Scholarly Works, Science, Technology, and Society

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Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

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Fair Plastics: Advancing Industrial Decarbonization through Equitable Social Innovations
Breslau, Daniel; McMillan, Colin; Schmid, Sonja; Tsou, Tsung-Yen (The Department of Science, Technology, and Society, Virginia Tech, 2024-08-19)
Industrial decarbonization is an absolute and immediate requirement in the context of global climate change. Producing the basic materials that constitute the infrastructure of our modern societies (e.g. steel, cement, plastics) is the most significant source of industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, compared to areas such as electricity generation and ground transportation, where clear technological solutions for decarbonization have emerged, decarbonizing industry may follow any number of potential pathways. The Fair Plastics workshop brought together a group of experts and stakeholders from industry, government, research organizations, and environmental and community groups to discuss each group’s views of the significant obstacles and potential pathways of decarbonizing ethylene production. Industry representatives focused on technical pathways to ethylene decarbonization. While requesting infrastructure for electricity, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide, they emphasized the need for regulatory standards, carbon pricing, and government intervention to support the transition to decarbonization. Government and academic researchers assessed the existing pathways and highlighted carbon contributors other than ethylene, such as the steel and cement industries. The group also highlighted the economic challenges of the entire plastics lifecycle, noting the difficulty in reducing reliance on low-cost natural gas and the lack of replacement materials for ethylene-derived products. Environmental and community groups also took a lifecycle perspective and stressed the importance of addressing not only ethylene production, but also upstream and downstream activities to mitigate environmental and health impacts. They advocated for source reduction and greater industry accountability to ensure environmental justice for communities affected by petrochemical pollution. The report concludes that achieving ethylene decarbonization requires coordinated efforts across technical, social, and policy dimensions, with a focus on sustainability, innovation, and equity for affected communities.
Cultivating intellectual community in academia: reflections from the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN)
Burch, Karly; Gugganig, Mascha; Guthman, Julie; Reisman, Emily; Comi, Matt; Brock, Samara; Kagliwal, Barkha; Freidberg, Susanne; Baur, Patrick; Heimstaedt, Cornelius; Sippel, Sarah Ruth; Speakman, Kelsey; Marquis, Sarah; Arguelles, Lucia; Biltekoff, Charlotte; Broad, Garrett; Bronson, Kelly; Faxon, Hilary; Frohlich, Xaq; Ghosh, Ritwick; Halfon, Saul; Legun, Katharine; Martin, Sarah J. (Springer, 2023-05)
Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). This is paired with insights from 21 network members on aspects that have allowed STSFAN to thrive, even amid a global pandemic. Our hope is that these insights will encourage others to cultivate their own intellectual communities, where they too can receive the support they need to deepen their scholarship and strengthen their intellectual relationships.
From citizen social science to citizen bureaucraft: an ecology of social justice activism in Singapore
Haines, Monamie (SAGE Publications, 2024)
This article theorizes citizen knowledge production from a non-Western, nonliberal locale by examining why social movement-oriented citizen science is not practiced in the soft authoritarian context of Singapore. While environmental injustice arguably does exist in the city-state, citizens and residents are nor responding by producing undone science. In fact, seldom does the environment, science, and technology figure as the object of activism, let alone social injustice claims. Drawing on interpretive documentary analysis of interviews, news reports and auto-ethnography, this article argues that science and technology are guarded by tacit “out-of-bound” markers—or OB markers that constitute the norms of acceptable criticism. These OB markers are socially maintained by, and coproduced alongside, the twinned practices of elitism and meritocracy in Singapore, where the academic elite constitute critical voices, and as such, must navigate their credibility and privilege with the state, thereby foreclosing more radical forms of activism. As a consequence, elite Singaporeans practice citizen social science in areas of the environment, race and migration. Further, I show their standards and practices of evidencing and scientific communication can be construed as ‘citizen bureaucraft,’ where they cite the state to hold a kintsugi mirror to injustices it perpetuates. This article describes an ecology of social justice activism centred on Singapore’s primarily Bangladeshi migrant construction workers during the pandemic to show how citizenship is coproduced with citizen knowledge production in more authoritarian contexts, and how the coercive state responds.
