Do Not Despair: There Is Life after Constructivism

TLDR

The article discusses four critical problems—relativism, reflexivity, theory, and practice—focusing on the latter two. It proposes requirements for a socio‑technical change theory and argues that contemporary science and technology studies can move beyond an internalistic view to address politically relevant Science, Technology & Society issues. The authors review recent socio‑historical technology studies and present a concrete conceptual framework that satisfies the proposed requirements. The article concludes that present science and technology studies can break away from a too academic, internalistic perspective and return to the politically relevant Science, Technology & Society issues.

Abstract

This article reviews recent work in socio-historical technology studies. Four problems, frequently mentioned in critical debates, are discussed—relativism, reflexivity, theory, and practice. The main body of the article is devoted to a discussion of the latter two problems. Requirements for a theory on socio-technical change are proposed, and one concrete example of a conceptual framework that meets these requirements is discussed. The second point of the article is to argue that present (science and) technology studies are now able to break away from a too academic, internalistic perspective and return to the politically relevant "Science, Technology & Society" issues that informed much of this work more than a decade ago.