Transforming the study of cancer

Datum
16. Juli – 19. Juli 2024 

Com­bined For­mat Open Pan­el P133 at con­fer­ence EASST-4S 2024 Ams­ter­dam: „Mak­ing and Doing Transformations”.

Trans­form­ing the study of cancer
16–19 July 2024
Ams­ter­dam, the Netherlands
Con­ver­nors: Vio­le­ta Argu­do-Por­tal (Uni­ver­si­tat de Barcelona), Masha Denisova 

CfP dead­line: Feb­ru­ary 12 2024
Please sub­mit your pro­pos­al here

The study of can­cer has gath­ered an exten­sive com­mu­ni­ty of schol­ars in the social sci­ences and human­i­ties, pro­vid­ing a more dense, het­ero­ge­neous, and diverse approach to this dis­ease mul­ti­ple. Sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy schol­ars have tak­en an impor­tant role in this task by exam­in­ing how knowl­edge about can­cer is pro­duced and with what con­se­quences for researchers, prac­ti­tion­ers, and patients. In this pan­el, we seek to make explic­it the con­tri­bu­tions of STS tools and sen­si­bil­i­ties to the can­cer study. STS toolk­it becomes par­tic­u­lar­ly help­ful in dis­cern­ing what log­ics, inter­ests, and imag­i­nar­ies are at play in the can­cer research and care are­na. The ever-increas­ing influ­ence of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies and invest­ments in heav­i­ly tech­no­crat­ic forms of can­cer care trans­form not only the forms of can­cer diag­nos­tics and treat­ment but also the expe­ri­ences of those liv­ing with the dis­ease. The grow­ing atten­tion to cell biol­o­gy research and indi­vid­u­al­iza­tion of risk makes can­cer research shift fur­ther from iden­ti­fy­ing oth­er aeti­olo­gies of can­cer, such as envi­ron­men­tal and eco­log­i­cal links. These trans­for­ma­tions col­lec­tive­ly shape how can­cer is known and lived with. For this pan­el, we invite empir­i­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal sub­mis­sions that revolve around the study of can­cer, rang­ing from atten­tion to high-tech tech­no­log­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal endeav­ors to dif­fer­ent forms of craft­ing care, knowl­edge, treat­ments, infra­struc­tures, and knowl­edge. Works explor­ing car­cino­genic leaks, can­cer pol­i­tics, and epis­temic absences are par­tic­u­lar­ly welcome.

The pan­el is con­vened by the Polit­i­cal Stakes of Can­cer Net­work, an inter­na­tion­al group of social sci­ences and human­i­ties schol­ars study­ing sci­ence, soci­ety, and pow­er rela­tion­ships in can­cer across the globe. The pan­el will fol­low a com­bined for­mat, includ­ing ses­sions with con­ven­tion­al paper pre­sen­ta­tions and an exper­i­men­tal ses­sion for which we encour­age sub­mis­sions based on mul­ti­modal mate­ri­als (illus­tra­tions, short films, visu­al essays, exper­i­men­tal data visu­al­iza­tions, and more).