Breaking the Divide

Report from the joint 4S & EASST Conference, August 2004

The biennial meeting of scholars engaged in the field of social studies of science and technology (4S&EASST) this year held in Paris passed under the slogan “Public Proofs – Science, Technology and Democracy”. As can be inclined from the title of the conference the guiding principle and prime theme of this year’s event was focused on the topical question of developing and establishing democratic relations between science and society. making scientific expertise and lay knowledge two equally valuable sides of the same coin and erasing the still persisting divide between the two.

This event called together those concerned of diverse backgrounds, experiences, generations, races and geographical locations from all over the world. According to data provided by the organisers of this event (www.csi.ensmp.fr/csi/4S/) participants represented almost equal gender shares, as well as the share of Anglophones and those not having English as their primary language of communication. There were altogether 1176 people from 45 countries interchanging the two main conference premises located in the middle of Paris (École des Mines and Lycée Saint-Louis). The majority of those came from the Western Europe (pre-dominated by United Kingdom and France as well as the Netherlands), with a considerable representation of researchers from North America, and individual delegates from Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Oceania and Africa, ranging from 1-4% of all attendees. Along with traditional paper sessions this conference included such special sessions as the presidential lecture on a historical interpretation of public proofs chaired by the current president of the 4S Bruno Latour, sessions aimed at confronting authors and their critics, roundtables as well as poster sessions, not to mention several exhibitions made available to the participants as well as social events.

This was a recurrent chance for the attendees to meet old acquaintances and colleagues as well as to get to know the newcomers and to meet face to face with those previously only known by names in the realm of scientific publications. After all in addition to the majority of senior researchers there were still one third of students attending the conference. This was not only a chance to present and learn about the most recent developments within the field but more importantly to feel the unceasing relevance of the issues addressed by this particular conference as well as more generally dealt with within 4S and EASST. In addition to its primary function of knowledge communication and networking this event serves as a motivating and encouraging factor for those lacking a strong STS community in their home country to carry on with ones work and interest in related issues and expanding it on a local scale as well.

As a person considering myself a comparative newcomer to the field and attending this event only for the second time (first time in 2000 in Vienna, Austria) I even more than previously experienced the diverse range of topics addressed by the STS field, starting from more traditional strands of research to increasingly progressive ones representing various approaches to numerous dimensions of the role played by science and technology in our society experienced and detected on both micro and macro levels. There were altogether eight broad themes identified for this conference, here listed in a diminishing percentage of the total number of 1036 communications across 189 sessions including (1) expertise, governance and public debate, (2) science and scientific practices, (3) information and communication technologies, (4) health care practices, (5) research and innovation, (6) technologies, markets and society, (7) biomedical sciences and scientific practices, and (8) environment, energy, and natural boundaries. This enormous range of topics was stimulating and confusing at the same time. On the one hand it demonstrates the extensive scale of this research field while on the other hand it points to its ample internal diversity, which makes it increasingly hard to speak of STS as a single coherent discipline operating with a unified set of concepts and categories. Thus I find it to be a core challenge of this conference now and more so in the future to provide a platform for all these different perspectives to meet and challenge each other trying to identify common and distinctive features and enriching each other’s understandings and views.

With reference to the latter point, I realised that there are at least two ways in handling the choices to be made due to the enormous amount of parallel sessions – one can either perceive this meeting as a place for reinforcing and advancing ones prime interest by attending those sessions most closely related to the subject matter concerned, or one can instead try to use the occasion to transcend the borders of the long occupied place and learn of the other “STS worlds” thus broadening ones view on matters previously either unknown or underdeveloped in ones thinking. Altogether it is all about trying to find the golden mean in order to achieve a balance between one’s direct interest and concern over contributions made by other scholars in closer or more distant but still related fields covered by the STS term. These regular 4S & EASST meetings provide space for both keeping abreast of the most recent developments in one’s own and neighbouring areas of current interest for wider STS community and for comprehending the latter’s distribution in both physical and intellectual terms. To refer back to the theme of the conference - this points not only to the need of enhanced dialogue between science and society but also between various disciplines represented within STS community itself.

Anda Adamsone is at the Department of Sociology of the University of Latvia and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, Riga. E-mail address: anda@lacis.lza.lv