Innovating STS in Turkey: Boundaries, Translations, and Temporalities

This exhibit extends the digital collection entitled “An Archaeology of STS in Turkey” that was built for the 4S 2018 meeting in Sydney. As IstanbuLab, this year, we aim to re-think the figurations and performances of STS in Turkey with a focus on microhistories and experimental interventions. Drawing on the fragmented and discontinuous past of STS in Turkey, we want to render multiple interruptions of STS in this country visible while simultaneously innovating the past, present and future of the field through zooming into creative spaces such as art. This exhibit is a speculative endeavor towards investigating the ways to sustain STS praxis in a country where the field lacks institutional grounding. On the basis of multiple personal narratives, we highlight what it means to do STS in Turkey; how scholars innovate STS across different scales and spaces, and what STS innovate in this country. Overall, we ask: Whether and how would it be possible to sustain critical STS in a country “where nothing endures but constantly changes”?