STEP MEETING, CFP Session: Experts in the Periphery
Governing Techno-sciences
and Societies from the 19th to the 21st centuries
Lisbon, 1-3
September 2014: http://step2014.ciuhct.com/callforpapers.html
Coordinators
Stathis Arapostathis,
University of Athens
<arapost@phs.uoa.gr>
Jose Ramon
Bertomeu, Valencia University <Bertomeu@uv.es>
Introduction
In recent years an increasing number of studies in
history of science have focused on the definition and the role of experts in
modern western societies, where expert advice is broadly employed in the fight
against the disease, the prosecution of criminal activities, the development of
military industry, the control of food quality and the regulation of industry,
among many others. General books with
reviews and theoretical proposals have been published (Golan, 2004;
Collins-Evans, 2007) and the interest in the subject is easily perceived by the
growing number of publications that have appeared in history of science
journals (Social Studies of Science, for instance), the Isis focus on
"Science and Law"
(2007) and the more recent volume Forensic Cultures
(2013), a special issue of Studies in the History and Philosophy of the
Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Some of these publications and collective
volumes were conceived or discussed in international workshops organized in
Oxford, (October, 2005), Philadelphia (April 2006), Hull (September 2009),
Manchester (June 2010), as well as the STEP workshops in Valencia (December
2011) and in Corfu (June 2012, 8th STEP meeting).
Recent
approaches in the role of experts in the making of
sciences and technologies have shown and argued in favor of an understanding of
the experts’
functions as mediators either between the general public
and the government (regional, national, international) or between the public
and the corporate and Industrial world. In more sociological terminology we
would say that the experts are actors with hybrid epistemological, cognitive
and social identity pertinent and flexible enough to be able to form and shape
‘trading zones’ where new knowledge, policies and social roles are formed. New
historiographical and sociological studies have stressed that mediating actors
form regimes of scientific and technological knowledge pertinent to the policy
making procedure. An epistemological genre called ‘civic epistemology’ is
emerging through the agency of historical actors like experts. Experts
self-fashion the role of intermediaries between power and people and thus in
many cases represented their practice and their communities as substantially
important in the construction of a stable, modest and consensual society.
Yet still the historical works have stressed the
performative dimension of the function and role of the techno-scientific
professionals as well as its precarious Social and epistemological status.
Emphasis has been given in the co-construction of society, regional society,
communities and techno-sciences and techno-scientific politics and policies.
General Research Questions of the Session
How experts did function in local and institutional
settings and contributed in the appropriation of techno-sciences in European
peripheries? What was the role of techno-scientific experts in governing
technologies and sciences in the making? How the politics of expertise was
experienced in different and multiple settings? How expert networks and
techno-scientific expertise were shaped within local contexts and different
cultures of social distinctions and social hierarchy?
List of Topics (not exclusive)
Institutions and politics of expertise
Environment,society and the experts
Making the boundaries Lay/ Expert
Technologies of governance and experts
Forensic cultures in context
Expertise and knowledge management
Regulating chemicals, drugs and food
Managing uncertainty, creating ignorance
Making international standards
Politics of risk and fear
Expert controversies in the public arena
Deadlines for Abstracts and Sessions submission
Abstract
submission to the organizers of the session – 3 January
2014
Session proposals submission – 10 January 2014
Decision to
the authors (accepted sessions) – 10 February 2014
Submission
of pre-circulated papers – 30 June 2014
Meeting:
1-3 September 2014.
All the
submissions of paper abstracts for the session should be
addressed to both organizers.
For any
enquiries please contact the session organizers.
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Stathis Arapostathis
Lecturer in the History of Science and Technology
Department of Philosophy and History of Science National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens University Campus Ilissia Athens 15771 Greece Email. arapost@phs.uoa.gr Tel. +30 210 7275583