TechnoScienceSociety: Technological Reconfigurations of Science and Society

Sabine Maasen · Sascha Dickel · Christoph Schneider

Jul 2020 · Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook Ibhuku elingu-30 · Springer Nature

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This book introduces the term of TechnoScienceSociety to focus on the ongoing technological reconfigurations of science and society. It aspires to use the breadth of Science and Technology Studies to perform a critical diagnosis of our contemporary culture. Instead of constructing technology as society’s “other”, the book sets out to highlight the both complex and ambivalent entanglements of technologies, sciences and socialities. It provides some tentative steps towards a diagnosis of a society in which individuals and organizations address themselves, their pasts, presents, futures, hopes and problems in technoscientific modes. Technosciences redesign matter, life, self and society. However, they do not operate independently: Technoscientific practices are deeply socially and culturally constituted.

The diverse contributions highlight the ongoing technological reconfigurations of rationalities, infrastructures, modes of governance, and publics. The book aims to inspire scholars and students to think and analyze contemporary conditions in new ways drawing on, and expanding, the toolkits of Science and Technology Studies.

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Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen studied sociology, psycholgy and linguistics at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. She held positions at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld, at the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, as well as a professorship in Science Studies/Sociology of Science at the University of Basel and, since December 2013, at the Technical University of Munich. Since April 2014, she is director of the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS). Next to various visiting professorships she is member of the German Science Council. Her research focusses on transdisciplinary research practices as well as on knowledge dynamics due to the growing impact of science and technology on society and selves.

Prof. Dr. Sascha Dickel studied political science at Goethe University Frankfurt. 2010 PhD in sociology at Bielefeld University. 2019 habilitation in sociology at TU Munich. Since 2017 junior professor for sociology of media at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. His work concerns digital media and social theory, emerging technologies, and public participation in science and technology.

Dr. Christoph Schneider studied Sociology and Educational Planning and Instructional Design at the University of Freiburg (B.A.) and Sociology (M.A.) at Lancaster University, United Kingdom and gained a PhD from the Munich Center for Technology in Society at TU Munich. He works at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, as a consultant for digital-social innovation and as an activist with a view towards democratising digital technologies.