We note with sadness the passing of our author Olga Amsterdamska on August 27. Olga taught at the University of Amsterdam, most recently in the department of sociology and anthropology, and was the coeditor of the third edition of The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Here is an except from one of her contributions thereto:
The directive to study practices has widened the range of places where STS scholars now look when studying the production of scientific knowledge.From a practice perspective, every diagnostic or treatment decision by a doctor, every choice of policy by a government regulatory agency, and every user's attempt to master a new technology can be seen as part of the process of knowledge production...[A]s many essays in other sections of this Handbook testify, much justified attention has in recent years come to settle on actors who are not scientists and on areas of activity where scientific knowledge, technological know-how, and research are made to intersect with other knowledges, skills, and tasks...The chapters in this section do not share a common theory, or even a common definition of practice, but a family a resemblance and a set of problems that might be a good place from which to continue thinking about science.
Amsterdamska leaves her husband, Gene Moore of the University of Amsterdam, and two daughters, to whom we send our condolences.
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