dynamics of their dissemination, the different forms of their use and opposition to them is a major academic and political challenge.
Science and Technology in Society offers a broad overview of work carried out in France, in the international multi-disciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), and is the product of a collaboration between some thirty authors. It aims to provide an introduction to this field of research, its development, benefits and the new perspectives that are emerging.
This book presents and discusses studies that are still little-known in France, even though, paradoxically, many researchers from French institutions make decisive contributions to international work in this field.
Presentation of the ""History of Sciences"" Field xi Jean-Claude DUPONT Introduction. Science and Technology in Societies xiii Soraya BOUDIA and Ashveen PEERBAYE Chapter 1. STS: French History of an (In)discipline 1 Pierre-Benoît JOLY 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. The difficult constitution of ""research on research"", between institutional control and academic conformism 3 1.2.1. The emergence of STS on the margins of the humanities and social sciences 3 1.2.2. Institutional initiatives with mixed results 5 1.3. An iconoclastic conception of science for thinking differently about society 7 1.3.1. The invention of actor-network theory 7 1.3.2. Science and innovations as society in the making 9 1.4. The new wave: moving beyond the paradigm of action 11 1.4.1. Analyzing the transformations of regimes of knowledge production 13 1.4.2. Technical democracy and its blind alleys 15 1.4.3. Knowing and acting in a finite world 17 1.5. Conclusion 19 1.6. Acknowledgments 21 1.7. References 21 Chapter 2. Laboratory Studies: Beyond a Founding Myth of STS 29 Ashveen PEERBAYE and Dominique VINCK 2.1. Introduction 29 2.2. From pioneers to canonical studies: context of the emergence of laboratory studies 30 2.2.1. Pioneers 30 2.2.2. The place of laboratory studies in the context of a new sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) 32 2.3. Founding studies 34 2.3.1. Art and Artifact in Laboratory Science 34 2.3.2. The Manufacture of Knowledge 35 2.3.3. Laboratory Life 36 2.3.4. Beamtimes and Lifetimes 38 2.4. Major contributions of laboratory ethnographies to the study of science and technology 38 2.4.1. The materiality of scientific practices 38 2.4.2. The laboratory as an arrangement 40 2.5. After the founding studies 42 2.5.1. Towards a trivialization of laboratory studies? 42 2.5.2. Extensions and renewals 44 2.6. Conclusion 46 2.7. References 47 Chapter 3. STS and Biomedicine 53 Claire BEAUDEVIN, Luc BERLIVET, Catherine BOURGAIN and Jean-Paul GAUDILLIÈRE 3.1. Introduction 53 3.2. Practicing biomedicine 54 3.2.1. From experimentation to routinization of biomedical practices 54 3.2.2. Biomedicine, its visions and its imaginaries 55 3.2.3. Molecularization, diagnosis and evidence-based medicine 56 3.2.4. Work on uncertainty 57 3.2.5. Pharmaceuticalization 59 3.3. Under the sign of risk: the (bio)politics of biomedicine 59 3.3.1. The epidemiology of risk factors 60 3.3.2. Controversies and institutional consolidation 61 3.3.3. Criticisms of biomedical individualism 62 3.4. Innovation, politics and the economics of biomedicine 64 3.5. Conclusion 68 3.6. References 69 Chapter 4. Science for the People? STS Perspectives on the Question of Science and the Public 77 Bernadette BENSAUDE-VINCENT and Andrée BERGERON 4.1. Introduction 77 4.2. A multidisciplinary heritage 78 4.3. STS enters the scene 79 4.4. From the era of suspicion to contestation 81 4.5. Embedded STS for ""responsible innovation"" 83 4.6. The participatory turn 84 4.7. Conclusion 88 4.8. References 89 Chapter 5. Politics of Expertise 97 Henri BOULLIER and David DEMORTAIN 5.1. Introduction 97 5.2. Deconstructing