Editing Science and technology studies (section)

=== Material semiotics ===
{{see also|Feminist science and technology studies}}

With methodology from ANT, feminist STS theorists built upon SCOT's theory of co-construction to explore the relationship between gender and technology, proposing one cannot exist separately from the other.<ref name=":1b"/> This approach suggests the material and social are not separate, reality being produced through interactions and studied through representations of those realities.<ref name=":1b"/> Building on [[Steve Woolgar]]'s boundary work on user configuration,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Woolgar |first=Steve |date=May 1990 |title=Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1990.tb03349.x |journal=The Sociological Review |volume=38 |issue=1_suppl |pages=58–99 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-954x.1990.tb03349.x |s2cid=145786443 |issn=0038-0261|url-access=subscription }}</ref> feminist critiques shifted the focus away from users of technology and science towards whether technology and science represent a fixed, unified reality.<ref>{{Citation |last=Wajcman |first=Judy |title=Feminist theories of technology |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412990127.n9 |work=Handbook of Science and Technology Studies |year=1995 |pages=189–204 |place= |publisher=SAGE Publications Inc. |doi=10.4135/9781412990127.n9 |isbn=9780761924982 |access-date=14 April 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref> According to this approach, identity could no longer be treated as causal in human interactions with technology as it cannot exist prior to that interaction, feminist STS researchers proposing a "double-constructivist" approach to account for this contradiction.<ref>Landström, Catharina {{Citation |title=Queering Feminist Technology Studies |date=11 September 2013 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203427415-35 |work=Women, Science, and Technology |pages=419–433 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9780203427415-35 |isbn=978-0-203-42741-5 |access-date=2022-04-14|url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[John Law (sociologist)|John Law]] credits feminist STS scholars for contributing material-semiotic approaches to the broader discipline of STS, stating that research not only attempts to describe reality, but enacts it through the research process.<ref name=":1b"/>