Suchergebnisse

An introduction to a section on "Destination" describes the cooperative work of a scientist & sociologist on reproductive technology as an example of the intersection of feminist science studies & community activism. The need for feminist progressive politics to challenge the use of women's bodies/good health as "raw material for technological manipulation" is discussed. It is noted that the essays in this section demonstrate how dominant sciences cater to the interests of the powerful few at the expense of the many, especially women. A comparison of the current fertility situation of women in the US & India focuses on two opposing notions: that overpopulation demands that fertility be restrained, especially among poor women; & that fertility must be technologically assisted/enhanced, especially among rich women. Numerous examples are given of women as subjects of harm/exploitation, & the diverse perspectives of Donna Haraway (1991), Vandana Shiva (1993), & Evelyn Fox Keller (1996) are drawn on to suggest guiding principles seen as inherent in liberating ways to do/understand science, particularly in relation to human reproduction. 13 References. J. Lindroth

In the social sciences, teaching methods, approaches and tools have advanced over the past decades. This progress, however, has mostly taken place on a theoretical level. Very few of the ideas and findings were implemented in class. A typical class in the social sciences remains in a lecture format with hardly any technology besides slides. There are several reasons why courses like Political Science, International Relations and others have not implemented more of the methodological and technological progress that has taken place in the 20th and 21st century so far. While the COVID19 pandemic that started in 2020 has caused a major step forward towards acceptance of technologies in the social sciences there are more tools and devices that will bring further experiences to the discipline in the near future. One of the technologies that is entering higher education now is Virtual Reality (VR). This chapter will explore VR as a technology, discuss its application in higher education and analyse its contemporary and future role in the social sciences.

"SozioNet forms part of a forthcoming national social science information portal, which is currently being developed by the German Infoconnex initiative. Inspired by successful examples like MathNet or SOSIG, SozioNet provides access to freely available web resources with relevance to social science. It is based on a network of social science institutions and scientists, to agree on and establish common metadata standards. SozioNet implements a general infrastructure for the creation of semantically rich metadata, and for the harvesting and retrieval of relevant resources with a domain specific focus." (author's abstract)

"Assessing Contemporary Crises: Aligning Safety Science and Security Studies" published on by Oxford University Press.

This chapter places Oakeshott's criticism of the demarcation in the current debate on the separation of social sciences from the natural sciences & history. Nineteenth century thinking on the epistemological status of historical inquiry resulted in a hermeneutic tradition that purports to generate knowledge detached from values, interests & practical concerns that compose that experience. The deeply rooted error in the hermeneutic tradition is the failure to question the premises of the sciences it seeks to theorize. In "On Human Conduct," Oakeshott identifies the ambiguity of social science attempts at explaining intelligent conduct as the outcome of non-intelligent processes. Human conduct cannot be explained in general categories or social circumstances, or through the pretense of statistical generalizations, but must be understood through open-ended interpretations such as the controlled use of metaphor, exploration of the contextuality of meaning of action, & the evanescent & emergent quality of the relationship to other actions, or a historical explanation proper. 15 References. J. Harwell