Data for "Locating Multiple NatureCultures"

The data used in this article entitled "Locating Naturecultures" by Gergely Mohácsi, Grant Jun Otsuki, and Émile St. Pierre is available for public access through the following three sources: 

(1) Mohacsi, Gergely, Miho Ishii, Moe Nakazora, Miki Namba, Yoko Taguchi, and Grant Jun Otsuki. 2018. "Anthropologies of Science and Technology in Japan." In STS Across Borders Exhibit, curated by Aalok Khandekar and Kim Fortun. Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science. International Convention Centre, Sydney. Distributed by Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. STS Infrastructures (Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography). Summary: This exhibit delineates how anthropology and STS in Japan have intermingled and re-articulated formerly distinctive and separate fields, including (sub-)disciplines such as ecological anthropology, primatology, and medical anthropology, as well as topics such as materiality, embodiment, environment, and infrastructure. It will catalog and map relations among scholars and literatures in Japan to exhibit how STS has emerged within and across political and intellectual boundaries of Japan (https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/anthropologies-science-and-techno...)

(2) Otsuki, Grant Jun. 2018. 'STS in Japan'. In Anthropologies of Science and Technology in Japan, edited by Yoko Taguchi, Miki Namba, Grant Jun Otsuki, Gergely Mohacsi, and Shuhei Kimura. STS Across Borders Digital Exhibit, curated by Aalok Khandekar and Kim Fortun." Text. Distributed by Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. STS Infrastructures (Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography). Essay Narrative: Institutionally and intellectually, science and technology studies in Japan has developed at an arm’s length from anthropologies of science and technology, with stronger ties to STS in its traditional Euro-American centers than with anthropology within Japan. At the same time, there have been moments of significant crossover and exchange, both academic—particularly the 2010 4S meeting in Tokyo—and beyond, namely the triple disasters of March 11, 2011 (https://n2t.net/ark:/81416/p4pc7h).

(3) Mohacsi, Gergely. 2019. "Experimenting through Nature Culture' (PECE Essay). In Anthropologies of Science and Technology in Japan, edited by Yoko Taguchi, Miki Namba, Grant Jun Otsuki, Gergely Mohacsi, and Shuhei Kimura. STS Across Borders Digital Exhibit, curated by Aalok Khandekar and Kim Fortun." Text. Distributed by Engaging Science, Technology, and Society. STS Infrastructures (Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography). Summary: Rather than a pronounced topic of discussion, "experimentality" has been an underlying theme through the first five volumes of NatureCulture. From ethnographic explorations of experimental sciences to an ongoing engagement with the interferences of the conceptual and the empirical, experimental practices provided a fertile ground for a conversation between anthropology and STS. In this essay, I will review some of the main takeaways that emerge from these texts to map out possible future directions across theory and practice of studying naturecultures. (https://n2t.net/ark:/81416/p4xw2z).

We consider these sources as a valuable contribution to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), specifically in understanding the co-constitution of knowledges and worlds in Japan through diverse approaches and topics. These sources have been carefully selected to support our arguments and perspectives in this article. The data might be of interest to scholars and researchers in STS, anthropology, and related fields who are interested in exploring methodological approaches to locate matters beyond geographic and physical boundaries.

In preparing the data for publication, we have decided to exclude some of the materials the "Anthropologies of Science and Technology in Japan” dataset (https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/anthropologies-science-and-techno... created by Gergely Mohácsi, Miho Ishii, Moe Nakazora, Miki Namba, Yoko Taguchi, and Grant Jun Otsuki for the Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science in 2018 including an essay by Grant Jun Otsuki titled "STS in Japan," which was part of the same exhibit, and another essay by Gergely Mohácsi titled "Experimenting through Nature Culture" which was included in a later iteration of the exhibit in 2019. These materials offer insights into the ways in which anthropology and science and technology studies are practiced in Japan and the unique perspectives and approaches that emerge from this context) for various reasons. Firstly, some of the materials contain sensitive information related to individual participants and cannot be shared due to ethical considerations. Secondly, some of the data are not directly relevant to the main focus of the article and would only serve to add unnecessary complexity to the presentation. Finally, some of the materials were created for specific purposes and are not appropriate for public dissemination. Despite the exclusion of these materials, we believe that the remaining data provide a valuable contribution to the field of STS and will allow interested researchers to build upon our work.

The data was created by scholars of anthropology and STS who participated in 4S conferences in 2018 and 2019. These scholars were affiliated with universities both in and outside of Japan, and the data reflects the institutional and national contexts in which they were situated. The open access journal NatureCulture provided a historical and ecological context for the creation of the data, and the editorial shift at NatureCulture and a series of collaborative research projects influenced the making of the data. The creation of this data was also made possible by STS Infrastructures, which is a digital archive, workspace, and publishing platform designed and built by STS scholars at the Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography. The platform has hosted special exhibits as part of the 4S annual meetings, and it provides digital infrastructure for the Student Section of the Society for Social Studies of Science (6S). Overall, the creation of this data was the result of a collaborative effort among scholars who are interested in exploring the co-constitution of knowledges and worlds in different contexts.

We hope that this data availability statement will enable other researchers to engage with our work and further expand the ongoing debates around situated methodological approaches in STS.