Whether seen as boosting productivity and health, hazarding the destruction of social relations, or quietly constituting the most mundane contours of our lives; science and technology exert inordinate force in shaping the social and material worlds we inhabit and our intimate senses of ourselves. This course interrogates this state of affairs by tracking not only the social impacts of technoscientific interventions but also the social relations, imaginaries, and practices that constitute technoscience itself. Students will be introduced to Science and Technology Studies (STS) approaches for studying the ways in which scientific knowledge is created, disseminated, and evaluated.
In this course, we will ask: How do new sociotechnical arrangements come into being, get deliberated, and become dominant? How do technoscientific knowledges and practices interact with diverse ways of knowing and being in the world? What roles do science and technology play in historical and contemporary forms of violence, injustice, and inequality?
We take up these general concerns through the investigation of different sites of technoscientific intervention such as bodies, disease, ecosystems, built environments, and animals. Across these we will develop frameworks for understanding how technoscience creates knowledge about, intervenes in and transforms our contemporary world.
Note: This course is co-taught with undergraduate students but assessed separately.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
- understand and articulate different approaches to the social construction of scientific knowledge;
- critically engage with scholarly texts and diverse arguments within the fields of anthropology and science and technology studies (STS);
- evaluate and discuss the rhetoric, value, and assumptions of scientific representations in constructive and collaborative ways;
- work productively in groups and across disciplinary lines; and
- communicate complex social scientific concepts in multiple mediums.
- articulate intellectual relationships between different schools of thought in recent and contemporary anthropological and STS scholarship.
Indicative Assessment
- Minor essay of 3,000 words due halfway through the semester (30) [LO 1,2,3]
- Preparation for and participation in seminars (including contributions to in-class group activities) (20) [LO 1,2,3,4,5]
- Research proposal portfolio (which will draw on collaborative in-class work) (50) [LO 1,3,4,5]
The ANU uses Turnitin to enhance student citation and referencing techniques, and to assess assignment submissions as a component of the University's approach to managing Academic Integrity. While the use of Turnitin is not mandatory, the ANU highly recommends Turnitin is used by both teaching staff and students. For additional information regarding Turnitin please visit the ANU Online website.
Workload
130 hours of total student learning time made up from:
a) 36 contact hours over 12 weeks: 36 hours of seminar
b) 94 hours of student research, reading, and writing
Prescribed Texts
This course will rely on articles and book chapters which will be made accessible through the ANU library.
Preliminary Reading
Martin, Emily. 1991. “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles.” Signs 16 (1): 485–501.
Haraway, Donna J. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575–99.
Nadasdy, Paul. 2011. “‘We Don’t Harvest Animals; We Kill Them’: Agricultural Metaphors and the Politics of Wildlife Management in the Yukon.” In Knowing Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kim, Jongyoung. 2007. “Alternative Medicine’s Encounter with Laboratory Science: The Scientific Construction of Korean Medicine in a Global Age.” Social Studies of Science 37 (6): 855–80.
Murphy, Michelle. 2006. Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers. Durham: Duke University Press.
Latour, Bruno. 1983. “Give Me a Laboratory and I Will Raise the World.” In Science Observed. London: Sage.
Vaughn, Sarah E. 2017. “Disappearing Mangroves: The Epistemic Politics of Climate Adaptation in Guyana.” Cultural Anthropology 32 (2): 242–68.
Subramaniam, Banu. 2000. “Snow Brown and the Seven Detergents: A Metanarrative on Science and the Scientific Method.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 28 (1/2): 296–304.
Vertesi, Janet. 2012. “Seeing like a Rover: Visualization, Embodiment, and Interaction on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission.” Social Studies of Science 42 (3): 393–414.
Myers, Natasha. 2012. “Dance Your PhD: Embodied Animations, Body Experiments, and the Affective Entanglements of Life Science Research.” Body & Society 18 (1): 151–89.
Liboiron, Max. 2021. Pollution Is Colonialism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Lynch, Michael. 2017. “STS, Symmetry and Post-Truth.” Social Studies of Science 47 (4): 593–99.
Kimura, Aaya. (2017). Citizen Science in Post-Fukushima Japan: The Gendered Scientization of Radiation Measurement. Science as Culture, 28(3), 327–350.
Fees
Tuition fees are for the academic year indicated at the top of the page.
Commonwealth Support (CSP) Students
If you have been offered a Commonwealth supported place, your fees are set by the Australian Government for each course. At ANU 1 EFTSL is 48 units (normally 8 x 6-unit courses). More information about your student contribution amount for each course at Fees.
If you are a domestic graduate coursework student with a Domestic Tuition Fee (DTF) place or international student you will be required to pay course tuition fees (see below). Course tuition fees are indexed annually. Further information for domestic and international students about tuition and other fees can be found at Fees.
Where there is a unit range displayed for this course, not all unit options below may be available.
| Units | EFTSL |
|---|---|
| 6.00 | 0.12500 |
Offerings, Dates and Class Summary Links
ANU utilises MyTimetable to enable students to view the timetable for their enrolled courses, browse, then self-allocate to small teaching activities / tutorials so they can better plan their time. Find out more on the Timetable webpage.