The 2023 conference of the Swiss Association for the Studies of Science, Technology & Society (STS-CH) invited empirical, methodological and theoretical contributions from the field of STS. The event aimed to promote the community of STS scholars by fostering exchange between various disciplines and fields of research that address issues relating to science, technology, policy, and society.
The meeting connected Swiss and international researchers and welcomed participants from all career levels. It also welcomed contributors with knowledge and expertise from adjacent communities of practice working on these issues outside of academia.
Science, Expertise and other Modes of Knowledge: Trends, Patterns, and Prospects
The short history of the SARS-COV-2 virus has impressively displayed how scientific knowledge simultaneously co-constructs political and social worlds and, in turn, is shaped by these spheres. The virus overhauled our daily lives all over the globe and brought unprecedented challenges to conventional modes of governance and established regimes of scientific expertise.
From an STS perspective, these challenges may not appear to be entirely novel in nature. However, in these times of crisis discourse on topics such as, for example, climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and energy supply, STS studies are attaining new societal relevance. STS approaches and concepts offer relevant analytical frameworks to analyse current trends, to unpack the social imprints of scientific knowledge production and to develop new options for action. At the same time, recent STS debates on the Covid-19 crisis have also displayed the limits of STS theories and concepts. Scholars have pointed to the need to develop new approaches that rethink, reflect, reshape, rehabilitate the place of knowledge in policy and society to imagine and pursue more sustainable futures.
Against this background, the conference aimed to address the questions of how diverse knowledge regimes shape social identity, political citizenship, and cultural heritage. How are knowledge claims fashioned, represented and questioned? What kind of features and mechanisms influence their success or defeat? How do current societal transformations influence different knowledge claims and their residues of non-knowledge, such as subjugated, lay, or amodern forms of knowledge? In short, we are particularly interested in the ways in which such modes of producing knowledge claims essentially shape our views and our relationship with the world around us.
In respondence to this theme, the STS-CH conference brought together Swiss and international scholars from all career levels around current issues in science, policy, and society.
Keynote Speakers
- Prof. Bruce Lewenstein, Cornell University: Citizen science, participation, inclusion…and STS
- Prof. Fredrick Ogenga, Rongo University (Carl Schlettwein Lecture 2023): Maskani Pan-African Digital Peacebuilding. Moving Beyond the 2022 Controversial Presidential Elections in Kenya
- Prof. Sally Wyatt, Maastricht University: STS after 9/11
Panel Discussion: STS in Policy and Society
Hosted by:
- Nicolas Baya-Laffite (University of Geneva)
- Alexandra Hofmänner (University of Basel / RWTH Aachen)
Discussants:
- Stefan Cihan Aykut (University of Hamburg)
- Laetitia Della Bianca (Université de Lausanne)
- Katrin Milzow (Swiss National Science Foundation)
- Francesco Panese (Université de Lausanne)
- Tanja Schneider (University of St. Gallen)
- Basil Bornemann (University of Basel)
- Fabian Käser (Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences)
Organizing committee
The 2023 conference of the Swiss Association for the Study of Science, Technology and Society is organized in collaboration with the Centre for African Studies Basel and the Department of Scoial Sciences of the University of Basel.
- Veit Arlt (Centre for African Studies Basel)
- Alexandra Hofmänner (Science and Technology Studies, University of Basel)
- Alain Müller (Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, University of Basel)
- Loïc Riom (STS Lab, University of Lausanne)
- Pascal Schmid (Centre for African Studies Basel)
Scientific committee
- Nicola Baya Laffite (Sociology of Science and Technology, University of Geneva)
- Giada Danesi (University of St. Gallen)
- Olivier Glassey (University of Lausanne)
- Solène Gouilhers (University of Geneva)
- Florian Jaton (STS Lab, University of Lausanne)
- Anna Jobin (Sociology, University of Fribourg)
- Alexandra Hofmänner (Science and Technology Studies, University of Basel)
- Alain Müller (Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, University of Basel)
- Julio Paulos (University of Lausanne)
- Loïc Riom (STS Lab, University of Lausanne)
- Tanja Schneider (Technology Studies, University of St. Gallen)
- Dominique Vinck (University of Lausanne)
Funded by
- Swiss Society of Humanities and Social Sciences
- Swiss National Science Foundation
- Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft (FAG) Basel
- ZASB Research Network Africa
- Swiss Academy of Sciences