A New Triennium (2016-18)
Abstract
With this issue, Tecnoscienza celebrates the beginning of its third three-year cycle. The journal has been increasingly consolidating in the last six years and we believe this is a valuable result, especially as the journal represents an example of alternative and independent scientific publishing practices. Its release is still made possible by the commitment and energy of an emerging generation of researchers, who have invested in an independent open access peer-reviewed journal released under the Creative Commons licence.
As a spontaneous intellectual project developed outside the countries that are “usual suspects” in the STS field, we have been delighted to see the journal growing and its readers multiplying. Tecnoscienza is still the only Italian academic journal specifically devoted to social studies of science and technology, as well as possibly the only one coming from a southern European country. This positioning offers the journal a rather unique perspective in the international landscape and our aim for the next years is to go on developing such a distinctive standpoint within the STS international academic community.
Another characteristic of the journal we aim to foster is the hybridization and cross-fertilization of more established STS approaches with emerging perspectives and viewpoints. The current double special issue, which explores the notion of “digital circulation” by building a bridge between STS and media studies, is an example of such a kind of intersection and cross-fertilization.
In the next three years, we plan to strengthen our position as an international platform that offers a space for novel intellectual inter and crossdisciplinary thinking. We will pursue this twofold goal by promoting a number of special issues dedicated to emerging topics in contemporary STS. In the last three years, our experience with monographic issues has been extremely positive and we are pleased with the numerous international contributions we have hosted so far. The current double special issue is also an example of this success. The call received almost forty contributions from all over the world, while about only one-quarter of them are actually being published in the two issues. For this result, we have to thank the guest editors and external anonymous reviewers, whose voluntary contributions made this and previous volumes of the journal possible.
In the perspective of a more incisive positioning of the journal both internationally and in interdisciplinary terms, we inaugurate a new section evocatively titled “Crossing Boundaries”. This section is a hybrid itself, being to some extent the merger of two previous sections: “Cartography” and “Debates”. In this new section, invited contributors belonging to different countries and disciplinary backgrounds will debate around common topics, questioning at the same time existing scientific categories, disciplinary boundaries, and STS geographies.
In a similar vein, we are establishing a new group of international scholars who will act as correspondents from other countries, signaling the most stimulating and thought-provoking volumes to be reviewed. The correspondents, who will be made effective from the next issue, will enhance and refresh our goal to engage with the STS debate of other countries and to offer in-depth analyses (in English) of STS books written in non-English languages. On the basis of the journal’s alternation policy, this new three-year cycle also inaugurates a new Coordination Board, as well as future plans for further expansion of the Editorial and Advisory Board. Once more, this represents the journal’s geographical grounding, as members of both the Coordination and the Editorial Board are based in Universities across Europe.
Six years are just gone and we are ready to engage in new challenges for the next three. In spite of all the hard work, time flies when you are having fun.
Attila Bruni, Paolo Magaudda and Manuela Perrotta
As a spontaneous intellectual project developed outside the countries that are “usual suspects” in the STS field, we have been delighted to see the journal growing and its readers multiplying. Tecnoscienza is still the only Italian academic journal specifically devoted to social studies of science and technology, as well as possibly the only one coming from a southern European country. This positioning offers the journal a rather unique perspective in the international landscape and our aim for the next years is to go on developing such a distinctive standpoint within the STS international academic community.
Another characteristic of the journal we aim to foster is the hybridization and cross-fertilization of more established STS approaches with emerging perspectives and viewpoints. The current double special issue, which explores the notion of “digital circulation” by building a bridge between STS and media studies, is an example of such a kind of intersection and cross-fertilization.
In the next three years, we plan to strengthen our position as an international platform that offers a space for novel intellectual inter and crossdisciplinary thinking. We will pursue this twofold goal by promoting a number of special issues dedicated to emerging topics in contemporary STS. In the last three years, our experience with monographic issues has been extremely positive and we are pleased with the numerous international contributions we have hosted so far. The current double special issue is also an example of this success. The call received almost forty contributions from all over the world, while about only one-quarter of them are actually being published in the two issues. For this result, we have to thank the guest editors and external anonymous reviewers, whose voluntary contributions made this and previous volumes of the journal possible.
In the perspective of a more incisive positioning of the journal both internationally and in interdisciplinary terms, we inaugurate a new section evocatively titled “Crossing Boundaries”. This section is a hybrid itself, being to some extent the merger of two previous sections: “Cartography” and “Debates”. In this new section, invited contributors belonging to different countries and disciplinary backgrounds will debate around common topics, questioning at the same time existing scientific categories, disciplinary boundaries, and STS geographies.
In a similar vein, we are establishing a new group of international scholars who will act as correspondents from other countries, signaling the most stimulating and thought-provoking volumes to be reviewed. The correspondents, who will be made effective from the next issue, will enhance and refresh our goal to engage with the STS debate of other countries and to offer in-depth analyses (in English) of STS books written in non-English languages. On the basis of the journal’s alternation policy, this new three-year cycle also inaugurates a new Coordination Board, as well as future plans for further expansion of the Editorial and Advisory Board. Once more, this represents the journal’s geographical grounding, as members of both the Coordination and the Editorial Board are based in Universities across Europe.
Six years are just gone and we are ready to engage in new challenges for the next three. In spite of all the hard work, time flies when you are having fun.
Attila Bruni, Paolo Magaudda and Manuela Perrotta