Waste, pollution, and other externalities of technical systems is well represented at the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) annual conference this October in San Diego. I’ll be there; feel free to come say hello. One of the great things about 4S is how friendly it is.
Note that this list is based on the preliminary program, so some things may have shifted. The print program is available here to double check.

Thursday, October 11

Dirt: Thinking with and about Soil
Scheduled Time: Thu Oct 10 2013, 8:30 to 10:00am
Building/Room: Town and Country, 2

Session Participants:
Chair: Beth Reddy (University of California, Irvine) ereddy@uci.edu

Soil Mechanics and Reflections on the Resistance of the Material
*Beth Reddy (University of California, Irvine)

Dirt, Technoscience, and Cleansing on the Pacific Crest Trail
*Ellie Harmon (University of California, Irvine)

Dirty Ecology
*Christina Agapakis (UCLA)

Beyond Blood and Soil: Dirt Ontology and Germany’s Clean Energy Revolution
*Jenny Carlson (University of Texas, Austin)

Discussant: Valerie Olson (Rice University) valeriao@rice.edu

Defining “Safety” Constructions of Safe Food, Water and the Environment: I
Thu Oct 10 2013, 2:00 to 3:30pm
Building/Room: Town and Country, Ascot

Session Participants:
Chair: Tomiko Yamaguchi (International Christian University) tyamaguc@icu.ac.jp
Chair: Elizabeth Ransom (University of Richmond) eransom@richmond.edu

The Right Tools for the Job: Shaping an International Expertise on Food Additives and Contaminants
*Nathalie Jas (INRA – RiTME Research Unit)

Diverse Actors and Heterogeneous Spaces: Controlling Agricultural Animal Disease in Global Trade
*Elizabeth Ransom (University of Richmond)

Unmaking the Bomb: Eternal Waste and the Politics of Impossibility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation
*Shannon Cram (University of California, Berkeley)

Obesities, Subjectivities, and Textual Rhetoric
*Patricia Thille (University of Calgary)

Individual Presentations:

Citizens in the Wasteland: The Trouble with Radioactive Waste Management in Belgium, *Céline Parotte, University of Liège. Research Center Spiral
In Session Submission: Evaluating the Quality of Public Deliberation on Science & Technology: I
Time: Thu Oct 10 2013, 8:30 to 10:00am
Place: Town and Country, Windsor East

Promising Data for Public Empowerment: Grassroots Water Monitoring for Pollution from the Natural Gas Industry, *Kirk Jalbert, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
In Session Submission: New Data Relationalities: Publics, Practices, and Subjectivities
Time: Thu Oct 10 2013, 8:30 to 10:00am
Place: Town and Country, Hampton

Politics of Nuclear Waste Management and Expertise in South Korea, *Young Hee Lee, The Catholic University of Korea
In Session Submission: Expertise, Professionals, and the Environment: II
Time: Thu Oct 10 2013, 10:30 to 12:00pm
Place: Town and Country, Pacific Salon Three

Sensing the Air and Experimenting with Environmental Citizenship, *Jennifer Gabrys, Goldsmiths, University of London
In Session Submission: Ecologies of Evidence, Life and Politics
Time: Thu Oct 10 2013, 2:00 to 3:30pm
Place: Town and Country, Brittany

It’s Our Trash, Too!: Waste Management from the Fringe, *Guy Schaffer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
In Session Submission: Creating Knowledge and Technologies at the Fringe: II
Time: Thu Oct 10 2013, 4:00 to 5:30pm
Place: Town and Country, Eaton

Saving (on) Water: Recycling and Reuse in EcoSan Communities, *Birke Dorothea Otto, HafenCity University Hamburg
In Session Submission: Calculating City Life: A Socio-Material Perspective to Low-Budget Urbanity
Time: Thu Oct 10 2013, 4:00 to 5:30pm
Place: Town and Country, 2 – Pacific Salon Four

Breeds of Sustainability: Notions of Efficiency and Waste in Brazilian Sugarcane Cultivation, *Nicole Labruto, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In Session Submission: Environment & Postcolonial State
Time: Thu Oct 10 2013, 4:00 to 5:30pm
Place: Town and Country, Sheffield

Friday, October 12

Making Environmental Harm Manifest
Scheduled Time: Fri Oct 11 2013, 8:30 to 10:00am  Building/Room: Town and Country, 2 – Pacific Salon Seven
Session Participants:
Chair: Sara Wylie (Northeastern University) s.wylie@neu.edu

Making Pollution Manifest: The Sigmoid Nature of Harm
*Max Liboiron (New York University)

