Cultures of Techno science - Ethnography, Humans/Machines, and Objectivity Anchor teacher: professor Lucy Suchman Centre for Science Studies Lancaster University WTMC Summer school 8-12 September 2003 Since the first laboratory ethnographies at the end of the 1970s, science and technology studies have developed unique insights into the heterogeneity of scientific and technological cultures. This work made clear that 'science' is not a unified phenomenon, living a life of its own separate from other social sectors. This contradicted the tradition, still strong today, to speak of science as a unique, unified way to produce knowledge. Many claims on behalf of science or high technology are based on this image. Science studies has made clear that knowledge is situated knowledge. Objectivity is bounded, contextualized, and therefore relative objectivity. Instead of the scientific culture, it seems more productive to speak of scientific cultures. Even the sub domain of techno science, presently the most prestigious form of knowledge production, is carried out through a variety of ways of living and forms of knowing. This year's WTMC Summer School takes as its central theme techno scientific cultures and ways to study them. Ethnographic studies of techno science will be presented and discussed, with a focus on new insights into the changing relationship between humans and machines. And we will take a closer look at how scientific objectivities are being produced in the context of the techno sciences. Professor Lucy Suchman is a founding contributor to the ethnographic study of techno science. (See http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/lsuchman.html <http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/lsuchman.html> ) She worked for twenty years at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where she led the development of anthropological research into technological design. She has acquired fame as a specialist in human-machine interaction and in theories of the relationship between humans and machines. Suchman is a Collaborating Editor of Social Studies of Science. She has received a number of awards for her work, among them the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. The location is Study- and Conference Centre Soeterbeeck in Ravenstein <http://www.kun.nl/soeterbeeck> in the Netherlands. The Summer School is part of the graduate training of the PhD students in the Netherlands. A limited number of places are available for other (foreign) PhD students. The fee is EURO 635 (excl. meals and hotel room), the reduced rate for EASST members is EURO 545. EASST has a tradition of making a few travel stipends available. Please inquire at the EASST secretariat. For registration please use the online registration form: http://www.wmw.utwente.nl/wtmc/ <http://www.wmw.utwente.nl/wtmc/> ( see announcement 'International WTMC Summer School 2003 '/online registration form) For information and registration: Marjatta Kemppainen, University of Twente, u.m.kemppainen@wmw.utwente.nl <mailto:u.m.kemppainen@wmw.utwente.nl> , phone +31-53-489 4847, fax +31-53-489 4775.