scholarly journals On the Social Shaping of Quantum Technologies: An Analysis of Emerging Expectations Through Grant Proposals from 2002–2020

Minerva ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara M. Roberson
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Emerging Technology ◽  
Research Grants ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Grant Proposals ◽  
Quantum Science ◽  
Quantum Technology ◽  
Research Funder

AbstractThe term ‘quantum technology’ was first popularised by an Australian physicist in the mid-1990s. These technologies make use of the properties of quantum physics and are being developed and invested across the world, yet this emerging technology is understudied in science and technology studies. This article investigates the emergence of the notion of ‘quantum technologies’ and examines the expectations shaping this field through an analysis of research grants funded by a national research funder, the Australian Research Council between 2002 and 2020. I examine how ‘quantum technology’ and ‘quantum computing’ have come to dominate claims and expectations surrounding research in quantum science. These expectations do more than inform the scientific goals of the field. They also provide an overarching, uniting rhetoric for individual projects and people and shape the uses imagined for quantum technologies. This analysis shows how claims for this emerging technology draw on ‘breakthrough’ metaphors to engage researchers and marshal investment and concludes by highlighting the need for increased clarity regarding expectations for quantum technologies.

scholarly journals From Affect to Action: Choices in Attending to Disconcertment in Interdisciplinary Collaborations

2020 ◽  
pp. 016224392097408
Author(s):  
Mareike Smolka ◽  
Erik Fisher ◽  
Alexandra Hausstein
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
The Body ◽  
Affective Labor ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaborations ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
The Difference

Reports from integrative researchers who have followed calls for sociotechnical integration emphasize that the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration to inflect the social shaping of technoscience is often constrained by their liminal position. Integrative researchers tend to be positioned as either adversarial outsiders or co-opted insiders. In an attempt to navigate these dynamics, we show that attending to affective disturbances can open up possibilities for productive engagements across disciplinary divides. Drawing on the work of Helen Verran, we analyze “disconcertment” in three sociotechnical integration research studies. We develop a heuristic that weaves together disconcertment, affective labor, and responsivity to analyze the role of the body in interdisciplinary collaborations. We draw out how bodies do affective labor when generating responsivity between collaborators in moments of disconcertment. Responsive bodies can function as sensors, sources, and processors of disconcerting experiences of difference. We further show how attending to disconcertment can stimulate methodological choices to recognize, amplify, or minimize the difference between collaborators. Although these choices are context-dependent, each one examined generates responsivity that supports collaborators to readjust the technical in terms of the social. This analysis contributes to science and technology studies scholarship on the role of affect in successes and failures of interdisciplinary collaboration.

WOMEN IN BLOCKCHAIN: DISCOURSE & PRACTICE IN THE CO-CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie A. Frizzo-Barker
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Emerging Technology ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Value Transfer ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Discourse Practice

Blockchain is an emerging technology characterized by peer-to-peer value transfer, decentralization, and democratic ideals of consensus. It also has a stark gender problem, with women representing just 14% of those participating in the space. This paper is based on 30 semi-structured interviews with women who work in blockchain, and participant observation at 17 blockchain meetups and conferences. The gendered discourses and practices surrounding blockchain events provide a productive site for examining the social construction of technologies, and more specifically the gendered social shaping of technologies. I use the theoretical lens of technofeminism, which strikes a balance between technophilia and technophobia, to explore the complex ways in which women’s everyday lives and technological change interrelate in the age of digitization. This co-construction approach challenges the prevailing discourses of technologies like blockchain as neutral and value-free. The goal of my study is not to ask or answer questions such as, “why aren’t there more women in blockchain?” or “how can we attract more women into blockchain?” Rather, I examine the gendered sociotechnical relations surrounding blockchain, as exemplified by discourses and practices at meetups and conferences. For instance, ‘by women, for women’ blockchain meetups serve as important spaces of resistance and support, whereas ‘women in blockchain’ panels at blockchain conferences ring hollow as ‘inclusive’ gestures, instead highlighting the exclusive culture at play. My findings explore how women’s identities and experiences are both enabled and constrained, often simultaneously, through participation in the blockchain space.

scholarly journals Method Matters in the Social Study of Technology: Investigating the Biographies of Artifacts and Practices

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 2-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sampsa Hyysalo ◽  
Neil Pollock ◽  
Robin Alun Williams
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Social Study ◽  
Technology Research ◽  
Social Shaping Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
Methodological Guidelines

