CfP for the pan­el at the next con­fer­ence of the Soci­ety for Social Stud­ies of Sci­ence 2025
Seattle
3–7 September

‘Tem­po­ral­i­ties of bod­ies, tech­nolo­gies and their entan­gle­ments in the expe­ri­ence of dis­abil­i­ty and/or chron­ic illness’.

Chron­ic ill­ness and dis­abil­i­ty have become a priv­i­leged place for tech­no­log­i­cal inter­ven­tion. Both are char­ac­ter­ized by the deploy­ment of tech­no­log­i­cal devices that aim to mit­i­gate, com­pen­sate for, or even pre­vent and slow down the loss of capac­i­ties, as well as alle­vi­ate or lim­it symp­toms. In this con­text, a var­ied array of tech­nolo­gies that dif­fer­ent­ly act on or inter­vene in bod­ies and places are intro­duced in people’s lives: tech­no­log­i­cal devices that are implant­ed in the body (e.g. insulin pumps and deep brain stim­u­la­tion), tech­no­log­i­cal devices that are attached to the body (pros­the­ses and orthoses) and/or tech­no­log­i­cal devices that are con­nect­ed both to the body and to a par­tic­u­lar place (tele­care and dial­y­sis equip­ment; exoskeletons). 

Regard­ing this ‘tech­no­log­i­cal care’ (Lancelot & Guchet, 2023), research in STS and empir­i­cal phi­los­o­phy of tech­nol­o­gy has main­ly focused on tech­no­log­i­cal use and appro­pri­a­tion, includ­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties there­of. How­ev­er vital and essen­tial these tech­nolo­gies may be in sus­tain­ing peo­ple in dai­ly life, atten­tion has scarce­ly been paid to their fragili­ty and people’s result­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty when they mal­func­tion, wear and tear, break and/or thus can no longer be used or have to be adjust­ed and/or used dif­fer­ent­ly (Oud­shoorn, 2020). 

These mate­r­i­al and exis­ten­tial dis­rup­tions and con­straints call for inquir­ing about the entan­gle­ments of dif­fer­ent tem­po­ral­i­ties of chron­ic liv­ing and dis­abil­i­ty: of bod­ies adjust­ing to chron­ic ill­ness, dis­abil­i­ty and/or to tech­no­log­i­cal care; of the tech­nolo­gies them­selves (from their devel­op­ment to their every­day use, adap­ta­tion, mal­func­tions and main­te­nance) and the socio-mate­r­i­al infra­struc­tures that sup­port them; and of the rela­tions between them. We invite con­tri­bu­tions that address, empir­i­cal­ly and/or con­cep­tu­al­ly, tech­no­log­i­cal care and its temporalities.

Dead­line of the call for abstracts:

- Jan­u­ary 31, 2025
– Noti­fi­ca­tion of acceptance:
– March 15, 2025
– 4S 2025 in-per­son conference:
– Sep­tem­ber 3–7, 2025

Abstracts (250 words max) should be sub­mit­ted on the 4S web­site: https://bit.ly/3BtgXPh

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CfP for a pan­el on “Data, Care and Learn­ing in Datafied Worlds”
4S con­fer­ence in Seat­tle and online
3–7 Sep­tem­ber 2025

The extend­ed dead­line for abstract sub­mis­sions is 2 Feb­ru­ary 2025. Please see below for more infor­ma­tion and get in touch with any ques­tions. Abstracts can be sub­mit­ted here.

Short Abstract:

How do data, care, and learn­ing shape each oth­er? Bring­ing togeth­er empir­i­cal work and the­o­ret­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions across dis­ci­plines and con­texts, this pan­el aims to think broad­ly about the prac­tices that make up the dynam­ic data-care-learn­ing nexus and the impor­tant ques­tions they raise for STS. 

Long Abstract:

In an era of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, how do data, care and learn­ing prac­tices mutu­al­ly define each other? 

As social­ly-sit­u­at­ed and the­o­ry-laden phe­nom­e­na, data prac­tices are sub­ject to oper­a­tions of scal­ing and manip­u­la­tion, under­pinned by sys­tems of log­ic and val­ue, and co-pro­duced with cul­tur­al, polit­i­cal, and socioe­co­nom­ic real­i­ties. Data are a prin­ci­pal medi­um through which we come to learn, care, and know about our worlds. 

Fem­i­nist STS has estab­lished the crit­i­cal impor­tance of care for sus­tain­ing our worlds, direct­ing atten­tion toward who cares, about what, and how. Con­tin­u­ing to crit­i­cal­ly the­o­rize and empir­i­cal­ly inves­ti­gate care opens up ques­tions of main­te­nance, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and inter­de­pen­dence. Trac­ing data prac­tices with care in mind is like­ly to extend some of these insights and con­test others. 

Learn­ing is the­o­rised dif­fer­ent­ly across fields from STS and Inno­va­tion Stud­ies to Psy­chol­o­gy and Edu­ca­tion. Fun­da­men­tal ques­tions about the nature of learn­ing under­pin assump­tions about knowl­edge, exper­tise, and ped­a­gogy. What we care to learn about and how we learn to care have impli­ca­tions for our under­stand­ing of data prac­tices since those prac­tices both shape what can be learned and must them­selves be learned. 

