Toward a Trans-Asian Science & Technology Studies (STS)

An International Symposium on Mar. 6, 2009, jointly sponsored by the Asia Research Institute (ARI) and the STS Research Cluster of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), National University of Singapore, with support from the NUS Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (DHSS)

 

Speakers:

• Dr. Itty Abraham, University of Texas at Austin
  

• Dr. John DiMoia, NUS (FASS)
  

• Dr. Sean Lei, Academia Sinica, Taipei
  

• Dr. Govindan Parayil, United Nations University Tokyo
  

• Dr. Kapil Raj, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
  

• Dr. Togo Tsukuhara, University of Kobe
  

• Dr. V.V. Krishna, JNU and NUS (ARI)

  Introduction: Dr. Gregory Clancey, NUS (FASS and ARI)
  Concluding Remarks: Dr. Prasenjit Duara, NUS (FASS and DHSS)

Over the past three years the National University of Singapore (NUS) has been building an STS (Science, Technology, and Society) Research Cluster, the first of it kind in Southeast Asia.  There has for some time been a vibrant community of STS scholars in South Asia (especially India), and our colleagues in East Asia (especially in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan) have recently formed an “East Asian STS Network”, with its own journal, in an effort to coordinate diverse national research programs.  It strikes us that the time is right to begin a discussion, among colleagues from Asia or based in Asia, about what it means to “do” STS across our diverse societies and regions.    

A discussion on “Asian STS” (whether it exists, is possible, is a worthwhile framework, etc.) has actually begun among our colleagues in East Asia, and especially in the pages of the start-up journal East Asian Science, Technology, and Society (EASTS).  In January of 2009, Singapore hosted an EASTS-sponsored workshop on “Emergent Science & Technology Studies in Southeast Asia”, the first of its kind for this region. The current symposium builds on this initiative by extending the conversation across a wider geographic arc, i.e. bringing in select colleagues from South Asia and East Asia.  It makes good sense to have this initial conversation in Singapore, given that we have STS scholars here with interests, commitments, and connections in all three regions (East, South, and Southeast Asia), as well as farther abroad. 

We have asked each of our participants to reflect on one or more of the following inter-related themes:

1. How the Western program of STS has (and has not) translated to Asia, and what local/national traditions on this side of the world (as well as other imported programs) have risen to meet, join, change, or even resist it.  

2. What particular characteristics Asian societies and/or academic research programs have or can contribute to STS scholarship generally, and in what manner or frame does this contribution occur. 

3. To what extent we can speak of STS as a ‘global’ research program, paralleling the perceived globalization of technoscience.

4. What differences can be traced between the practice, theory, and ‘ethnography’ of STS across the regions of East, South, and Southeast Asia, as well as possible convergences.   

5. How the rise and recent expansion of Asian university systems, particularly in the scientific, medical, and engineering fields, effects prospects for a parallel rise in scholarship on the social/cultural/political effects of technoscience. 

6. How our individual, post-colonial commitments to multi-sited scholarship, involving  Western as well as Asian sites, affect our research programs for good and ill.

7. How we ensure that the critical element historically associated with STS scholarship remains operative and vital within our various local settings.

8. Identifying some of the needs, theoretical and institutional, in extending and deepening the significance of this scholarly program in Asia. 

Every paper will not cover all these themes, and there may be topics in between which will surface as well.  Some degree of personal reflection, and reference to one’s own research program(s) and commitments will add to our joint discussion. Each participant will give a 20-minute paper, followed by general discussion.  There will be a summary discussion at the end of the day among all participants and the audience.  The papers will subsequently be collected and published as a special issue of the Sage journal Science, Technology, and Society