The Nature of Feminist Science Studies

In this special issue of RFR/DRF, entitled 'The Nature of Feminist Studies,' we are pleased to include papers by authors writing in emerging area of feminist social studies of and technology (STS). Two interrelated themes guide issue: first, a critical exploration of status of nature and/or physical world within particular scientific contexts and second, reflections on recent feminist theorizing about STS. The use of double-entendre introducing this issue is meant to provoke discussion about nature of differences that are said to define specifically feminist approaches within interdisciplinary field of STS. Of particular interest to us were papers that explored social relations in which and technology are embedded, as well as possible worlds that and technology bring forth. The issue was conceived from our reflections on Emma Whelan's (2001) overview of field in which she concluded that there is a lack of cross-fertilization between feminist and mainstream studies. Although there is no single origin story that unites mainstream STS, impact of critical studies over past three decades is evident in unsettling of boundaries between, for example: inside/outside (of science), science/social, natural/cultural, and objective/subjective to name just a few. Earlier boundary work between natural and social sciences created distinctions between those who studied non-human objects and those who focused on interpretive subjects, what Bruno Latour (1991) called soft social periphery rather than hard, natural center. But as he noted, nature is not waiting like a good parent to see who figures it out, [N]ature waits to be fleshed out and decided upon by struggling collective (Latour, 1991, p. 9). Latour has argued that of texts and natural both deal with traces; historian deals with archives and clues while scientist in interprets instruments, fossils, faint parchments and polls (1991, p. 10). Moreover, Ian Hacking (1983) has shown that uniqueness of sciences is their interference with nature a perspective shared by Karin Knorr-Cetina (1995) who proposes that we expand reach of the lab to use it more as a theoretical notion, which involves both configuration of subjects and objects. Her reconfiguration model extends notion of lab, calling it a process of upgrading social order. However, one of nagging questions more closely associated with feminist STS is: what makes some translations (of nature, culture, society) more durable, stable and oppressive than others? (Haraway, 1996) Indeed Donna Haraway has shown that many studies scholars treat gender and race as preformed, preconstituted categories; despite heated debates in all fields about how all entities are constituted in of knowledge production, not before action starts (1996, p. 433). She then asks: how do we document unequal social consequences of material-semiotic translations while seeking to change them? In her review of as Culture, Cultures of Science Sarah Franklin (1995) suggested that rise of STS in 1990s came alongside shift from gender studies to science studies, which she argues was result of incorporating postmodern and postcolonial critiques. She explains how postcolonial critiques of anthropology were brought to bear on science, challenging assumed distinction between natural and social facts which she says moved focus from gender and kinship to science and biogenetics (Franklin, 1996). But as already stated, feminist STS writers like Haraway and Elizabeth Potter suggest that many mainstream writers in STS appear not to have heard, or perhaps do not understand, implications of feminist and post-colonial critiques. The contributors to this issue of RFR/DRF begin from social constructionist understandings of nature and body but also address more recent concerns closely identified with cultural studies approaches within STS; these are concerns about simply replacing natural explanations of phenomenon with social ones. …

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