Hidden Injustice and Anti-Science

  • Laurel Smith-Doerr University of Massachusetts
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.381
Keywords: anti-science, hidden injustice, science and technology studies, organizations

Abstract

This essay responds to the five articles on Anti-Science in this journal issue by discussing a significant theme identified across all of them: hidden injustice. Some of the ways that injustice is hidden by organizational forces related to anti-science are identified. In response, the essay points to the need for empirical data on anti-science policies, a symmetric approach to anti-science contexts, and institutional analysis of anti-science power imbalances. Additionally, a reflexive question about whether anti-science analysis in STS leads the field toward racial justice is raised. The essay calls for further organizational level research with a critical STS lens to uncover hidden injustice.

Author Biography

Laurel Smith-Doerr, University of Massachusetts

Laurel Smith-Doerr is Professor of Sociology at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She currently serves as Chair of the Science, Knowledge, and Technology section of the American Sociological Association. In 2020 she is a Fulbright Scholar in Hamburg, conducting research on AI knowledge production, equity, and recruitment in the tech workforce in the US and Germany.

References

Benjamin, Ruha, Editor. 2019a. Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Benjamin, Ruha. 2019b. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Cambridge: Polity.

Collins, Patricia Hill. 2010. “The new politics of community.” American Sociological Review 75 (1): 7-30.

Du Bois, W.E.B. 1998 [1935]. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880. New York: Free Press.

Kinchy, Abby J. and Daniel Lee Kleinman. 2005. “Democratizing Science, Debating Values: New Approaches to ‘Politicized’ Science under the Bush Administration,” Dissent 52(3): 54-62.

Smith-Doerr, Laurel, Sharla Alegria, and Timothy Sacco 2017. How Diversity Matters in the US Science and Engineering Workforce: A Critical Review Considering Integration in Teams, Fields, and Organizational Contexts. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 3: 139-153.

Smith-Doerr, Laurel, Sharla Alegria, Kaye Husbands Fealing, Debra Fitzpatrick, and Donald Tomaskovic-Devey. 2019. “Gender Pay Gaps in US Federal Science Agencies: An Organizational Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 125 (2): 1-43.

Vaughan, Diane. 1996. The Challenger launch decision: Risky technology, culture and deviance at NASA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Published
08 Jan 2020
Issue
Vol. 6 (2020)
Section
Thematic Collections

Copyright (c) 2020 Laurel Smith-Doerr

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