Sciences and technologies work with rather than against the social grain.
Science Technology and Culture
We know that science, technology and culture are entangled with one another. We also know that successful sciences and technologies are framed and performed in ways that make cultural sense. They work with rather than against the social grain. The social sciences and humanities offer essential resources and tools for understanding these entanglements and for exploring innovation and contestation.
The Science Technology and Culture theme uses interdisciplinary expertise as a means to generate fresh responses to, and openings for techno-scientific cultures. From studying the spaces and conditions of knowledge to intervening in techno-cultural performance, from exploring legal frameworks to challenging social and ethical norms.
It's 50 years since Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions opened avenues for social studies of science and knowledge. It may still be controversial, but the notion that science is made in communities, sharing paradigms and at times undergoing turbulent changes or revolutions, prompted a raft of studies on how science is made in practice.
Social science, and humanities engagement with science and technology, has socialised science and re-materialised the social as an ongoing socio-technical achievement. The result has been a social science, arts and humanities engagement with science and technology, which has socialised science and re-materialised the social as an ongoing socio-technical achievement.
