Dear all,
We are writing to invite you to submit a paper proposal for the upcoming
workshop "Re: Constructs | Exchanges between STS and Sociology" which will
take place at the University of Essex on Friday 8 December 2023. This event is
funded by the Department of Sociology (University of Essex) and the Centre for
Interdisciplinary Methodologies (University of Warwick) and organised in
collaboration with the British Sociological Association's STS study group.
The overall aim of the workshop is to investigate how key concepts have been
developed through exchanges between STS and Sociology during the last 40 years
or so. Please find below the workshop abstract, and the longer position paper
attached.
We are very pleased that the following speakers have already confirmed their
participation:
- Linsey McGoey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex and
Director of the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation
- Anne Pollock, Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s
College London and President-Elect of the Society for Social Studies of
Science (4S)
If you are interested in contributing a paper to this workshop, please send us
a short abstract outlining your chosen concept (up to 300 words) by June 1,
2023 by emailing tara.mahfoud@essex.ac.uk
We expect to notify all those who submitted a proposal by July 1, 2023.
We have limited funding for travel and accommodation. We would be happy if you
could indicate as part of your proposal whether you would be able to cover
the cost of your own travel and/or accommodation, in which case we would be
able to cover costs for additional participants.
With best wishes,
Michael, Tara and Noortje
Workshop abstract:
The field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) has developed a range of
concepts and theoretical sensibilities that enable studies of science,
technology and society. These concepts have also traveled outside of STS and
found new applications and meanings in neighboring fields including sociology
and anthropology. But concepts have not just traveled in one direction:
existing theories from sociological traditions have played a core role in the
very development of what we now think of as STS concepts. In this workshop, we
will investigate how the development of specific concepts have been informed
and/or enabled by exchanges between STS and Sociology. In doing so, we seek to
address the consequences of such exchanges for the aspirations of STS as a
transformative research field. What happens with the re-constructive
aspiration of STS concepts? Have the export successes of STS led to the
reshaping of other social sciences in the logic of STS, and vice versa? To
what extent is interdisciplinary thinking at the intersections between STS,
sociology, anthropology and cognate disciplines enabling the development of
new hybrid concepts, at once sociological and STS? How might we debate the
enabling role of disciplinary orientations without resorting to defenses of
the purity of conceptual and theoretical language?
We seek contributions addressing these questions in four formats:
- Conceptual Genealogies and Biographies: with a key focus on appraising the
re-constructive ambition and potential of said concept, from inception to
travel to current moment
- Trading Zones: how have specific concepts been used across STS and
Sociology and how can we account for the differences of the work they have
been doing
- Imported Concepts: how and why have certain concepts been imported from
Sociology to STS or from STS to Sociology?
- Conceptual Holes: which concepts have not been imported, why, and what are
the failed opportunities of conceptual exchange?
We are not interested in drawing boundaries around or between disciplines, but
rather are looking forward to examining connections between STS and
Sociology, drawing people into the trading zone between STS and Sociology and
related fields, encouraging us to undertake forays across the borders and
back, and to explore the conceptual re-imaginings this might enable.
Michael Guggeinheim, Goldsmiths University
Tara Mahfoud, University of Essex
Noortje Marres, University of Warwick

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