dests

Vortrag
Sheila Jasanoff (Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University)

June 18, 2008, 6:15 pm
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
Advokatenweg 36, 06114 Halle
Main Seminar Room

Abstract
I start by laying out my cultural argument that the US policy system favors a “view from nowhere” objectivity — an epistemic position that is premised on the possibility of washing out all standpoints. After briefly connecting this preference to features of US political culture, I explain how that “view from nowhere” is accomplished at several different sites of practice, all of which have to function in harmony in order to produce a specific meaning of objectivity. The sites I consider are: (a) administrative practices of rulemaking; (b) expert advice and peer review; (c) courts and legal boundaries; and (d) globalization of US administrative assumptions (e.g., at the EU and through the WTO). These are treated as independent sites of practice, governed by their own rules, and connected mainly by the shared commitment to producing a certain form of objectivity.

Weiter Informationen finden Sie auf der Website des Max-Planck-Instituts.

ENTFÄLLT AUS GESUNDHEITLICHEN GRÜNDEN

Vortrag und Diskussion
Prof. Dr. ir. Wiebe Bijker (Department of Technology & Society Studies, Maastricht University, NL)

June 10, 2008, 4.15 pm
MPI for Social Anthropology and Seminar for Social Anthropology, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle
Seminar Room, Seminar für Ethnologie, Reichardtstr.11, Halle

Abstract
Bijker’s research focuses on the relation between technology, society, and science. Since the 1990’s political and normative issues have been central in Bijker’s research. These are being studied in a variety of empirical domains: nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, ICT, gender and technology, public health policies, science & technology for developing nations, sustainable agriculture, public participation experiments, architecture and planning. His most recent work relates to issues of vulnerability in a technological culture — including the fundamental need for some vulnerability in an innovating society. Bijker chaired the Health Council’s committee on risks and benefits of nanotechnologies; this advice was adopted by the Dutch government and forms the core of the Dutch government’s vision on nanotechnologies.

Hier finden Sie eine Beschreibung des Vortragsthemas.

interdisciplinary international conference

October 30-31, 2008
Darmstadt University of Technology

Abstract
Graduate School „Topology of Technology“ at Darmstadt University of Technology is organizing an international conference on the spatial dimensions of past and current technologies.

Presently (re-)shaping social life as well as economics and science, the effects of globalization are in their turn – and in manifold ways – related to and in fact highly dependent on technology. The first International Conference of the DFG-post graduate school “Topologies of Technology” seeks to explore in greater detail and from a delibarately interdisciplinary angle the role(s) and function(s) of world-embracing information and communication technologies, transport and computing facilities in the global age.

The panels which will be at the core of the conference are centered around four keynotes dealing with the technological dimensions of globalization (Dr. Sattelberger, head of HR, Deutsche Telekom), with the economic and financial significance of globalization (Dr. Reinhard Blomert, Chief Editor “Leviathan”), with the relationship between globalization and science (Prof. J.-D. Wörner, CEO of the German Aerospace Center), and with the spatial dimensions of urban environments in a global context (Prof. J. Hosagrahar, Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, Columbia University). The conference will conclude with a panel discussion of its main theme.

Weitere Informationen finden Sie auf der Website zur Tagung.

eröffnungsvortrag zum workshop “ivf as global form”

Sarah Franklin (BIOS-Centre, London School of Economics)

Thursday, June 12, 2008, 6.15 pm
Institut for European Ethnology Berlin
Mohrenstraße 40/41, Raum 311, 10117 Berlin

Abstract
The 30th birthday of Louise Brown provides an important occasion to revisit the cultural legacy of IVF - a technique that has gone from being novel, threatening and revolutionary to being normal, unremarkable and ubiquitous in a relatively short period of time. Practised worldwide, and allegedly responsible for as much as 3% of the birthrate in some countries, IVF has proven to be a popular and successful technique, resulting in the births of more than 5 million children. But how do we assess the cultural legacy of IVF in terms of how we model the relationship between technological innovation and social change? While the stigma of reproduction ‘by design’ more commonly attaches to PGD, it is arguably IVF that has done more to change ideas about kinship, reproduction and genealogy than any other form of
assisted conception. In a nutshell, ‘the facts of life’ have become redesignable. The somewhat unexpected legacy of IVF, in the form of the biological reserve of stored human embryos now available for stem cell research, is but one measure of the as-yet ill-defined question of the true extent to which IVF has altered not only ‘who we think we are’ but ‘who we think we might become’ in the future.