Performing Radical Vulnerability to Teach STS in Singapore
Haines, Monamie (Society for Social Studies of Science, 2024)
The MOPR Saga and the Politics of Manipulation in U.S. Electricity Markets
Breslau, Daniel (2023)
Recent sociological literature treats market manipulation as a product of the interaction of innovative trading practices with activities of market policing. Its definition is not independent of the construction of devices to detect it, and regulatory means for sanctioning and correcting it. This paper builds on that work by analyzing the political process through which those devices, and market manipulation itself, are defined. It examines a protracted struggle to define a particular form of manipulation in wholesale electricity markets in the U.S. From 2006 to 2021, the definition of “buyer-side market power” and the preferred mechanism for detecting and mitigating this particular form of market manipulation, the Minimum Offer Pricing Rule (MOPR). Analyzing filings and orders in regulatory proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, internal documents tracing deliberations within PJM, the largest wholesale electricity market in the U.S., supplemented by interviews with regulators, stakeholders, and economic experts. This contention takes the form of a “valorization struggle,” in which actors with different relative endowments of the many types of properties wield what influence they have to shape the market rules in a way that will convert those holdings into sources of revenues and competitive advantages relative to other market participants. The successive redefinitions of this type of market manipulation, as coded in the instruments used to detect and mitigate it, track the evolving power relations within the field. The paper considers the ways that, in this case, the politics of market manipulation mediate the politics of climate.
Redes compartidas de tseltales y zapotecos: Los caminos hacia un internet pluriversal
Rosa, Fernanda R. (CARGC Press, 2022)
Shared Networks: The Paths of Latin-Centric Indigenous Networks to a Pluriversal Internet
Rosa, Fernanda R. (University of Illinois Libraries, 2021-09-15)
This research paper examines the emergence of shared networks in Tseltal and Zapoteco communities in Chiapas and Oaxaca (Mexico): internet first mile signal-sharing practices that articulate interconnection infrastructure and coexistence values to extend the internet to areas where the services of existing larger internet service providers are unsatisfactory or unavailable. In the case studies analyzed, indigenous people become internet codesigners by infrastructuring for their own local networks and interconnecting to the global internet. The paper argues that a hybrid materializes at the level of network interconnection when comunalidad, or the way of these communities, supported by unlicensed frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, towers, radio antennas, houses rooftops, routers, and cables meet the values of the internet service providers and their policies. Shared networks are a result of what these arrangements both enact and constrain, and the evidence of vivid struggles of Latin-centric indigenous networks towards a pluriversal internet.
Pluralistic Collaboration in Science and Technology: Reviewing Knowledge Systems, Culture, Norms, and Work Styles
Halfon, Saul E.; Sovacool, Benjamin (SAGE, 2022-10-10)
This paper challenges the language of “interdisciplinarity,” suggesting “pluralistic collaboration” as a better alternative. Interdisciplinarity, team science, and transdisciplinarity frame academic and problem-focused collaborations narrowly, overemphasizing epistemology, downplaying extra-disciplinary divides and nonacademic collaborators, and either ignoring or psychologizing individual-level phenomena. We first paint a picture of the tensions and divides that exist in pluralistic collaborations, in three dimensions—epistemic, cultural, and normative—using a series of literature reviews to simultaneously map and extend these dimensions. We then introduce and explore a fourth dimension—academic work styles. Individual level considerations of collaboration in the literature generally rely on psychological types. We explore what a more sociologically oriented approach to individual dynamics within collaborations would look like by identifying and exploring four general academic work styles: isolationist, imperialist, pragmatist, and pluralist. We conclude by emphasizing and reflecting on pluralistic collaboration. Pluralism exists along a range of dimensions, and pluralizing or homogenizing different dimensions (pluralizing pluralism) can produce diverse effects on the outcome of interdisciplinary collaboration. While we thus advocate for pluralism along a greater range of dimensions when addressing complex problems, we suggest that over-pluralization can be a problem.
