Politics of Knowledge

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The fifth module addresses the political dimension of contemporary science and technology. How is the production of scientific and technological knowledge both connected to and constitutive of power relations? The module draws on scholarship in science and technology study that has probed how knowledge claims have politics¹, in the sense that they are 1.) shaped by selective and context-bounded practices, values and interests, and 2.) help to create, maintain, legitimize the use of power. In stark contrast to a purely political science-based perspective on power, the course seeks to integrate historical and anthropological methods that explain the contingent nature of knowledge and its related politics. In each seminar students will be made aware to which extent complex social histories and social worlds are embedded in the concepts, theories, classifications, and narrative by which techno-scientific issues are identified, framed and contested. Finally, a main motive of the course, is to open science and technology for politization and democratic debate.