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- Convenors:
-
Makoto Takahashi
(VU Amsterdam)
Yelena Gluzman (University of Alberta)
Sjamme van de Voort (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Christianne Blijleven (Athena Institute)
Shachi Mokashi (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Laura Paschedag (Athena Institute, Vrije Universteit Amsterdam (VU))
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- Format:
- Making & Doing
- Location:
- Theater 5, NU Building
- Start time:
- 17 July, 2024 at
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
The Making and Doing program includes a number of films, which will be screened in four parallel theaters on Wednesday afternoon. This is the program for one of those theaters.
Long Abstract:
The films and their times are as follows:
12:00-13:00 - On the subject of tests: rehearsing the examination
13:00-14:00 - Making and doing STS through film: gene drive mosquitoes
The STS Making and Doing Program aims to give visibility to scholarship that relates to our fields of study and action in generative ways, without adhering to the dominant image of impact. It highlights scholarly practices for producing and expressing STS knowledge and expertise that extend beyond the academic paper or book. Projects in STS making & doing provide equal attention to practices of knowledge expression and knowledge travel as integral to experimental practices of knowledge production. By increasing the extent to which participants learn from one another about practices they have developed and enacted, the initiative seeks to foster flows of STS scholarship beyond the field and expand the modes of STS knowledge production.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This video can either be installed as a looping installation or as video/film in a classroom or theatre.
Paper long abstract:
'Rehearsing the Examination' is an artistic research film from a multimedia project entitled On Intelligence Tests: Psychological Objects and Their Subjects which employs novel creative approaches to study the material and performative facets of a charismatic and influential scientific object, the 20th century intelligence test kit. In 'Rehearsing the Examination' (2021), eight actors rehearse and perform a selection of intelligence test kits. By re-contextualising the testing procedure in a theatrical space, the video recasts the test examiner (usually a licensed psychologist) as an actor, the test as a prop, and the testing room as a black box theatre, and therefore re-frames intelligence testing as a theatrical performance. In the film, the actors determine what tone, affect and costuming they find appropriate for playing the examiner, and their performances of this role evidence the decision-making process that goes into the professional performance of the examiner. The test manuals themselves have complex understanding of the role of the examiner, who is figured as a hybrid educator-clinician-scientist. By staging the tests as if they are performances, this artistic research enquires into how a professional test examiner is asked to perform the tests and, at the same time, how the subject of the test is at once a participant and observer of the performance. Therein, it also queries the possibility standardising interpersonal encounters and wonders about the limits of what a good, or even good enough, performance of a test is such that the results are fair and valid.
Paper short abstract:
Professor Sarah Hartley (University of Exeter), Dr Rob Smith (University of Edinburgh), and Dr Aleksandra Stelmach (University of Exeter)
Paper long abstract:
In this session, we screen our second (low-budget) documentary that draws on and informs our qualitative research, and then facilitate discussion on doing STS through film.In 2023, we shot a short documentary film on the governance of gene drive mosquitos in Uganda. We found very few people talking about this genetic technology with most conversations occurring in elite circles, little publicly available information, and a focus on educating communities around the insectary for consent. This situation starkly juxtaposes elite statements inferring that ‘Africans will decide’. Chanan (2007) argues “documentary addresses the viewer primarily as a citizen, a member of civil society and participant in the public sphere”. As such, it is well-aligned with STS ways of making and doing. Our goal was to stimulate debate about technological futures to empower people to develop opinions and debate these futures. We contextualised gene drive mosquitoes by shooting in Uganda, interviewing only Ugandans, and getting their input into the film’s design. We drew on people from our focus group and interview research to hear their voices, aspirations, hopes, and fears, and show how they make sense of the technology and wrestle with it. But documentaries also make claims of truthfulness and are expected to be fair and honest. As critical STS scholars, we are aware of how challenging these claims and expectations are to create. We faced difficult decisions about how to convey knowledge, manage tensions between exposing power imbalances and providing neutrality, and navigate the complexities related to our own positionality.