Organ­ised by the DARE team, this pan­el seeks to build on and con­tribute to these lit­er­a­tures by bring­ing togeth­er work across data tech­nolo­gies, con­texts of use, intel­lec­tu­al fields, and com­mu­ni­ties of prac­tice to exam­ine the data-care-learn­ing nexus. 

Sub­mis­sions might offer insights into, for example: 

– What data, care, and learn­ing come to mean through their mutu­al entanglement 

– Where process­es of learn­ing and car­ing are locat­ed in data practices 

– Dis­tin­guish­ing between car­ing, learn­ing, and know­ing in rela­tion to data practices 

– How data are cared for, and how data enable or con­strain care 

– What and how we learn through data practices 

– How the nexus of data, care and learn­ing are the­o­rised across dif­fer­ent sites, and with dif­fer­ent publics 

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“Neu­romed­ical Con­fig­u­ra­tions: Think­ing Through Pos­si­bil­i­ties of Care, Neglect, and Solidarity” 

4S Seat­tle conference
Sep­tem­ber 3–7, 2025
Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton, USA

Sub­mis­sion dead­line is *31 Jan­u­ary 2025*.
Abstracts can be sub­mit­ted using this link: https://www.4sonline.org/call_for_submissions_seattle.php (Pan­el num­ber 24).

Neu­romed­ical Con­fig­u­ra­tions: Think­ing Through Pos­si­bil­i­ties of Care, Neglect, and Solidarity

Dis­cus­sant:

Angela Mar­ques Fil­ipe, Durham University

Con­venors:

Sebas­t­ian Rojas – Navar­ro, Andres Bel­lo Uni­ver­si­ty, sebastian.rojas.n@unab.cl

Talia Fried, Ben Guri­on Uni­ver­si­ty, frita@post.bgu.ac.il

Short Abstract:

This pan­el explores the ethico-polit­i­cal stakes, expe­ri­ences and pos­si­bil­i­ties of neu­romed­ical sub­jec­tiv­i­ty. We wel­come papers that explore prag­mat­ic chal­lenges and eman­ci­pa­to­ry poten­tials of neu­romed­ical per­son­hood, while the­o­riz­ing with and beyond ‘care.’

Long Abstract:

Neu­romed­ical knowl­edge and tech­nolo­gies are increas­ing­ly reshap­ing our under­stand­ing of human expe­ri­ence, fuel­ing col­lec­tive demands, trans­form­ing notions of per­son­hood, and dri­ving mate­r­i­al, semi­otic, and infra­struc­tur­al changes across soci­eties. While advance­ments in bio­med­ical and psy­cho­log­i­cal sci­ences have opened path­ways for indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive action, heal­ing, and sup­port, these gains are uneven­ly dis­trib­uted. Stig­ma, insti­tu­tion­al­ized indif­fer­ence, and dis­par­i­ties in health resources per­sist glob­al­ly, threat­en­ing to over­shad­ow poten­tial ben­e­fits. In this com­plex sce­nario, how does engag­ing with neu­romed­ical advance­ments allow for the cre­ation of diverse real­i­ties of care? How do forms of aban­don­ment or sol­i­dar­i­ty shape the social spaces where health, ill­ness, suf­fer­ing, and dis­abil­i­ty are neu­romed­ical­ly configured?

This pan­el exam­ines the ethico-polit­i­cal dimen­sions of neu­romed­ical sub­jec­tiv­i­ty by extend­ing the­o­ries of care (Puig de la Bel­la­casa 2010). Build­ing on stud­ies of the rela­tion­al, eth­i­cal, and polit­i­cal aspects of care, we invite researchers to explore frame­works that chal­lenge and com­ple­ment this notion, inte­grat­ing STS per­spec­tives on the (un)caring dimen­sions of neu­romed­ical knowl­edge and prac­tices with oth­er crit­i­cal lenses—such as “rights,” “sol­i­dar­i­ty,” “aban­don­ment,” and “neglect” — and draw­ing insights from fields like med­ical soci­ol­o­gy, dis­abil­i­ty stud­ies, polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy, urban stud­ies, posthu­man­ism, crit­i­cal neu­ro­science and others.

Pre­sen­ta­tions may address ques­tions such as: How do care and neglect affect patient out­comes, iden­ti­ty for­ma­tion, and expe­ri­ences of social belong­ing with­in neu­romed­ical con­texts? How do neu­romed­ical approach­es shape prac­tices and modes ofself-know­ing, iden­ti­ty, and rela­tion­al­i­ty across dif­fer­ent social set­tings? How are the infra­struc­tur­al, mate­r­i­al, and semi­otic aspects of our soci­eties shifting—or not—to accom­mo­date diverse neu­romed­ical identities-in-the-making? 

Please feel free to direct any ques­tions to us at Talia Fried, frita@post.bgu.ac.il

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