Environmental Knowledge Kinds and the Complex Toxicities of the 21st Century
*Katelyn Parady (Arizona State University)

The Windsor Hum: Tracing the Multiple Ontologies of Toxic Sounds
*Kelly Ladd (York University)

“A Human Geiger Counter”:Somatic Science through the Embodiment of Domestic Toxins
*Nick Shapiro (University of Oxford)

Discussant: Michelle Murphy (University of Toronto) michelle.murphy@utoronto.ca

Individual Sessions:

Indigenous Livelihoods and Herbicide Pollution in the Klamath Watershed of Northwestern California, *Anandi van Diepen-Hedayat, Yale University
In Session Submission: Doing Research, Meddling with Power. On the Contradictory Engagements of STS with Politics and Normativities.
Time: Fri Oct 11 2013, 8:30 to 10:00am
Place: Town and Country, Windsor East

“Invisible” Pollution? Reviewing Policy Issues in Managing Hazardous Substances in Taiwan’s Electronics Industry, *Wen-Ling Tu, National Chengchi University
In Session Submission: Doing Research, Meddling with Power. On the Contradictory Engagements of STS with Politics and Normativities.
Time: Fri Oct 11 2013, 8:30 to 10:00am
Place: Town and Country, Windsor East

Nuclear Uncertainties: Fukushima and Radioactive Waste, *Jennifer Richter, University of New Mexico
In Session Submission: Resisting Environmental Solutions
Time: Fri Oct 11 2013, 10:30 to 12:00pm
Place: Town and Country, Fairfield

Environmental Governance in the Middle East: Tehran under the Veil of Air Pollution, *Tahereh Saheb, Rensselear Polytechnic Institute
In Session Submission: Science, Politics and Governance of Environment in Developing Countries
Time: Fri Oct 11 2013, 4:00 to 5:30pm
Place: Town and Country, Windsor East 

Sanitation, Technology, and Public Health: Biomedicalization of Human Bodily Nature through Sanitary Engineering, *Jennifer S. Carrera, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; *Jeremey Guest, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
In Session Submission: Biomedicalization: Explorations and Elaborations
Time: Fri Oct 11 2013, 4:00 to 5:30pm
Place: Town and Country, 2 – Pacific Salon Four

Saturday, October 13

Workshop on Experiments Monitoring the Everyday: Art, Design, and DIY Methods for Environmental Health Research
Scheduled Time: Sat Oct 12 2013, 4:00 to 5:30pm  Building/Room: Town and Country, Golden Ballroom One

Session Participants:
Chair: Max Liboiron

Personal and Networked Devices for Air Quality Sensing
*David Holstius (UC Berkeley)

Open Source Spectrometry for Identifying  Environmental Contaminants.
* Sara Wylie (Northeastern University)

Bodies as Detection Devices.
* Max Liboiron (Northeastern University)

Social Justice, Sustainable Energy and Life Cycle Assessment
Scheduled Time: Sat Oct 12 2013, 4:00 to 5:30pm  Building/Room: Town and Country, 2 – Pacific Salon Five
Title Displayed in Event Calendar: Social Justice, Sustainable Energy and Life Cycle Assessment

Session Participants:
Chair: Nicholas Sakellariou (University of California at Berkeley) nsakell@gmail.com
Chair: Dustin Mulvaney (San Jose State University) dustin.mulvaney@gmail.com

Co-Designing Sustainable Communities Using Indigenous Knowledge: Pinoleville Pomo Nation Partnership
*Ryan Shelby (UC Berkeley)

Can Renewable Energy Sustainability Appraisals Include Matters of Social Justice?
*Tina Wegg (University of East Anglia)

What’s in a Number? Life Cycle Analysis and the Formation of Environmental Inequality
*Dustin Mulvaney (San Jose State University)

Emissions Trading and the Roots of Environmental Injustice
*Krystal Tribbett (University of California San Diego)

Individual Papers:

Emotions and Household Waste Recycling in Israel, *Talia Fried, Bar Ilan University
In Session Submission: Knowledge, Resistance and Environment
Time: Sat Oct 12 2013, 10:30 to 12:00pm
Place: Town and Country, Terrace Salon Three

Technological Development Stage of Waste Picker’s Cooperatives in Brazil, *Rafaela Francisconi Gutierrez, UNICAMP; *Maria Zanin, UFSCar;*Leda Maria Caira Gitahy, UNICAMP
In Session Submission: Knowledge, Resistance and Environment
Time: Sat Oct 12 2013, 10:30 to 12:00pm
Place: Town and Country, Terrace Salon Three

Photo from last year’s 4S conference in Copenhagen.