Framing Social Theory

Abstract

Starting from the Latourian first definition of technoscience, the chapter follows the evolution of this concept within the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). This offers the occasion to discuss some crucial distinctions – such as science and technology, science and society, human and not human – that are usually assumed by social sciences as an implicit starting point for their analysis. Technoscience rather invites to rethink their approach in terms of “heterogeneous networks” in which actors and their relationships cannot be separated being the first constantly (ri)created by the second, and vice versa. Technoscience, in addition, recalls the concept of “hybrids”, i.e. the proliferation in post-modern societies of entities of which it is impossible to say which category they belong to. In that way technoscience results to fully engaged in the reflection on human identity problem, thus crossing many other sociological issues, some of which are discussed in other chapters of this book. Moreover, the theoretical perspective implied by technoscience also provides the background on which the problem of power can be addressed in a new way, suggesting the opportunity to consider inequalities as a “matter of concern” or even a “matter of care” instead of a “matter of thing”.

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