Informationen zum Votrag und zum Workshop “IVF as Global Form” finden Sie auf der Website des SFB 640.

Vortrag im Rahmen des Instituts-Colloquiums
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Gunther Teubner
(Universität Frankfurt und London School of Economics; z. Zt. Fellow am Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin)

Mittwoch, 28. Mai 2008, 18:00-20:00 Uhr
Institut für Soziologie, Technische Universität Berlin
Raum P 242 im Zentrum für Technik und Gesellschaft (ZTG),
Hardenbergstr. 36 A, 10623 Berlin, Altes Physikgebäude

Nähere Informationen können bei Professor Dr. Arnold Windeler eingeholt werden:
Email: Arnold.Windeler@TU-Berlin.de, Tel: 314-79824

Hier finden Sie die offizielle Ankündigung des Vortrags.

Nachwuchstagung

16. und 17. Oktober 2008
Zentrum Technik und Gesellschaft der Technischen Universität Berlin

Abstract
Zur Diskussion von Forschungs- und Qualifikationsarbeiten sowie zur Vernetzung von jungen Forschenden aus dem Bereich der sozialwissenschaftlichen Technikforschung veranstaltet der Arbeitskreis „Politik & Technik“ der DVPW gemeinsam mit der Sektion „Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung“ der DGS eine themenoffene Nachwuchstagung.

Die Tagung wird am 16. und 17. Oktober 2008 am Zentrum Technik und Gesellschaft der Technischen Universität Berlin stattfinden. Abstracts können bis zum 30. Juni 2008 eingereicht werden bei Jan-Peter Voß. Nähere Informationen finden sich im call for papers.

international workshop

12th to 14th of June 2008
Humboldt-University Berlin, Institute of European Ethnology and Collaborative Research Centre SFB 640 “Changing Representations of Social Order – Intercultural and Intertemporal Comparisons”

Abstract
The workshop “IVF as Global Form - Ethnographic Knowledge and the Globalization of Reproductive Technologies” uses the 30th anniversary of the birth of Louise Joy Brown as an opportunity to reflect on the world encompassing spread of so called assisting reproductive technologies, on the emerging transnationalisation of reproduction, and on the diversity of social, ethical, economical, and political forms which accompany reproductive technologies in different contexts of appropriation. The workshop brings together anthropologists, STS-researchers and ethnographers, who have researched reproductive technologies in diverse settings such as Germany, Sri Lanka, India, Spain, Israel, Dubai, Turkey, Norway and Switzerland, in gay and heteronormative surroundings, in public and private hospitals and along the edges of affluence that separate East and West, North and South. Its focus is not so much directed on comparison as such as on the question, how dense and detailed ethnographic knowledge, interactively produced in very different situations and regions, mobilized by multi sited research and re-linked by our coming together, can enhance the understanding of the globalisation of biomedical technologies and reinvigorate the analysis of global forms. The workshop is organized by a team of researchers with Stefan Beck and Michi Knecht as principal investigators. Since three years, the team has been investigating the implications of reproductive technologies in Istanbul/Turkey and Berlin/Germany with regards to kinship/relatedness, knowledge politics and transnationalisation - as well as with a view on long term developments. The opening keynote for the workshop will be given by Sarah Franklin, LSE London.

Weiter Informationen zum Workshop finden Sie auf der Website des SFB 640.