(Non)Sense-making in/of Neural Sciences and Technologies

Session Submission Type: Traditional (Closed) Panel

Abstract

As neural sciences and technologies evolve, we have observed and experienced an expanding range of discourses on how to make (non)senses in/of them. Although it is hard to differentiate, roughly speaking, “in” is from the perspective of the scientists and technicians about procedures, and “of” from that of the users about products. The open panel calls for STS papers addressing the above issues and, if suitable, with senses of reflexivity. Since the 1980s, there has been an avalanche of static/dynamic neuroimages statistically constructed to explore activities of human brain/mind. It seems that finally we could “see” trans-skull the structure and functioning of brain/mind. These “brain/mind maps” are immutable mobiles that could be transported, shared and examined by all the stakeholders. Critiques and anti-critiques on their deficits include brain v. mind, inside v. outside, inferential distance/indirectness/circularity, artefactual and arbitrary coding and scaling, overly claiming or seduction, etc. In addition to neuroimages, booming up are neurotechnological practices such as brain computer interface, cyborgs, robotics and even the futurist version of nano-bio-info-cogno technology convergence. How neural scientists and technologists construct and construe the (non)senses in/of the technologies are also related to the imaginations we use for self/social governance. STS scholars could not avoid the issues of (non)sense-making because we are embedded in these contextual, net-worked human imaginations as we analyze, critique, and construct relevant discourses. Assembling participating papers with converging and diverging viewpoints, the panel aims at making itself a reflexive testing field of (non)sense-making in/of neural science and technology.

Sub Unit

• 4S Annual Meeting

Chair

• Kevin Chien-Chang Wu, National Taiwan University College of Medicine

Individual Presentations

• Naturalizing Responsibility by Neuroscience: A Coproductionist Analysis - Kevin Chien-Chang Wu, National Taiwan University College of Medicine

• Research Infrastructure and Psychiatric Thought: (Re)Negotiating the Place of Diagnosis in Psychiatry - Martyn Pickersgill, University of Edinburgh

• Revolting Data: A Feminist Technoscience Approach to Making Contemporary Neuro Memento Mori - Jane Prophet, Goldsmiths College, University of London

• Stop Making Sense: Pseudo-Meaning in Cognitive Neuroscience Experiments - Sarah Klein, University of California, San Diego