Disabled Dimensionalities: Normative expectations' impacts on disabled perceptions and spatialities
Blanchard, Enka; Shew, Ashley (OpenEdition, 2022)
As humans, we are expected to interact as fully functional 3D manipulators who can observe, handle,and act in three spatial dimensions. This is how users are considered in the design of many products and spaces. Ableism often gives people the perception that disabled people are inferior at manipulating, imagining, and navigating the world. We contest this perception using both our own experiences as disabled manipulators and narratives from other disabled people that speak to this presumption as limited imagination and consideration. In this theoretical contribution, we analyze the consequences of ableism in how spaces — digital, physical, imaginary in science fiction, present in practice and material configuration — operate in the way we think about the material and virtual world.
How To Get A Story Wrong: Technoableism, Simulation, and Cyborg Resistance
Shew, Ashley (2022-03)
For this paper, I will first share with you what we take to be the wrong stories out there about disability - narrative arcs we’ve inherited from tropes through various media as well as highlight the dangers of disability simulation to address these. Next, I’ll talk about better stories, more authentic narratives we might give about technology and about disability. Third, I’ll talk about social responsibility in the context of disability narrative, before ending by talking about cyborg-cripborg-disability expertise and knowledge with a reflection on cyborg expertise during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Autoconstruction of the Media City: Tracing the Routes of Electronic Devices in the Global South
Prieto-Nanez, Fabian (2023-02)
The invention of the “underclass”: a study in the politics of knowledge [Book review]
Breslau, Daniel (Routledge, 2023-01-04)
A book review of The invention of the “underclass”: a study in the politics of knowledge, by Loïc Wacquant (Polity, 2022).
From community networks to shared networks: the paths of Latin-Centric Indigenous networks to a pluriversal internet
Rosa, Fernanda R. (Routledge, 2022-07)
This article examines, with ethnographic lenses, the emergence of shared networks in the Tseltal and Zapoteco communities in Chiapas and Oaxaca (Mexico). 'Shared networks' are first-mile signal-sharing practices that articulate interconnection infrastructure and values of coexistence to, in the cases studied, extend the internet to areas where the services of existing larger internet service providers are unsatisfactory or unavailable. It argues that by infrastructuring their own local networks and interconnecting to the global internet, Tseltal and Zapoteco people are effectively internet codesigners, building Latin-Centric Indigenous networks and shaping internet governance from below. When comunalidad values, supported by unlicensed frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, towers, radio antennas, houses' rooftops, routers, and cables, intersect with the values of the internet service providers and their policies, hybrids emerge. Shared networks are a result of what these hybrids enact and constrain, as well as evidence of the vivid struggles for a more inclusive and pluriversal internet.
Code Ethnography and the Materiality of Power in Internet Governance
Rosa, Fernanda R. (Springer, 2022-09)
The purpose of this article is to discuss an ethnography of code, specifically code ethnography, a method for examining code as a socio-technical actor, considering its social, political, and economic dynamics in the context of digital infrastructures. While it can be applied to any code, the article presents the results of code ethnography application in the study of internet interconnection dynamics, having the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) as code and two of the largest internet exchange points (IXPs) in the world as points of data collection, DE-CIX Frankfurt, and IX.br Sao Paulo. The results show inequalities in the flows of information between the global North and the global South and concentration of power at the level of interconnection infrastructure hitherto unknown in the context of the political economy of the internet. Code ethnography is explained in terms of code assemblage, code literacy, and code materiality. It demonstrates the grammar of BGP in context, making its logical and physical dimensions visible in the analysis of the formation of giant internet nodes and infrastructural interdependencies in the circulation information infrastructure of the internet.
Aesthetics of Otherness: Representation of #migrantcaravan and #caravanamigrante on Instagram
Rosa, Fernanda R.; Soto-Vasquez, Arthur D. (Sage, 2022-01)
This article examines the representation of the migrant caravan on Instagram showing how an aesthetics of otherness has prevailed in this representation. Aesthetics of otherness is the result of the interaction between platform users' selections and platform affordances that creates a gap between the marginalized other and the user. Based on a qualitative content analysis of posts with the hashtags #caravanamigrante and #migrantcaravan, this research reveals that the two hashtags form parallel, although not alike, communicative spaces where migrant caravan representation is mostly mediated by professionals and organizations interested in promoting their own work and not by the migrants themselves. Despite this trend, users posting with #caravanamigrante were less likely to hijack the intent of the public, more likely to reference reasons for migration, and overall less likely to employ the aesthetics of otherness, which point to the possibility of circumventing the role of the platform in shaping the representation of marginalized people and social justice movements.
