The annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is coming up December 7^th-10^th, and this year for just the second time it is meeting jointly with the Latin American Society for Social Studies of Science and Technology (ESCOCITE). We have a strong contingent of SMC alums and current members who will be presenting papers and chairing panels. Their talks cover a wide range of topics including how scams shape digital commerce, the use of differential privacy in the 2020 US census, and companion robots.  

Additionally, our friends at the Labor Tech Research Network are hosting a several launch events at 4S! Many SMC alums are members of Labor Tech, and current SMC postdoc Karina Rider and SMC research assistant Elizabeth Fetterolf have been helping to organize these events. The Labor tech events are listed below on Friday December 9^th, and you can learn more about the details here. If you’d like to attend any of these 4S events virtually, you can register in advance as an Attendee on the 4S website, for a fee of $15-20.  

Wed Dec 7^th 

AI, Cyborgs, Robots and Religion II (Tristan Gohring, discussant) 

• 11:00am to 1:00pm [Building A, A104]  

Art, Science, and Technology Studies – “Book 3: Bauhaus Futures” (Mike Ananny) 

• 11:00 to 1:00 pm [Building C, C110] 

Open Hardware: Perspectives on Open Science Beyond Access to Data and Publications – “Planning Times: Forecasting Future Access in Scientific Data Practices” (Megan Finn) 

• 2:00 to 4:00 pm [Building C, C C210] 

Thursday Dec 8^th 

Scams, Shams, Fakes, and Frauds: STS Perspectives on the Boundaries of Authenticity and Authority 

• “How Scams Shape Digital Commerce: The Case of the “Friendly Fraud” in the Global Black Market” (Lana Swartz) 
• “The Casual Counterfeiter in the Age of Desktop Publishing” (Gili Vidan) 
• “Airbnb Nightmares: How Airbnb Scams Unveil the Neoliberal Fantasy of the Home” (Nina Medvedeva) 
• 8:30 to 10:30 am [Building A, A102] 

Reconfiguring knowledge production of China in the “new normal” – “Sense and Sensitivity: On the “Politically Sensitive” Qualitative Research in China” (Chuncheng Liu) 

• 11:00am to 1:00pm [Building D, D008] 

Technologies, Trust and Governance: Reimagining Democracy – “Differential Perspectives: Epistemic Disconnects Surrounding the US Census Bureau’s Use of Differential Privacy” (danah boyd, Jayshree Sarathy) 

• 11:00am to 1:00 pm [Building A, A102] 

Emancipatory Technopolitics: Alternative infrastructures, emergent solidarities, contested ontologies – “Alt-Tech and Emergent Online Spaces” (Shawn Walker)  

• 2:00 to 4:00pm [Building A, A102] 

Friday Dec 9^th 

Labor Tech Research Network Launch I: Panel (Karina Rider, co-organizer)  

• Fri, December 9, 11:00am to 1:00pm [Building D, D008] 

Government of / as / by App(s) I: Intra-State Relations – “Datafying the Illegibles: Dilemmas and Mirages of the State Legibility Project in China” (Chuncheng Liu) 

• 11:00am to 1:00pm [Building D, D208 

Templates / Plantillas / Modelos I: Politics and ethics of data and algorithms (Jessa Lingel, Chair)  

• 11:30 to 1:00 pm [Building C, C204] 

Labor Tech Research Network Launch II: Unconference (Karina Rider, co-organizer) 

• Fri, December 9, 2:00 to 4:00pm [Building D, D008] 

Labor Tech Launch Party  

• 4pm-6pm [Location TBD] 

Saturday Dec 10^th 

Disciplines, Expertise and Knowledge in Action I – “Folk Economics and Claims of Expertise in the Advertising Industry’s Campaigns for Free Enterprise 1941-1952″ (Caroline Jack) 

• 8:30 to 10:30am [Building D, D105] 

Monsters, Cyborgs, Humans: Trans STS and the Reassembly of Science and Technology I (Tristan Gohring, Discussant and organizer)  

• 8:30 to 10:30am [Building A, A106] 

Seeking Arrangements: Transactional Care in Machine Mediated Worlds I (Mitali Thakor, Organizer)   

• 8:30 to 10:30 am [Building B, B103] 

Seeking Arrangements: Transactional Care in Machine Mediated Worlds II  

• “Artificial Intimacies: Eldercare Robots and Animate Companionship” (Mitali Thakor) 
• “Caring Surveillance and Surveillant Care in Amazon’s ‘Alexa Together’” (Elizabeth Fetterolf) 
• 11:00 to 1:00 pm [Building B, B103] 

Monsters, Cyborgs, Humans: Trans STS and the Reassembly of Science and Technology II – “Trans Pronoun Practices and Digital Pronoun-Sharing Tools: An Infrastructural Perspective” (Tristan Gohring)  

• 11:00am to 1:00pm [Building A, A106] 

Power After AI II: Algorithmic Regulation in the Age of Intelligent Machines – “Laws for Inference: Conceptual Limits to Automated Decision Making” (Luke Stark) 

• 11:00 to 1:00 pm [Building A, A110]