Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies

About the cover artist

Nienke Bruijning — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Nienke Bruijning is a research assistant and illustrator with an academic background in science and technology studies (STS) and media science, through which she developed an interest in studying the intricate relationships that form between humans and the technologies we surround ourselves with on a daily basis.

Celebrating young scholars

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Nordic Journal of Science and Technology (NJSTS) celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2023, have used the occasion to direct attention toward young scholars in STS and bring in reflections about how STS is changing as a field.

No rose on this one?

Björn Ekström — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This study explores how material qualities of tools contribute to shape information practices of observing, documenting, identifying and reporting species in biodiversity citizen science. Through participant observation and trace ethnography, information practices enacted during a field excursion at a World Heritage Site in south-eastern Sweden are investigated in relation to reported data submitted to the species observation system Artportalen. The study, which adopts a theoretical lens comprising the analytical concepts of epistemic objects and inscriptions, finds that the participants’ situated questioning, discussion, documenting and comparison of species through tool use establishes the observations as projections of knowledge claims. These projections are subsequently constrained but also appended as they are reported as data via Artportalen. As material qualities are generally made invisible, the reported data are augmented by the observation system when merged with other reports to aggregated data. The study extends knowledge concerning how biodiversity citizen science field excursions are conducted by understanding information practices and their outcomes as entangled activities characterised by negotiations in relation to material tools rather than as streamlined processes. Consequently, the results expand knowledge of the messy practices carried out to produce biodiversity citizen science data.
Keywords: Botany, biodiversity, citizen science, information practices, materiality

I love it

Ruth Woods, Thomas Berker , Thomas Edward Sutcliffe, Hanne Marit Henriksen — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through renovation of the existing building stock is high on national and international agendas, but a broader understanding that includes building inventory and the circular economy is not often included. By 2028, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) plans to consolidate university campuses and rehabilitate up to 45 000 m2 of buildings. There are some signs of circular economy at the university in institutionally established practices such as waste sorting, and green procurement, but there exists a greater potential. In 2021, the authors organised a living lab at the university, aiming to investigate whether further measures could be implemented to reduce the consumption of university inventory, such as furniture and computer equipment. We found that reuse, in contrast to the centralised administrative provision of inventory, encouraged practices of care. The experiments in the living lab addressed the dominant homogeneity and standardised character of university fixtures and fittings, provoking enthusiasm for previously discarded and unwanted objects and offering opportunities for new caring relationships. The paper asks, in what ways caring practices are performed in efforts to reduce consumption and achieve sustainability goals in complex organisations such as universities. Data was collected during experiments organised as part of the living lab. The caring practices that we identified are context-aware, empowering, egalitarian, and avoid prioritising some kinds of practices and objects over others.

The Politics of Valuation

Francis Lee, Solveig Jülich, Isa Dussauge — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article has two aims: First, the article proposes to sensitize our analytical minds to what we dub “value disjunctures”—clashes, in practice, between different valuations. The article proposes a strategy for analyzing value disjunctures—paying attention to how different value worlds de-cohere. We ask: What happens if we highlight the periods and situations when versions of the world are pulled apart? Second, the article aims to highlight how today’s bioethics can neither be read as a tale of democratization of ethics, nor as a tale solely driven by ethical disasters. What we offer is a story of how the bioethical yardsticks of today were established as dominant in fetal research. The sensitizing concepts we propose shine a light on how bioethicalization is a historical process that intertwines what is good, with what objects are seen as important, as well as how these objects are understood. Bioethicalization is a struggle about valuations, which yardsticks for the good that become salient, but also a struggle about which objects should be valued, as well as the nature of these valued objects. This article highlights how all matters of value—the ethical, the epistemic, and the economic—are intertwined with changing ontologies, thus highlighting how ontologies and values are enacted together.

Toward a brighter future: Confronting the shadows of STS

Birgitte Nygaard, Kim-Andre Myhre Arntsen — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As part of the Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies’ 10th anniversary, we want to end the anniversary issue by reflecting upon the future of the field. To do so, we invited a young scholar in the STS field to partake in an interview with us. We think it is fitting to end with a young critical voice, as it is the next generation who will shape the field and ultimately decide the future of STS. We had the pleasure of interviewing Claudia Gertraud Schwarz who earned her PhD from the University of Vienna in 2014. She currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, where her research and praxis focus on generating and studying interventions to improve wellbeing in society, especially for young people. She is also one of the co-founders of the STS community known as the FeminiSTS Repair Team.

The emergence of feminist technoscience in the nordics

Maria Kirpichenko, Sofia Moratti — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Our second interviewee for this special issue is Professor is Cecilia Åsberg, a leading figure in Feminist STS. She is a professor at the Department of Thematic Studies (TEMA) at Linköping University (https://liu.se/en/organisation/liu/tema) and the founder of the Posthumanities Hub (https://posthumanitieshub.net). Her research revolves around the natural or non-human as opposed to the human, in a world shaped by technoscience and environmental change. Her career narrative was incredibly engaging, prompting us to collaborate with her on editing the interview to give it a more cohesive and speech-like flow. Our pleasant one-hour conversation revolved around the themes of Feminist STS in the Nordics and academia as a community.

A pragmatic approach to building a field and doing STS

Kristine Ask, Shan Wang, Nora Kristiansson — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The last scholar featured in our anniversary issue is professor emeritus Knut H. Sørensen. Sørensen has a decades long history working in science and technology-studies and played a key role in establishing the Centre for Technology and Society at the Department of interdisciplinary studies of culture (KULT) at NTNU. Sørensen is one of several key contributors to STS and in this interview, we will draw insights from his long career and explore STS as a changing field. Sørensen has witnessed the starting point, the development, as well as many changes in this field throughout his career. In this interview he reflects on how the field has developed and how it is a story about building STS institutions, and the many strategic choices it involves. We are reminded of how the making of science involves specific people, doing specific things at specific times and places. It is a chance to see behind a name put in as “standard citation” and see a person who combined ambition and pragmatism with hard work to make something happen. Revisiting the history of our field is also a chance to remind ourselves of how different things could have turned out; if they hadn’t come across that specific paper or hadn’t received funding at that time. In this interview we will touch on important contributions, about being pragmatic with external funding and research topics, how STS has changed as a field, the importance of advising and investing in students and what life is like now as an emeritus.

More-Than-One Health

Bernardo Couto Soares — Fri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

One Health is a global health approach that emphasises collaboration across disciplines in response to diseases. It has gained popularity in recent decades, with the most recent definition by One Health High Level Council (OHHLEP) being: “an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimise the health of people, animals and ecosystems.” (Braverman, 2023, p. 80). According to Steve Hinchliffe, this human-animalenvironment triad premises on specific ontological commitments to a one-world metaphysics. His Foreword sets the stage for the volume’s contributions through the question: “What is gained and what might be lost when one adopts the One Health signature?” (Hinchliffe, 2023, p. xx).