What is 4S?
The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is a scholarly society founded in 1975 with an international membership of over 1200. Its main purpose is to bring together those interested in understanding science, technology, and medicine, including the way they develop and interact with their social contexts.
Join 4S
For renewals, the member directory, meeting registration, visit the Member Portal.
4S News
Ethnografilm Call for Submissions
07/10/2015
Submissions are now invited for the third Ethnografilm festival in Paris, France, sponsored by 4S and ISSC (30 March-3 April 2016).
(...more)4S Membership Rates and Benefits Committee – seeking your input!
07/10/2015
4S Council has convened a committee to review the current costs of 4S membership, as well as the benefits that our members receive. We would very much welcome your thoughts and suggestions.
(...more)President’s message #21, July 2015
07/10/2015
Update: “STS Making and Doing Program” in Denver
Update: Ethnografilm Festival
Contribute suggestions for the 4S statement of purpose!
Backchannels
Backchannels provides an outlet for alternative-format scholarly communications, publishing shorter, timelier, media-rich communiques of interest to the global STS community.
Roundtable Report: Who Needs Visual Anthropology?
Report-backs / Rebeca Ibáñez Martín
A productive debate would be one in which visual anthropology is discussed for its theoretical effects and potentialities. Otherwise, visual anthropology will get lost again in a "reality debate": Are we representing reality or not? Are we fair and accurate in representing the reality of the other? Such debate ends up in another even more complicated debate, that between us and them. The question of who is representing whom has been discussed in postcolonial studies of film for many decades and in sharp terms.
REDPOP – EL ENCUENTRO LATINO
Report-backs / Claudia Aguirre
Between may 24 and 29 this year, took place in Medellin, Colombia, the XIV Congress of the Network of Popularization of science in Latin America and the Caribbean (RedPOP). This network was created in 1990 in Rio de Janeiro to promote the field communication of science at that time made a timid appearance in Latin America. Claudia Aguirre shares a report back of the event.
Expandindo fronteiras: V Reunião de Antropologia da Ciência e da Tecnologia
Report-backs / Guilherme Sá
The Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) - Porto Alegre (RS) - received from May 20-22 , 2015 the V Anthropology Meeting of Science and Technology, or, simply put, the V ReACT, as already known the main meeting of anthropologists researching and discussing science and technology in Brazil (Entry in Portuguese)
How the Ocean Cleanup Array Fundamentally Misunderstands Marine Plastics and Causes Harm
Reflections / Max Liboiron
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Ocean Cleanup array, designed to clean plastics from the ocean like a baleen whale, is one of these good intentions: experts in marine plastics, including myself, say it’s a bad idea.Technological fixes like the Array do harm to the larger project of ending plastic pollution, which is a complex social, environmental, and economic problem. It is also going to damage and kill marine life.
Technoscience Updates
The most recent postings to the Profession pages, emailed monthly to 4S members.