Mobile Learning in Brazil: Management and Implementation of Current Policies and Future Perspectives
Rosa, Fernanda R.; Azenha, Gustavo S. (Zinnerama, 2015-08-14)
Made in Brazil: Conspiracy Theory and the Flow of Information in One-to-One Whatsapp Conversations
Rosa, Fernanda R. (Universidade Federal da Bahia, 2021-10-21)
This essay aims to shed light on the multiple and complex ways that information flows among individuals in times of intense use of digital platforms. Based on actor-network theory, it unveils largely unknown communication processes about the controversial death of the Brazilian Supreme Court Justice, Teori Zavascki in 2017 that occurred in closed conversations in which the author was part. Analyzing primary data, the essay discusses the signs of authority that allow for non-verified or fiction pieces to circulate as if they were news pieces, enabling conspiracy theories to take form. The essay defends that mutual responsibility in building the narrative with peers within a likeminded groups, and “translation” processes in which sender and information merge their characteristics to create trust are important factors to understand this phenomenon. Furthermore, in discussing news as cultural artifacts, the essay also raises reflections of the limits of framing this phenomenon as fake news, which artificially oppose what is “real” and “fake” disregarding cultural dynamics at stake.
Internet interconnection infrastructure: lessons from the global South
Rosa, Fernanda R. (Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, 2021-11-02)
This article examines the formation of the first internet exchange point (IXP) in Mexico amid the implementation of telecommunication reforms and asymmetric regulations in a market with low level of competition. An IXP is defined as a shared interconnection facility and a key internet governance arena where players with myriad goals and functions mesh in interlaced technical and political dynamics. The study shows how data centres, passive infrastructure and autonomous system numbers play a critical role that stand out in the context of lack of infrastructure in Mexico. The paper argues that the challenges for an IXP to become stable in such a context in the global South is a result of IXP imagined affordances and the way that infrastructure, the telecommunications incumbent, its competitors, the state regulator, and the IXP operator interact, keeping the initiative in a fragile equilibrium.
GAFA's information infrastructure distribution: Interconnection dynamics in the global North versus global South
Rosa, Fernanda R.; Hauge, Janice A. (Wiley, 2021-12-14)
We analyze public points of interconnection of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple (GAFA) in the global North versus the global South to determine the degree to which their location preferences differ, if at all. We find that there is a statistically significant difference in GAFA locating in the global North versus the global South—a difference based on a country's wealth, specifically as given by per capita GNI. Approximately 38% of countries classified as global North have a GAFA public point of interconnection, while 16% of those classified as global South do. Apple has approximately 92% of its presence in the global North, followed by Amazon (82.5%), Facebook (73%), and Google (72%). Our findings suggest that competition and antitrust policy discussions of digital platforms should include information on the dynamics of interconnection infrastructure distribution, and for that, such information must be available. We also assert that a global consideration of the digital platforms market is necessary.
A Transdisciplinary Approach to Address Climate Change Adaptation for Human Health and Well-Being in Africa
Wright, Caradee Yael; Moore, Candice Eleanor; Chersich, Matthew; Hester, Rebecca; Nayna Schwerdtle, Patricia; Mbayo, Guy Kakumbi; Akong, Charles Ndika; Butler, Colin D. (MDPI, 2021-04-17)
The health sector response to dealing with the impacts of climate change on human health, whether mitigative or adaptive, is influenced by multiple factors and necessitates creative approaches drawing on resources across multiple sectors. This short communication presents the context in which adaptation to protect human health has been addressed to date and argues for a holistic, transdisciplinary, multisectoral and systems approach going forward. Such a novel health-climate approach requires broad thinking regarding geographies, ecologies and socio-economic policies, and demands that one prioritises services for vulnerable populations at higher risk. Actions to engage more sectors and systems in comprehensive health-climate governance are identified. Much like the World Health Organization’s ‘Health in All Policies’ approach, one should think health governance and climate change together in a transnational framework as a matter not only of health promotion and disease prevention, but of population security. In an African context, there is a need for continued cross-border efforts, through partnerships, blending climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, and long-term international financing, to contribute towards meeting sustainable development imperatives.

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