[Air-l] WTMC Summer School on 8-12 September 2003 in the Netherlands

[U.M.Kemppainen at wmw.utwente.nl]

Cultures of Techno science - Ethnography, Humans/Machines, and Objectivity
Anchor teacher: professor Lucy Suchman
Centre for Science Studies Lancaster University
WTMC Summer school 8-12 September 2003
Since the first laboratory ethnographies at the end of the 1970s, science
and technology studies have developed unique insights into the heterogeneity
of scientific and technological cultures. This work made clear that
'science' is not a unified phenomenon, living a life of its own separate
from other social sectors. This contradicted the tradition, still strong
today, to speak of science as a unique, unified way to produce knowledge.
Many claims on behalf of science or high technology are based on this image.
Science studies has made clear that knowledge is situated knowledge.
Objectivity is bounded, contextualized, and therefore relative objectivity.
Instead of the scientific culture, it seems more productive to speak of
scientific cultures. Even the sub domain of techno science, presently the
most prestigious form of knowledge production, is carried out through a
variety of ways of living and forms of knowing.
This year's WTMC Summer School takes as its central theme techno scientific
cultures and ways to study them. Ethnographic studies of techno science will
be presented and discussed, with a focus on new insights into the changing
relationship between humans and machines. And we will take a closer look at
how scientific objectivities are being produced in the context of the techno
sciences. 

Professor Lucy Suchman is a founding contributor to the ethnographic study
of techno science. (See http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/lsuchman.html
<http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/lsuchman.html> ) She worked for
twenty years at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where she led the
development of anthropological research into technological design. She has
acquired fame as a specialist in human-machine interaction and in theories
of the relationship between humans and machines. Suchman is a Collaborating
Editor of Social Studies of Science. She has received a number of awards for
her work, among them the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive
Science.

The location is Study- and Conference Centre Soeterbeeck in Ravenstein
<http://www.kun.nl/soeterbeeck>  in the Netherlands. The Summer School is
part of the graduate training of the PhD students in the Netherlands. A
limited number of places are available for other (foreign) PhD students. The
fee is EURO 635 (excl. meals and hotel room), the reduced rate for EASST
members is EURO 545. EASST has a tradition of making a few travel stipends
available. Please inquire at the EASST secretariat. 

For registration please use the online registration form:
http://www.wmw.utwente.nl/wtmc/ <http://www.wmw.utwente.nl/wtmc/>  ( see
announcement 'International WTMC Summer School 2003 '/online registration
form)
For information and registration: Marjatta Kemppainen, University of Twente,
u.m.kemppainen at wmw.utwente.nl <mailto:u.m.kemppainen at wmw.utwente.nl>  ,
phone +31-53-489 4847, fax +31-53-489 4775.
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