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- Convenors:
-
Claudia Gertraud Schwarz
(Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences)
Lee Vinsel (Virginia Tech)
Julie Sascia Mewes (TU Chemnitz MfN Berlin)
Ingmar Lippert (Goethe University Frankfurt)
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- Format:
- Combined Format Open Panel
Short Abstract:
The label #WeDoSTS stands for transformative ways of embodying radical reflexivity and scientific integrity in STS, so that everyone can flourish in our field. This panel welcomes contributions and activities that study and/or situate themselves within the ongoing #WeDoSTS movement.
Long Abstract:
When the debate around #MeTooSTS/#WeDoSTS broke through the veil of silence via social media in November 2022, it could no longer be denied: STS, just as society at large, is in urgent need of transformation to become livable for all its members. The #WeDoSTS label serves as a continuous call for innovative enactments of radical reflexivity and scientific integrity that are committed to doing STS accountably. #WeDoSTS is designed to move from reports of isolated cases of sexual harassment, bullying, discrimination, and abuses of power into concrete political and institutional reform to ensure lasting societal transformations.
This panel is about finding out more about the multiple “we’s” and practices in #WeDoSTS and similar movements: who are we, what do we care about, how do we embody the change we wish to see, and how can we align our visions and actions towards building a better STS for ourselves and the ones to come?
We look forward to contributions and activities that feel in kinship with or as part of the #WeDoSTS movement. These could be coming from, amongst others, STS associations working on codes of conduct and best practices, self-organized student groups changing the culture in STS departments, or survivor-led restorative/transformative justice processes to repair interpersonal harm in our community. The panel is equally open to scholarship on #WeDoSTS and similar movements. We invite contributors to explore how intersecting identities shape our narratives, struggles, and strategies for societal transformations. We particularly welcome experiential and reflexive methodologies in collective social science research as well as experimental formats that draw on genre-defying, artistic, or even bizarre means to engender positive change. We are committed (and you can hold us accountable) to create an open and safe space for courageous sharing of survivor stories, on-site activism, and unexpected expressions.
Accepted contributions:
Session 1Quentin Louis
Short abstract:
Toxicity and abuse are ubiquitous in our contemporary societies. Through stories of abuse in STS and elsewhere that I have experienced or been witness to, I try to tell what STS can learn from others and how its constructivist stance can make us better at institutioning.
Long abstract:
Toxicity and abuse permeate our contemporary social spaces. From interpersonal harm to generational trauma, to attachment issues and the loneliness epidemic, we all know people who have been abused. If we have not actively cut links with abusers – which is not necessarily a bad thing, as they also do need help – we live along them in our social circles. That STS can be a place of abuse is therefore no surprise, but becomes a reality check for a discipline so concerned with ‘the good’. I like to think of abuse in the framework of contemporary psychotherapy and cognitive anthropology broadly understood. After a general introduction regarding our need as humans to connect and feel understood, I will briefly describe 3+1 spaces (one of them in STS) where I have experienced or noticed abuse first hand. I aim to show the continuities and similarities between spaces and take seven conclusions from these experiences which I actively now try to implement in the collectives that I engage in. I suggest that STS can learn from psychotherapy and cognitive anthropology as abuse is now well understood there and that it can in turn provide the world with a worldview that is consistent with our knowledge of how abuse comes about and to help us be better builders. For a constructivist discipline, perhaps this is fair trade.
Allison Loconto (INRAE, Gustave Eiffel University) Laura Kesore (LISIS - UGE, Paris)
Long abstract:
Relational theories of society focus on the way in which society is recreated in each encounter. STS scholars often work with these relational approaches when studying assemblages of experts, citizens and professionals. Only recently have STS scholars begun to turn their reflexive and relational understanding of social construction to the places where the social sciences (including STS) are made. We aim to add to this body of research, and the #WeDoSTS movement, by exploring spaces of encounter where the authors have witnessed and experienced bullying and other forms of unprofessional behaviour. Rather than focusing on the situations of abuse, this paper explores the measures taken by individuals and organizations to respond to the instances and to ensure that new situations do not reproduce the abusive relations. Our analysis reflects upon the materiality of each situation and the new rules of exchange that have been introduced in the situations. We draw lessons from the vibrant debates around “equity, diversity and inclusion”, from the ‘third-sector of research’ and responsible research and innovation. Our contribution aims to analyse the diversity of ways that social sciences are done in constructive ways and offer ideas for how we might do STS differently.
Lee Vinsel (Virginia Tech)
Short abstract:
This talk will explore one framework for thinking about academic bullying, examining both its promises for increasing justice and its potential limits.
Long abstract:
In this talk, I will outline the framework of my Virginia Tech colleague Bryan Hanson's training program "Disrupting Academic Bullying," which seeks to offer tools to challenge forms of emotional and other forms of abuse in academic programs. As one graduate educator at Virginia Tech put it, "Academic bullying manifests itself in many different ways and can include intimidation, humiliation, belittlement, embarrassment and undermining one’s authority." Frameworks of academic bullying can provide essential tools for conceptualizing hardships you or others are facing and providing potential avenues for collective action. There are, however, also clear limits to such frameworks. Most of all, while we can think about social structures that support and enable people to be brave, speaking up and calling out bullies requires even people with very secure jobs to be brave, and, too often, the virtue of bravery appears to be in short supply.
Claudia Gertraud Schwarz (Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences)
Short abstract:
I tell you about my journey as an activist in STS advocating for institutional reform to support survivors facing harassment and discrimination. This journey is made of dynamic, transformative movements between individual and collective identities, full of challenges and empowerment.
Long abstract:
In this presentation, I reflect on my journey as an activist in STS to create (inter)personal healing, public awareness, and institutional reform to support survivors and vulnerable community members facing (sexualized) harassment, discrimination, and abuses of power. I narrate this journey as a series of precarious and empowering movements between multiple me’s and we’s. With the simultaneous creation of the hashtag pair #MeTooSTS/#WeDoSTS I aimed to contribute to the existing #MeToo movement and to leverage its momentum to initiate a reflexive socio-scientific movement within STS. #WeDoSTS cares about addressing and improving working conditions in the field by emphasizing integrity, safety, and fairness. I will perform several artistic vignettes to demonstrate and get feedback to the various movements between individual and collective identities I experienced on this journey. And I will explore the potential of transformative justice processes in/for scientific communities. Transformative justice entails creating safe community spaces for both survivors and those responsible for harm, moving out of fixed victim-perpetrator roles. The framework goes beyond merely repairing interpersonal relationships to generate knowledge that can change system dynamics. Transformative justice in the context of #MeTooSTS/#WeDoSTS could assist our community to rise above polarization, victim blaming, and the divisive nature of cancel culture, which is still prevalent within the #MeToo movement. Transformative justice for #MeTooSTS survivors could thus not just help to change STS for the better but to positively contribute to progressive societal movements.