Experiments in Context and Contexting

Science, Technology & Human Values (July 2012; 37 (4) ) special issue on “Experiments in Context and Contexting.”

What is context and how to deal with it? The context issue has been a key concern in Science and Technology Studies (STS). This is linked to the understanding that science is culture. But how? The irreductionist program from the early eighties sought to solve the problem by doing away with context altogether—for the benefit of worlds in the making. This special issue takes its points of departure in this irreductionist program, its source of inspirations, as well as its reworkings. The aim is not to solve the context problem but rather to experiment with context and what we label contexting.

Table of Contents

• Kristin Asdal and Ingunn Moser: Experiments in Context and Contexting
• Tiago Moreira: Health Care Standards and the Politics of Singularities: Shifting In and Out of Context
• John Law and Ingunn Moser: Contexts and Culling
• Brita Brenna: Natures, Contexts, and Natural History
• Kristin Asdal: Contexts in Action—And the Future of the Past in STS
• Vicky Singleton: When Contexts Meet: Feminism and Accountability in UK Cattle Farming

New book: Agency without Actors?

Passoth, J., B. Peuker & M. Schillmeier (Eds) (2012) Agency without Actors? Rethinking Collective Action. London/New York: Routledge

Contents:

Note on Contributors 1. Introduction Part 1: Events, Suggestions, Accounts 2. Suggestion and Satisfaction: On the Actual Occasion of Agency by Paul Stronge and Mike Michael 3. Science, Cosmopolitics and the Question of Agency: Kant’s Critique and Stengers’ Event by Michael Schillmeier 4. Questioning the Human/Non-Human Distinction by Florence Rudolf 5. Agency and “Worlds” of Accounts: Erasing the Trace or Rephrasing the Action? by Rolland Munro Part 2: Contribution, Distribution, Failures 6. Distributed Agency and Advanced Technology, Or: How to Analyze Constellations of Collective Inter-Agency by Werner Rammert 7. Distributed Sleeping and Breathing: On the Agency of Means in Medical Work by Cornelius Schubert 8. Agencies’ Democracy: “Contribution” as a Paradigm to (Re)thinking the Common in a World of Conflict by Jacques Roux 9. Reality Failures by John Law Part 3: Interaction, Partnership, Organization 10. “What’s the Story?” Organizing as a Mode of Existence by Bruno Latour 11. Researching Water Quality with Non-Humans: An ANT Account by Christelle Gramaglia & Delaine Sampaio Da Silva 12. Horses – Significant Others, People’s Companions, and Subtle Actors by Marion Mangelsdorf

Forthcoming events with Callon, Latour et al.

20 February 2012,  18:00 – 19:30 – Bruno Latour at the Science Gallery in Dublin.

7 March 2012, 16:30 – 19:00 –  Bruno Latour & Richard Rogers:  “Digital societies: between ontology and methods,” at Goldsmiths, London

30 March 2012 – 12:30 – 16:30 – Michel Callon, Fabian Muniesa, Adam Leaver and Karel Williams: “How Methods Move in Markets,” at Open University, Camden, London

Débordements: Mélanges offerts à Michel Callon

A collection of essays celebrating the work of Michel Callon; half of them in French,  half in English.

Table of Contents

Vers un modèle d’agir autonome [PDF] 9

Rémi Barbier

« De l’arbitraire à l’arbitrage » : les indicateurs de S&T en débat [PDF] 13

Rémi Barré

Transparency as a political device [PDF] 21

Andrew Barry

Le client du poste téléphonique : archéologie des êtres intermédiaires 41

Dominique Boullier

The ontological priority of mediation 61

Geoffrey C. Bowker

La sociologie est un sport collectif : petit match avec Michel Callon 69

Franck Cochoy

La dynamique de l’innovation : une interprétation de l’approche de Michel Callon en termes de communautés de connaissance 87

Patrick Cohendet, Jean-Alain Héraud & Patrick Llerena

Traduction et résonance morphique 107

Jean-Pierre Courtial

Quand l’économie échoue à être performative. Une étude de cas 129

Hervé Dumez & Alain Jeunemaître

Avec les armes de la sociologie de l’innovation : critique d’un travail récent d’économie expérimentale sur l’innovation et la propriété intellectuelle 143

Dominique Foray

Procrustean transformations: Climategate, scientific controversies and hope 153

Raghu Garud & Joel Gehman

Michel Callon : une « socionomie » contemporaine ? 169

Armand Hatchuel

Vous avez dit attachements ?… 179

Antoine Hennion

Thin air 191

Sheila Jasanoff

On the economics of techno-scientific promises 203

Pierre-Benoît Joly

Material disruptions in electricity systems: can wind power fit in the existing electricity system? 223

Peter Karnøe

La démocratie électronique et l’Open Government de Barack Obama sous l’œil critique des STS 241

Pierre Lascoumes

Avoir ou ne pas avoir de réseau : that’s the question [PDF] 257

Bruno Latour

The Greer-Bush test: on politics in STS [PDF] 269

John Law

What can heterogeneity add to the scientometric map? Steps towards algorithmic historiography 283

Loet Leydesdorff

Michel Callon et le « tournant performatif » de la théorie de l’acteur-réseau. Vers une anthropologie des objets techniques en situation 291

Christian Licoppe

Models as coordination devices 299

Donald MacKenzie

Table des matièresDe l’usage dans l’échange. Quelques propositions issues de la perspective de l’économie des qualités 303

Alexandre Mallard

Accounting for others 315

Peter Miller

Bami goreng for Mrs. Klerks and other stories on food and culture 325

Annemarie Mol

Cooling down and heating up: a stress test on politics and economics 335

Fabian Muniesa

La stratégie comme exercice de traduction. Une illustration sur le marché dermo-cosmétique 343

Hervé Penan

The politics of hybrid forums 357

Dominique Pestre

Performativity and economic demonstrations: pitching quality and quantity 369

Trevor Pinch

Processes of entanglement 381

Arie Rip

Callon and the life of democracy 393

Nigel Thrift

Phenomenological and post-ANT objects

Another intriguing event laid on by CRESC is the forthcoming Materialising the Subject: phenomenological and post-ANT objects in the social sciences conference at Manchester Museum on 26-27 February 2009. This is very much along the phenomenology-ANT axis that we are interested in here at ANTHEM. The key themes and respective speakers are:

1. After Networks: spatio-temporal analytics – Robert Oppenheim, Matt Candei, Harvey Molotch;
2. ‘Not Networks Per Se, but Distributed Enactments’ – Martin Holbraad, Monika Buscher, Susanne Kuechler, Soumhya Venkatesan;
3. Is Phenomenology really an albatross? – Don Ihde, Michael Jackson, Nigel Thrift;
4. Skilled Practice: cognition as human-artefact-human orientation system – Christina Toren, Tim Ingold, Morten Pedersen;
5. Does it make any Sense to Say that Objects Have Agency? – John Law, Penny Harvey, Albena Yaneva.

Click here for a detailed description of the rationale, here for the programme, and here to register.

Distinktion No 16: The Technologies of Politics

Issue 16 of Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory is out and  it is packed with interesting articles on the technologies of politics, several of them engaging with actor-network theory. Authors include Kristin Asdal, Noortje Marres, Peter Sloterdijk, John Law, Richie Nimmo, Guro Ådnegard Skarstad, and Nigel Thrift.