scientific expertise 98 5.2.1. Expertise, public decision-making and the demarcation of science and politics 98 5.2.2. Expertise in public arenas and the politicization of science 100 5.2.3. ""Lay"" expertise, models of expertise, democracy 101 5.2.4. Organization, proceduralization and production of expertise 103 5.3. Politics of expertise: revisitations and lines of flight 104 5.3.1. Citizen science and conflict of expertise 105 5.3.2. Knowledge and expert communities: reexamining regulatory science 107 5.3.3. Capture, conflicts of interest and the political economy of science 108 5.4. Conclusion: crisis of expertise and credibility 110 5.5. References 111 Chapter 6. STS, Industry, and Risk Regulation 121 Nathalie JAS and Marc-Olivier DÉPLAUDE 6.1. Introduction 121 6.2. Co-production and participation: making industries invisible 122 6.3. Industry strategies: invisibilizing risks, neutralizing criticism 126 6.4. Regulations structurally favorable for powerful industries 129 6.5. Conclusion: thinking about the systemic influence of industry 133 6.6. References 134 Chapter 7. Ignorance Studies in STS 141 Laura BARBIER, Maël GOUMRI and Justyna MOIZARD-LANVIN 7.1. Introduction 141 7.2. Agnotology, or ignorance as an object of study 142 7.3. The main mechanisms of production of institutional ignorance 145 7.4. Undone science as a policy of producing ignorance 147 7.5. Expanding the field of ignorance studies 150 7.6. Conclusion 152 7.7. References 153 Chapter 8. What the South is Doing to STS: Globalized Technoscience and Decolonization of Knowledge 159 Mathieu QUET, Mina KLEICHE-DRAY and David DUMOULIN KERVRAN 8.1. Introduction 159 8.2. Analyzing scientific transactions on the margins of globalization 160 8.3. Describing technological globalization from below 163 8.4. Defining the universality of knowledge based on movements 166 8.5. Conclusion 169 8.6. References 169 Chapter 9. Environmental STS 179 Nicolas BAYA-LAFFITE, Soraya BOUDIA and Céline GRANJOU 9.1. Introduction 179 9.2. A relational materialism 180 9.3. The science and politics of the global 184 9.4. Environmental injustice 188 9.5. Conclusion 190 9.6. References 192 Chapter 10. Soils and Subsoils in STS: Technosciences and Underground Entities 203 Brice LAURENT, Julien MERLIN and Germain MEULEMANS 10.1. Introduction 203 10.2. Critique of soil and subsoil sciences, colonial and postcolonial issues 204 10.3. Transforming soils and subsoils into resources 207 10.4. Putting soils and subsoils to work in times of transition 209 10.5. Conclusion: towards new soil and subsoil policies? 212 10.6. References 213 Chapter 11. STS and the Digital 219 Marine AL DAHDAH, Éric DAGIRAL and Baptiste KOTRAS 11.1. Introduction 219 11.2. An irresistible convergence of STS toward the digital? 220 11.3. From data to algorithms, questioning knowledge and powers 223 11.4. New horizons: economic, ecological and postcolonial perspectives on digital technology in STS 226 11.5. Conclusion 229 11.6. References 229 Chapter 12. Maintenance and Repair 239 Jérôme DENIS and David PONTILLE 12.1. Introduction 239 12.2. A renewed interest in maintenance and repair 240 12.3. Rhythms and sites 243 12.4. Materialities 245 12.5. Epistemologies 249 12.6. Conclusion 250 12.7. References 252 List of Authors 261 Index of Ideas 265 Index of Names 271
Soraya Boudia is a historian and sociologist of science and the environment, and a professor at Université Paris Cité, France. Her work has contributed to the development of STS in France, exploring the relationship between science and politics, with a focus on environmental risk management. Ashveen Peerbaye is a sociologist of science and technology and a lecturer at Université Gustave Eiffel, France. His research is rooted in STS and focuses on the material culture and the instrumental infrastructure of the biomedical sciences.
