The Value of the Map and the Place of STS

Abstract

In the 2020 Prague Virtual Conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Sharon Traweek was awarded the society’s John D. Bernal Prize jointly with Langdon Winner, for her distinguished contributions to the field of STS. In this essay responding to Traweek’s Bernal Lecture, I explore the continuing relevance of her work for Japan’s STS community. Even though this community has grown rapidly since the beginning of the 2000s, I argue in this essay that her work, produced more than three decades ago, encourages us today to reflect how we may want to relate ourselves to the local organization of science and the politics of epistemic authority in the country.