November 4, 2026: Kickoff event of the new Science, Technology, and Society Working Group
Friction Book Club
The Science, Technology, and Society Working Group is joining with the Digital Ethnography Working Group to read Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing's Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection on Wednesday, November 4 at 5:30 p.m.
Friction is a fitting keyword for our STS Working Group to begin with. Tsing uses social frictions to examine what happens when people, ideas, institutions, and interests meet across difference. STS scholars have used the term “science friction” to explain what happens when researchers from different fields work on shared problems, bringing their own vocabularies, data, and assumptions with them. For a group drawn from several disciplines, we hope to create space for encountering friction that generates new questions and collaborations together.