Environmentalism and social sciences appear to be in a period of disorientation and perhaps transition. In this innovative collection, leading international thinkers explore the notion that one explanation for the current malaise of the “politics of ecology” is that we increasingly find ourselves negotiating “technonatural” space/times. International contributors map the political ecologies of our technonatural present and indicate possible paths for technonatural futures. The term “technonatures” is in debt to a long line of environmental cultural theory from Raymond Williams onwards, problematizing the idea that a politics of the environment can be usefully grounded in terms of the rhetoric of defending the pure, the authentic, or an idealized past solely in terms of the ecological or the natural. In using the term “technonatures” as an organizing myth and metaphor for thinking about the politics of nature in contemporary times, this collection seeks to explore one increasingly pronounced dimension of the social natures discussion. Technonatures highlights a growing range of voices considering the claim that we are not only inhabiting diverse social natures but that within such natures our knowledge of our worlds is ever more technologically mediated, produced, enacted, and contested.

Imagining, forecasting and predicting the future is an inextricable and increasingly important part of the present. States, organizations and individuals almost continuously have to make decisions about future actions, financial investments or technological innovation, without much knowledge of what will exactly happen in the future. Science and technology play a crucial role in this collective attempt to make sense of the future. Technological developments such as nanotechnology, robotics or solar energy largely shape how we dream and think about the future, while economic forecasts, gene tests or climate change projections help us to make images of what may possibly occur in the future. This book provides one of the first interdisciplinary assessments of how scientific and technological imaginations matter in the formation of human, ecological and societal futures. Rooted in different disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, and science and technology studies, it explores how various actors such as scientists, companies or states imagine the future to be and act upon that imagination. Bringing together case studies from different regions around the globe, including the electrification of German car infrastructure, or genetically modified crops in India, Imagined Futures in Science, Technology and Society shows how science and technology create novel forms of imagination, thereby opening horizons toward alternative futures. By developing central aspects of the current debate on how scientific imagination and future-making interact, this timely volume provides a fresh look at the complex interrelationships between science, technology and society. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students interested in Science and Technology Studies, History and Philosophy of Science, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Political Sciences, Future Studies and Literary Sciences.

Women, Science, and Technology is an ideal reader for courses in feminist science studies. This third edition fully updates its predecessor with a new introduction and twenty-eight new readings that explore social constructions mediated by technologies, expand the scope of feminist technoscience studies, and move beyond the nature/culture paradigm.

From a leader in the field of religion and science come these reflections on the role of technology in human life and culture. Philip Hefner sees the human spirit at issue in our assessment of and attitude toward technology and the many technological creations that humans spawn. Technology, he argues, tells us much about ourselves-especially our innate drive toward exploration of possibilities-and poses questions about the final meaning of creating, of human cultural evolution, and even the being of God.

From the everyday and unnoticed to the newsworthy and cutting edge, technology is undoubtedly a fundamental element of our daily lives. While saving us time and effort, it can also shape our environment, mediate our relationships, and simultaneously solve problems and create new ones. In studying technology we gain an insight into how society is constructed, maintained and transformed. Unravelling and explaining the complex connections between technology and the social contexts in which it is used, Technology and Social Theory guides the reader through 150 years of thinking in this ever evolving field. The chapters critically evaluate a broad range of theorists, from Marx to Foucault, Orwell to Elias, alongside empirical examples which show theory in action. The significance of technology is assessed within both public spheres and intimate spaces, shedding light on its integral role in society. Showing how theory maps the way for further research, and in turn how new advances in research can inform theory, this book is invaluable reading for students and researchers in Sociology, Social theory, Science and Technology Studies and the Media.

Beneath the discussion and clarification of problems, of which both sides agreed to have them in common and which are documented in this volume, one of the important insights on both sides had been disagreements depending on a different way in seeing, articulating and reflecting on these problems. So, the English term 'science', in differing from the German 'Wissenschaft' (which includes not only sciences of nature, but also humanities), is meant in the Western tradition as the 'uninterested' research for truth, especially for most general laws; but the Chinese understanding seems to be characterized by an immediate connection of science and its practical use.