SESSION 1 The Development of STS - Historical Review

This session will begin from the post-war ascendancy of science and technology not only as economic drivers but cultural icons. The beginnings of 'science studies' as an academic research and teaching field from about 1970 will be described, along with the connections and conflicts with longer-standing history and philosophy of science. The substantive intellectual positions in sociology of science, from Mertonian institutional analysis to post-Kuhnian sociology of scientific knowledge, the Edinburgh strong programme and related developments will be described, as will the political implications of these various schools of thought. The critique of interests-based explanations of scientific knowledge (as in the strong programme) by more reflexive authors such as Latour and Woolgar will also be explained and the intricacies of the "reflexive turn" also explained. This will lead to an outline of the changing focus of science studies away from the larger political questions about science and politics and more into laboratory studies and environmental controversy and 'risk' case-studies, will also be reflected upon, with finishing reflections on the state of the field today, and its possible future developments. Various chapters of the Handbook on STS (Jasanoff et al eds. 1995) are the best reading for this 'overview' session.