This essay reflects on the theories and methods of global science and technology studies (STS). It first examines postcolonial STS and points out certain problems and limitations of the approach. It then discusses a few alternative approaches that have benefited from postcolonial STS, and also tries to carve out new directions. Finally, this article uses China and the current pandemic as a case study to explore certain critical questions for a new global STS.
AllenT., MurrayK. A., Zambrana-TorrelioC., MorseS., RondininiC., Di MarcoM., BreitN., OlivalK. & DaszakP. (2017). Global hotspots and correlates of emerging zoonotic diseases. Nature Communications, 8(1), 1124. 10.1038/s41467-017-00923-8.
2.
AndersonW. (2002). Introduction: Postcolonial technoscience. Social Studies of Science, 32(5/6), 643–658.
3.
AndersonW. (2012). Asia as method in science and technology studies. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 6(4), 445–451.
4.
AndersonW., & Soto LaveagaG. (2020). Decolonizing histories in theory and practice: An introduction. History and Theory, 59(3), 360–375.
5.
ChenK.-H. (2010). Asia as method: Toward deimperialization. Duke University Press.
6.
DastonL. (2017). The history of science and the history of knowledge. Know: A Journal of the Formation of Knowledge, 1(1), 131–154.
7.
DelbourgoJ. (2019). The knowing world: A new global history of science. History of Science, 57(3), 373–399.
8.
DiMoiaJ. (2020). Contacting tracing and COVID-19: The South Korean context for public health enforcement. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 14(4), 657–665.
9.
FanF.-T. (2012). The global turn in the history of science. East Asian Science, Technology and Society, 6(2), 249–258.
10.
FanF.-T. (2016). Modernity, region, and technoscience: One small cheer for Asia as method. Cultural Sociology, 10(3), 352–368.
11.
FanF.-T. (2022). Animals and epidemics in modern East Asian. International Review of Environmental History, 8(1), 5–17.
KuoW.-H. (2021). Channeling facts, crouching rumours: Taiwan’s post-truth encounter with the COVID pandemic. Science, Technology and Society. 10.1177/09717218211032894
15.
LawJ., & LinW.-Y. (2017). Provincializing STS: Postcoloniality, symmetry, and method. East Asia Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 11(2), 211–227.
16.
LeiS. (2016). Neither donkey nor horse: Medicine in the struggle over China’s modernity. University of Chicago Press.
17.
LinW.-Y. (2017). Shi, STS, and theory: Or what can we learn from Chinese medicine. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 43(3), 405–428.
18.
QuammenD. (2013). Spillover: Animal infections and the next human pandemic. W. W. Norton.
19.
RajK. (2006). Relocating modern science: Circulation and the construction of scientific knowledge in South Asia and Europe. Palgrave MacMillan.
20.
RogaskiR. (2004). Hygienic modernity: Meanings of health and disease in treaty-port China. University of California Press.
21.
SchafferS., RobertsL., RajK., & DelbourgoJ. (Eds.). (2009). The brokered world: Go-betweens and global intelligence, 1770–1820. Science History Publications.
22.
SethS. (2009). Putting knowledge in its place: Science, colonialism, and the postcolonial. Postcolonial Studies, 12(4), 373–388.
23.
SivasundarumS. (2010). Science and the global: On methods, questions, and theories. Isis, 101(1), 146–158.
24.
StevensH., & HainesM. B. (2020). Trace together: Pandemic response, democracy, and technology. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, 14(3), 523–532.
25.
WardP. (2008). Contagious: Cultures, carriers, and the outbreak narrative. Duke University Press.