Publishing STS Content in Turkey

If we think that one of the habitual modes of doing STS is publishing articles in academic journals, the creation of STS-related content for arts and culture magazines that reach to general audience would be one way to interrupt this habit. Such a practice would be positively embraced by STS scholars in different ways depending on their desires and intentions. We find this practice of publishing for a general audience as a significant way to do STS in Turkey, following our provocation for this collection: STS can take its shape in Turkey in/through public spaces more than in academic institutions. To think further about this idea of publishing STS writings in a local arts and culture magazines in Turkey, we invited Mehmet Ekinci -PhD candidate in Cornell STS Program and IstanbuLab member- to contribute this collection. He wrote an essay that talks about his journey of publishing in Bant Mag., and expresses the significance of this practice for doing STS. 

To me, Mehmet’s journey goes beyond a story of interrupting habitual modes of publishing in the field. In his essay, he writes: 

Then I got into graduate school, moved to Ithaca, New York but my social ties with Bant Mag. (e.g., following the magazine’s online website from overseas) sustained even if in sort of an on and off fashion. Of course, my irregular encounters with friends “back home’’ included a bunch of conversations in middle of which I would feel the need to explain what this specific graduate field called “Science and Technology Studies” was/is. Let’s say that conversation still goes on. (p. 2)

In this short quote above there exist different but related stories ranging from “our” struggles to communicate what it means to study STS to being situated here and there. I do not want to open these stories (at least for now), but keep them here for future conversations. I greatly appreciate Mehmet’s invaluable contributions to the Turkish STS literature, which are not limited to his writings in Bant Mag. but include translating STS books into Turkish and coordinating IstanbuLab blog.