A Disaster is an event or series of events, which gives us casualties and loss of private as well as public properties, infrastructure, environment, essential services or means of livelihood on such a scale which is beyond the normal capacity of the surrounded community to curtain with. I have gone through the Hurricane Katrina Documentary(I) according to that “catastrophic situation in which the normal/ideal pattern of life or ecosystem has been disturbed and exceptional emergency interventions are required to save and preserve lives and or the environment".
I use the two pictures of this collection as a kind of editorial on how I see issues of embodiment in NatureCulture projects, reflecting on how a focus on individualized embodiments of discipline or embodiments according to inherited analytical languages of race, class and gender has led to further exploration of how different beings embody together, and how those embodiments are relationally or ecologically constituted (inspired by the works of feminist anthropologists and scholars like Marilyn Strathern, Anne-Marie Mol, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, and Donna Haraway).
The lecture outlined the refusal of Minamata movements to accept the logic of monetary compensation, disturbing modern political sensibilities by involving non-rational techniques and actors, for example the public displays of mourning emblematized by the black flags designed by homemaker and "shaman" of the movement, Ishimure Michiko. The constant summoning of the sick and dead, those made most vulnerable by their reliance on the bounty of the sea for their subsistence, brought in other worlds into an otherwise modernized political scene in Japan. This embodiment of a different world, one that is not a perfect other to modernity but nevertheless exists and his its own effects is not only close to what Strathern calls partial connections, but also reflects the lecture by Viveiros de Castro that is part of this essay, and the NatureCulture blog posts by both Hansen and De Antoni: these other realities should not be dismissed because scientists (or anthropologists for that matter) do not share them. All authors argue that some kind of translation or shared understanding can be possible. In this sense, embodiment also becomes a radical strategy for becoming sensitive to the possibilities of different ways of knowing, making and relating.
I use the two pictures of this collection as a kind of editorial on how I see issues of embodiment in NatureCulture projects, reflecting on how a focus on individualized embodiments of discipline or embodiments according to inherited analytical languages of race, class and gender has led to further exploration of how different beings embody together, and how those embodiments are relationally or ecologically constituted (inspired by the works of feminist anthropologists and scholars like Marilyn Strathern, Anne-Marie Mol, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, and Donna Haraway).
The discussions in this field visit in Osaka prefecture focused on the infrastructural changes to the river as a response to deadly floods in the 20th century, and the ecological impacts of these changes. These modern ecologies were inhabited by many organisms, its species bearing a particular story. Nutoria were an "invasive species" released into the wild, a though they were originally imported for their use in producing fighter pilot vests in Japan. Fireflies had disappeared from the river following the installation of embankments and the development of the neighbourhoods, but were brought in periodically during the summer, resulting in a small resurgence in their population. These species and many others are each changing the lives of the others and the places they inhabit, making these heavily modified environments into their homes. Even this story of a kind of co-habitation (or kyousei, the theme of the intensive course), however, belies the history of the dead part of the river. Now a park filled with trees and wandering paths, it was once a place people threw their trash. These dynamics highlight what Myers, Suzuki, and Pitrou in this essay emphasize about bodies and life: it is a coming together and making of bodies along with their worlds, using their sensitivities and materialities to sense and make their way through places, that are far from either natural or cultural.
I congratulate the team that worked on An Archaeology of STS in Turkey. It is an amazing work with a great narrative and very important archive pieces. There are independent annotations that I have made in order to help the team to go into a little more of detail in specific moments of the essay, and to introduce a timeline that could help visualize the evolution of Science and Technology studies into STS as an interdisciplinary field.
It could be a good idea to stablish a timeline between Science and Technology more traditional studies and STS Studies. This book shows the iconic moment where STS becomes a field of its own in Turkey. The timeline could be a more graphic way to understand this fundamental transition.
Regarding the TEKPOL networks, I believe it will be necessary to emphasis STS networks if there are any, specially at the international level. It seems to me that TEKPOL is a more conventional Science and Technology center, then an STS research center. Any kind of remark on STS is very important to understand the evolution from a S&T institution to an STS-knowledge-based academic center.
Are there any international research teams affiliated to the Center? Are there any publications with international colleagues as part of the activities of the research center?
There were any outputs of the visit? Maybe the main issues of the report can be translated to English if they give such information.
Is there any line of research at the core of the Masters Program?
Now that the Masters is part of Erasmus + connections with Aarhaus University and Munich Technical University have professors of ITU started to connect their research projects with their colleagues in those other research centers?
More links could be explored in order to understand the type of connections the Masters is creating with Denmark and Germany. For instance, are there any advisers from those universities working with Turkish students? Have research teams emerged from this academic exchange?
It will be interesting to highlight that the beginning of the Research Center on Science and Technology Policy Studies was not related to the study of STS theories and methodology, but on the need to catch-up on national technology production due to arise of the knowledge-based society.
On the documents presented there are no references to other STS departments or research centers in other parts of the world related to the opening of TEKPOL. Therefore, the rationale behind its creation has to do more with traditional S&T policies then with strong ties with other STS Departments.
If this is so, it will be important to narrate how STS studies became part of the project, or why the attempts to start contributions with other universities around the globe failed to succeed.