Doctoral Dissertation Research: Translation Strategies for Mutual Symbiosis in STS-Engineering Collaborations

一般观众摘要本论文项目的目标将调查科学和技术研究（STS）领域的研究人员如何与其他利益相关者群体合作，设计和构建技术工件。核心研究问题是社会科学家如何与工程师、设计师、企业主和潜在的最终用户合作，生产可用的技术产品。为了解决这一问题，调查员将对加纳库马西开发和生产开放源码安全套自动售货机进行案例研究。研究者将使用多种方法，包括批判性制作（弥合批判性思维和物理制作之间差距的活动）、访谈、设计研讨会和协作文档。该项目具有向设计师和非洲健康倡导组织提出建议的巨大潜力。技术总结STS正在从以前的技术评论家地位转变为更积极的合作角色。这些合作中最成功的是在外行参与领域，新的扩展强调促进外行公民观点的合法性。尽管这种方法很重要，但将STS研究人员的作用限制为将外行公民与专业人士聚集在一起的促进者的作用，往往会导致STS分析见解和概念的广泛部署非常狭窄。与不同利益相关者的更直接的参与形式已经开发出来，包括上游，中游，预期治理和关键决策。受这一新工作的启发，该项目将在西非国家加纳开发安全套自动售货机的具体案例研究中，寻求扩大和加强合作框架。研究人员将开发一个实验基础，提供STS研究人员和工程师之间的双向共生，这将有利于长期的，基于项目的工程和设计干预。

General Audience Summary The goal of this dissertation project will investigate how researchers in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) can work with other stakeholder groups to design and build technological artifacts. The core research question addresses how social scientists work collaboratively and productively with engineers, designers, business owners, and potential end users to produce usable technological artifacts. To address that question, the investigator will conduct a case study of the development and production of an open-source condom vending machine in Kumasi, Ghana. The investigator will use a mix of methods that includes critical making (activities that bridge the gap between critical thinking and physical making), interviews, design workshops, and collaborative documentation. The project has significant potential for making recommendations to designers, and to African health advocacy organizations.Technical Summary STS is moving from its prior status as a technology critic to a more engaged collaborative role. The most successful of these collaborations have been in the area of lay participation, and new extensions have offered emphasis on promoting the legitimacy of lay-citizen perspectives. Important as this approach has been, restricting the role of STS researcher to that of a facilitator who brings lay citizens together with professionals often results in a very narrow deployment of the wide array of possible STS analytic insights and concepts. More direct forms of engagement with varying sets of stakeholders have been developed that include up-streaming, mid-streaming, anticipatory governance, and critical making. Inspired by this new body of work, the project will seek to extend and enhance the collaborative framework in the context of a specific case study, the development of a condom vending machine in the West African nation of Ghana. The investigator will develop an experimental foundation that offers a two-way symbiosis between STS researchers and engineers that will be conducive to long-term, project-based engineering and design interventions.