• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.67-90
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• 2007

Could STS throw another-colored light on the Hwang's Affair, the scientific fraud committed by Hwang Woo-Suk and his research team in Korea? And could analytic tools of STS unfold another meanings which have been overlooked in most of the traditionally social-sciences-oriented analyses? In this essay, I try to answer these questions by analyzing the Hwang's Affair in the view of STS, especially by using some concepts of actor-network theory(ANT): movement, translation and displacement. I want to say that the Hwang's Affair seems to be a part of normal scientific activity, not an abnormal phenomenon, and as an evidence, focus on the similarities of their life styles between "pure/real scientist" Louis Pasteur and "impure/political scientist" Hwang Woo-Suk. I try to mobilize some concepts of ANT, especially movement, and find out why scientists came to move toward the opposed direction on the pure/real-impure/political line. I suggest that there exists "laboratory politics" as the key factor in this bifurcation. My tentative conclusion is that Pasteur can take a position to make his great world, so-called the Pasteurian world, owing to the success of "double movement" in which he treated his laboratory as a fulcrum to lift up the world, but Hwang degrades himself to "ugly scientific politician" due to the loss of the momentum of his movement; Hwang treated his laboratory only as the symbolic resources and in turn failed to solidify material entities, his real political resources, even though he knew the importance of laboratory.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.45-78
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• 2012

What is a disaster? And what can science and technology studies tell us about it? There might be numerous definitions about disaster. In this article, we will posit that disaster is an incident when sociotechnical system actor-network broke down against the other force in their "trial of strength". This is a process that punctualized actor-network is depunctualized, and a status that readiness-to-hand of Being recedes while pesentness-at-hand of tool-being comes forward. Using the concept of disaster as a case study, we will consider how Latourian ontology overlaps with Heideggerian philosophy of technology. This STS approach which hasn't been previously studied might provide us with new theoretical framework that enables us to construe the assemblage of technoscience and nature-society in the field of PUS or NPSS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.631-648
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• 2020

As an attempt to consider what to pay attention to in science learning, this study was conducted with the aim of discussing the meaning of science learning as a heterogeneous network. As a result of theoretical investigation, the characteristics of the heterogeneous network were described in three aspects: heterogeneous composition, existence by relations, and construction and change by translation. And it was discussed that science learning also has these characteristics of heterogeneous network. Relating to what to pay attention to in science learning, it was also discussed that science learning as a heterogeneous network requires us to pay attention to the elevation of things, the concept as a punctualized heterogeneous network, and the construction and expansion of heterogeneous network with neonadeuri of 'unripe' and 'ripe'. Finally, several suggestions for the science learning were given.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.1-40
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• 2019

Built upon ethnographic method such as participant observation and in-depth interview, this study analyzes the material culture of electronic flower auctions at Yangjae Flower Market. From the viewpoint of Actor-Network Theory(ANT), this research examines how human actors like dealers and auctioneers interact with nonhuman actors such as market devices and these interactions form networks called "agencement." This research is focused on three main objectives: first, to study how the performance of auctions - i.e. the interactions between auctioneers and dealers - change in the wake of new market devices in the auctions; secondly, to look into what changes artifacts bring to the social relationships between auctioneers and dealers; lastly, to analyze the influence of new market devices on auction price in the market. The results of this research are as follows. First, the appearance of new market devices generates changes in the performance of auctions, which means the change of 'agencement' of flower auctions. Direct interactions between auctioneers and dealers turned into indirect interactions through new market devices. Moreover, the changes in the agencement brought changes to the identity of auctioneers and dealers. Secondly, the new agencement caused by the inflow of new market devices formed the trust between the devices and human actors, which gave rise to the trust in electronic auction and in counterpart actors as well. In addition, new market devices lowered direct interactions between auctioneers and dealers and thus made more equal relationships between the two than before. Lastly, market devices like trading screen reduced the leverage of auctioneers by providing dealers with bidding information previously possessed by auctioneers much openly and dealers were able to decide auction prices in more reasonable and dispassionate manner. Economic agency, power, trust, price, and information in the market is material and sensory.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.31-49
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• 2012

In this essay, we problematize the problematics of the KMIS SOLOMO research agenda. We propose that the SOLOMO agenda is a conditioned product of the various assumptions, biases, premises, and presuppositions that the field of IS collectively succumbs to and shares, and thus needs to be problematized to arrive at a new set of research questions for the field. The problematization begins with the ontology that underlies the agenda. We argue that the agenda is largely drawn from a dichotomic, deep ontology of Human vs. Technology. While such ontology is neither right nor wrong in its own right, we suggest it is what underlies and influences the field's whole mode of inquiry including its research agenda. We propose an alternative ontology, the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which as a flat ontology provides a radically different set of research questions for the field. Next we take issue with the teleology of the SOLOMO agenda, and suggest that the telos of the agenda, and of the field of IS and the whole of Management discipline together, are anchored upon the capitalist episteme so that it creates a significant hole in its teleological scape. While not in any sense calling for an ideological demagogue, we propose that the field of IS should open itself to an alternative teleology including a leftist perspective. We draw upon the Critical Management Studies (CMS) to explore how further problematization can be made on the SOLOMO agenda, generating questions about its performativity, denaturalization, and reflexivity. As a result of the discussions, a list of new problematized research questions for the SOLOMO agenda is generated. In the end we state the motivation of the essay and call for a critical refurbishing of the field of IS.