[Air-L] CFP 4S Open Panel: Transgenerational Listening: Telling Stories about Global STS Programs and Formations

[Isha Bhallamudi]

Dear colleagues,

Hope you're doing well! This is to invite abstract submissions for our open
panel: 'Transgenerational Listening: Telling Stories about Global STS
Programs and Formations
<https://www.4sonline.org/196-transgenerational-listening-telling-stories-about-global-sts-programs-and-formations/>',
to be held at the annual 4S meeting this year, between October 6-9.
Abstracts of up to 250 words can be submitted at this portal
<https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/ssss/ssss21/>, and the deadline is
March 8. We look forward to learning about the wide diversity of STS
programs and communities, especially from the perspectives of students.

Please consider submitting an abstract, and do spread the word among
colleagues and students. We look forward to reading your submissions!

The call for papers is as follows:

*Transgenerational Listening: Telling Stories about Global STS Programs and
Formations*
Organizers (listed alphabetically): Isha Bhallamudi, Anna Ma, Angela Okune
Chair: Kim Fortun | Discussant: Sharon Traweek

Extending ongoing dialogue about Transnational STS in recent years, this
panel invites scholars located around the globe to share their work
conceptualizing, practicing and extending Transnational STS in different
ways. In particular, we are interested in drawing out and foregrounding
student experiences in various STS programs and organizations (including
formations outside of the academy) to reflect on the paradigms and
programmes in which we are training and being trained. This year’s
conference theme raises important questions about turning a critical eye to
the oppressions maintained within technoscience, especially neoliberal
university structures. Attending to the transgenerational character of
collaborative relations, both within and beyond the university, sets up the
possibility to dismantle violent, entrenched practices and build alliances
that span age and temporal contexts. Inspired by critical university
studies and radical education thinkers like Paulo Freire, Gregory Bateson,
and Gayatri Spivak, we call for transgenerational and transformative
listening and dialogue and are interested in learning about experiments and
tactics that help build “good relations” across geographic, disciplinary
and generational hierarchies.

Leveraging conversations from last year’s three-part panel on Transnational
STS (find abstracts at
https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/open-panel-4seasst-2020-transnational-sts-theories-practices-and-pedagogies),
rather than approaching “transnational” as an ideal temporal-spatial
universalism to be achieved, we question and reflect on the use value of
the analytic of the “nation-state” when studying technoscientific
developments across contexts. Layering such transnational sensibilities
with transgenerational listening promises fresh perspectives on the
character and use of STS at varying scales and locations. This panel
furthers work being undertaken by the Student Section of the Society for
the Social Studies of Science (6S) to develop a reference database of STS
programs around the world with the aim of fostering greater transnational
collaborations and network building. The panel will be chaired by Kim
Fortun and Sharon Traweek will serve as discussant.

Contributions may address, among others, the following questions:

   - How are transnational student research and collaborative relations
   formed and organized? What kinds of tactics have they leveraged? How do
   research networks set collaborative agendas and what enables them to
   sustain over time?
   - What infrastructures can support transnational and transgenerational
   STS collaborations, particularly those that extend beyond the academy?
   - What tactics do STS programs use to stay tuned to both local and
   transnational contexts and issues?
   - What pedagogical philosophies (explicitly or implicitly) orient
   differently situated STS programs, and to what effect?
   - How does transnational STS contribute to STS teaching and pedagogy?
   How can transnational STS add to local efforts in engaging with multiple
   publics, decision-makers, scientists, activists, and other related actors?

Contact: aokune at uci.edu

Warmly,
Isha