Aug 3 2026
This article introduces 'technobotany' and the entanglements of botany and technology that shape the nature of science and society. It examines the new space race as a technobotanical frontier featuring photosynthetic technologies designed to power lunar outposts and Martian colonies, anticipating the extraction of rare metals and minerals for energy-intensive societies on Earth.
Jul 27 2026
In 2025, a controversy erupted over a study into the safety and “non-specific effects” of the hepatitis B vaccine among children in Guinea-Bissau. This post traces the life of the concept of “non-specific effects”, from the early 1990s to the political context of the mid-2020s.
Jul 20 2026
Anton Novenanto writes a thought-provoking reflection, offering to understand STS initiatives in Indonesia as projects countering the neoliberalisation of knowledge. The text is available in Indonesian and English.
Jun 19 2026
In this reflection piece, Tam Rayan draws upon the epistemology of wahda as a framework for understanding Palestinian counter-archival practices. Practices that persevere despite the widespread destruction of their documentary and cultural heritage and the continuous denial of liberation and sovereignty.
Apr 13 2026
Reflecting on the effects of lithium mining in Brazil, which results in the double degradation of local landscapes and their inhabitants, this article offers the concept of “the Common Body” to describe the interpenetration and reciprocal affectation between bodies.
Mar 16 2026
In this cross-listed post from Polyphony, Kristin D. Hussey and Hannah Star Rogers draw on Science and Technology Studies (STS) to think through how the ‘lab’ is being employed across the medical humanities. Connecting the intellectual space of the Medical Humanities’ emphasis on the clinic and STS approaches to the laboratory, the authors propose the productivity of further exchanges between these two fields around these complex concepts.
Mar 2 2026
As part of the research that considers killing as care, this essay discusses kindness as a way to approach the rich scholarship of multispecies care by framing it as resistance to acquiescing to the moral certainty of killing invasive species by negotiating cruelty and avowing ambiguity. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand, this piece outlines some of the ways to examine care and killing by analysing how and when kindness affects the work of killing for conservation.
Feb 23 2026
This post is a conversation between Irina Rafliana, Indrawan Prabaharyaka, and Casper Bruun Jensen on the challenges and possibilities of embryonic Indonesian STS.
Jan 28 2026
This post introduces the work and perspectives of 4S Backchannels Editorial Team member Dr. Christine Haskell. Through their instruction and advisory capacities with organizations navigating AI and data governance, Dr. Haskell identifies three significant trends: values drift, AI anomia, and artificial mirroring. These increasingly emerging in AI-intensive environments, and are examined in this post introducing Dr. Haskell to the Backchannels readership and broader 4S network.
Dec 15 2025
In this reflection piece, Luciana Musello shares the experience of rereading dependency theory in the age of technoimperialism alongside an interdisciplinary group of Latin American scholars