Science and Technology Studies understandings of technological change are at odds with its own dominant research designs and methodological guidelines. A key insight from the social shaping of technology research, for instance, has been that new technologies are formed in multiple interlinked settings, by many different groups of actors over long periods of time. Nonetheless, common research designs have not kept pace with these conceptual advances, continuing instead to resort to either intensive localised ethnographic engagements or extensive historical studies, both of which can generate only partial and limited accounts of the processes they suggest are at playThere has, however, been increasing interest in extending current methodological and analytical approaches through longitudinal and multi-site research templates, which include the emerging ‘biographies of artifacts and practices’ (BOAP) framework. Since its onset in the 1990s, there are now numerous exemplifications of the BOAP approach. This paper outlines its basic rationale and principles, and its significant variations, and discusses its contribution to STS understandings of innovation, especially user-led innovation. We finish by arguing that if STS is to continue to provide insight around innovation this will require a reconceptualisation of research design, to move from simple ‘snap shot’ studies to the linking together of ‘a string of investigations’.

“Tradition,” Vernacularism, and Learning to Be a Folk Musician With Social Media

2020 ◽  
pp. 442-466
Author(s):  
Simon Keegan-Phipps ◽  
Lucy Wright
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping

This chapter considers the role of social media (broadly conceived) in the learning experiences of folk musicians in the Anglophone West. The chapter draws on the findings of the Digital Folk project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), and begins by summarizing and problematizing the nature of learning as a concept in the folk music context. It briefly explicates the instructive, appropriative, and locative impacts of digital media for folk music learning before exploring in detail two case studies of folk-oriented social media: (1) the phenomenon of abc notation as a transmissive media and (2) the Mudcat Café website as an example of the folk-oriented discussion forum. These case studies are shown to exemplify and illuminate the constructs of traditional transmission and vernacularism as significant influences on the social shaping and deployment of folk-related media technologies. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the need to understand the musical learning process as a culturally performative act and to recognize online learning mechanisms as sites for the (re)negotiation of musical, cultural, local, and personal identities.

scholarly journals Quantum Physics Literacy Aimed at K12 and the General Public

Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Caterina Foti ◽  
Daria Anttila ◽  
Sabrina Maniscalco ◽  
Maria Luisa Chiofalo
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
General Public ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Physics Teaching ◽  
Physics Students ◽  
Formidable Challenge ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Quantum Phenomena ◽  
Smart Community ◽  
Quantum Science

Educating K12 students and general public in quantum physics represents an evitable must no longer since quantum technologies are going to revolutionize our lives. Quantum literacy is a formidable challenge and an extraordinary opportunity for a massive cultural uplift, where citizens learn how to engender creativity and practice a new way of thinking, essential for smart community building. Scientific thinking hinges on analyzing facts and creating understanding, and it is then formulated with the dense mathematical language for later fact checking. Within classical physics, learners’ intuition may in principle be educated via classroom demonstrations of everyday-life phenomena. Their understanding can even be framed with the mathematics suited to their instruction degree. For quantum physics, on the contrary, we have no experience of quantum phenomena and the required mathematics is beyond non-expert reach. Therefore, educating intuition needs imagination. Without rooting to experiments and some degree of formal framing, educators face the risk to provide only evanescent tales, often misled, while resorting to familiar analogies. Here, we report on the realization of QPlayLearn, an online platform conceived to explicitly address challenges and opportunities of massive quantum literacy. QPlayLearn’s mission is to provide multilevel education on quantum science and technologies to anyone, regardless of age and background. To this aim, innovative interactive tools enhance the learning process effectiveness, fun, and accessibility, while remaining grounded on scientific correctness. Examples are games for basic quantum physics teaching, on-purpose designed animations, and easy-to-understand explanations on terminology and concepts by global experts. As a strategy for massive cultural change, QPlayLearn offers diversified content for different target groups, from primary school all the way to university physics students. It is addressed also to companies wishing to understand the potential of the emergent quantum industry, journalists, and policymakers needing to seize what quantum technologies are about, as well as all quantum science enthusiasts.

Values and culture in the social shaping of the future

2011 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reimon Bachika ◽  
Markus S Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Social Settings ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Social Shaping ◽  
Globalized World

This article introduces the Current Sociology monograph issue on Values and Culture. It discusses sociology’s renewed interest in values and the general approach on which the contributors converge despite diverse theoretical backgrounds, areas of focus and social settings. It explains how the studies in this publication contribute to the understanding of the formation and operation of values on micro, meso and macro levels in an increasingly globalized world.

Marriage Money: The Social Shaping of Money in Marriage and Banking

1999 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Treas ◽  
Supriya Singh
Keyword(s):  
The Social ◽  
Social Shaping
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