Science, technology, security: towards critical collaboration

• In Event: Proliferation and dispersal in security communities of practice (Proliferation, dispersal and (in)security #3)

Abstract

Science and technology play a central role in the contemporary governance of security, both as tools for the production of security and as objects of security concern. Scholars are increasingly seeking to not only critically reflect on the interplay between science, technology, and security, but also socially engage with the practices of security communities which shape and are shaped by science and technology. To further help this growth of interest in security topics within STS, we explore possible modes of socio-technical collaboration with security communities of practice. Bringing together literatures from STS and critical security studies, we identify several key challenges to critical social engagement of STS scholars in security-related issues. We then demonstrate how these challenges played out over the course of three case studies from our own experience in engaging security communities of practice. We use these vignettes to show that there is a rich vein of developments in both theory and practice that STS scholars can pursue by attending to the interplay of science, technology, and security.

Authors

• Samuel A Weiss Evans

• Dagmar Rychnovska, IHS Vienna

• Matthias Leese, ETH Zurich