Sociology of Science, Technology, and Environment

You, Robot?! – An interdisciplinary exploration of why we treat robots as if they were living beings.

This book offers an innovative and transdisciplinary journey to the challenges and opportunities within the relationship between practices and discourses. »The book brings together various fields in order to enrich both Social Practice Theory and societal debates on meat eating. Metaphors emerge as helpful devices for understanding underlying views of the problem. Are we inevitably ›hungry beasts‹? Or are we perhaps rather on a journey?«
(Cor van der Weele, Professor of Humanistic Philosophy, Wageningen University, the Netherlands)

»A very interesting result of the discourse analysis of practices of eating meat and the various meat alternatives is identifying the ›journey‹ metaphor. This metaphor enables the opening up of the meat vs. no-meat dichotomy and, therefore, offers potential for transforming the social practice of meat eating.«
(Prof. Ines Weller, Social-Ecological Research, artec Sustainability Research Center, University of Bremen, Germany)

»Minna Kanerva has successfully weaved together multiple theories and perspectives. Her examination of the connection between meat-eating related practices and discourses is enriched by consideration of values, emotions, coping strategies and framing. The result is an opening up of ways of understanding meat and an expansion of the solution space for radical and transformational change.«
(Dr. Nadine Andrews, Climate Psychology Alliance)

»This book is an inventive contribution to the burgeoning topic of meat eating and meat alternatives in transformations towards sustainability. Minna Kanerva breaks new ground with an innovative theoretical framework for understanding the connections between social practices and discourses in ›the new meatways‹. Drawing on theories of practice, and a refreshingly broad range of theoretical resources, from critical discourse analysis to cognitive linguistics and social psychology, Kanerva explores the understandings, values and emotions at play in media discourse and online forums on meat eating and its alternatives. The book will be of interest to scholars of food, consumption, sustainability and theories of practice alike.«
(Dr. Daniel Welch, Sociology, the Sustainable Consumption Institute, the University of Manchester)

What does it mean if scenarios about the future are plausible? The book analyses the unexplored concept and its implications for producers and users of scenarios.

Robotic Knitting intervenes in how »we« currently imagine and design »our« future with cobots. It re-crafts collaboration between human and robot.

This book asks how the glucometer, the often only choice to diagnose diabetes in Uganda, contributes to the making of this disease in a setting with weak health infrastructure.

This book focuses on German science policy for cooperation with the Global South, arguing that instead of global sustainability, policies mainly aspire to German economic benefits.

What is needed is a story of bodily agency and technological failure instead of the same old tales of the disciplining of the body through science and technology.

This first comprensive study of humanities education in Norway uses systems theory in innovative ways to analyze its changing societal functions.

Environment precedes everyday life. Therefore, society is an environmental phenomenon, and it must be examined as such.

Understanding how genetic factors contribute to who we are requires a broader analysis of genetic medicine as a social practice.