Science, Technology and Society Studies (STS), including Globalization and Development

The research programme on Science, Technology and Society including Globalization and Development issues investigates the following main questions.

The first concerns the relations between technology, science and society. This comprises a combination of philosophical, historical, sociological and anthropological approaches. The general question is how modern societies are constituted by science and technology, and how, vice versa, social and cultural conditions shape technological and scientific developments. The research focuses on the 20th and 21st centuries, with attention to the historical roots in the 17th-19th centuries. The central tenet is that science (including the humanities and social sciences) and technology (in its material forms and as a discipline) are such pervasive constituents of highly developed societies that our modern culture can only be understood when these key roles are recognized and explicitly studied.
More specifically, this research programme has one central theme and four specific areas of interest. Its overarching theme is Innovative Cultures. Within the core theme of Innovative Cultures, a limited set of focal areas of interest is defined:
• Digital cultures and development: on the use of digital research methods in social sciences and humanities, and their effects on research systems and societal development;
• Creative cultures: on the interactions between science, technology, media, and the arts, and on the innovations that result from those interactions;
• Vulnerability of technological cultures: on the inevitable, necessary, and problematic vulnerability of innovating societies;
• Industrial innovation and research cultures: with an historical perspective on the interactions between industrial and university research systems.
To study innovative cultures--and innovations in their symbolic and practical contexts--certain methodological approaches are called for. An interdisciplinary combination of ethnographic research, historical analysis, and discourse analysis of scientific and political texts in a comparative project design will be found in many projects.

The second main question concerns issues of globalization and development. In a globalizing world, transnational connections are increasingly important for the way social phenomena take shape locally, while also giving rise to new dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, cultural configurations, hybrid identities, transnational social and political formations, and processes of economic structuring and restructuring that link disparate areas of the globe. The basic tenet of research conducted in the GDI is that it is impossible to understand what is happening in developing countries without a focus on how globalization trends are affecting and interconnecting different areas of the globe while marginalizing others. Research is conducted from a social science perspective, combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches and is focused on developing countries and the transnational connections that exist between Global North and South and within the global South.

Core areas of interest are:

• Transnational migration: Migrants maintain connections with their countries of origin. At the same time they forge new relations in the countries where they pass through and move to. How do the norms underlying social relationships change in a transnational context? What are the implications for different family members when families are split up due to migration? How are families reconstituted, and how are gender and generational roles redefined?
• Environment and indigenous populations: Indigenous populations living in resource rich environments often find themselves caught between powerful, transnational resource extraction companies and environmental conservation organizations with normative ideas of what is nature and who should be allowed to live in it. How do indigenous populations claims rights to land and other resources vis-à-vis powerful transnational players? What alliances do they build, and what national and transnational advocacy networks do they form? How are their discourses and strategies affected by environmental protection platforms, largely initiated in the Global North?
• Transnational health care and HIV/AIDS: Health care and the fight against HIV/AIDS in developing countries can only be adequately understood when taking into account the global dimensions and transnational links between actors: victims and their communities, clinics, government departments, church groups, volunteers, international NGOs, transnational pharmaceutical companies, multilateral organizations. What is the impact of transnational connections that exist between the Global North and South and within the Global South? Why do the affluent generally have access to healthcare, while the poor are still largely excluded?
• Historical perspectives on development: A historical perspective on 'development' can shed light on the role of transnational actors in forging a discourse on development. In particular two aspects are focused upon. First, the formation of transnational civil society movements and non-governmental organizations in the nineteenth century and how these forged transnational 'epistemic communities' on global issues like peace, poverty and slavery. The way these global issues have been framed has influenced the conceptualization of 'development' in the Global North. A second focus is on how international development policy has historically conceptualized and related development with access to science and technology. How is the history of the concept of development related to global networks of science and technology? What role historically has science and technology played in development?

Candidates with an interest in any of the above themes are invited to submit a proposal for a PhD project. Examples of proposals that would fit this programme are listed below. You are encouraged to apply to one of the projects listed, or to formulate your own proposal closely related to one of the listed examples.

Project 1: Televisual spill-over: Border regions, transnational infrastructures, and mediated identity formation in the early days of European television Contact person: dr. A. Fickers

Project 2: Risk Cultures in Coastal Engineering Contact person: prof. dr. ir. W. Bijker

Project 3: Risk Governance in Technological Culture Contact person: prof. dr. ir. W. Bijker

Project 4: Constructing vulnerability: Standards, rules and protocols in high-risk technological practices Contact person: prof. dr. ir. W. Bijker

Project 5: Exnovation of cultures of resilience Contact person: prof. dr. ir. W. Bijker

Project 6: Science, technology, and policy in ecological networks Contact person: prof. dr. ir. W. Bijker

Project 7: Customize your monitor Contact person: dr. J. Wachelder

Project 8: Technological urbanism and knowledge production Contact person: dr. B. van Heur

Project 9: Digital technologies and the everyday life of scholars Contact person: prof. dr. S. Wyatt

Project 10: The Interlacement of technology, organization and religion in innovation in health care Contact person: prof. dr. M. Verkerk

Project 11: Mediating social relationships in transnational migrant networks: the role of information and communication technologies Contact person: prof. dr. V. Mazzucato

Project 12: Transnational migrant networks and flows Contact person: prof. dr. V. Mazzucato