Browsing RPI Theses Open Access by Subject "Science and technology studies"
Now showing items 1-20 of 27
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Accountability, responsibility, and 'success' among medical NGOs in Central America
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2021-05)This paper seeks to examine how registered, 501(c)3 short-term medical missions (STMMs) create and define accountability, responsibility, and success within their organization. To explore this question, a survey measuring ... -
Adaptation governance in rural Austria and New York
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2020-08)The objective of this study is to analyze planned adaptation as it is localized in agricultural communities as “political all the way through.” It argues that adaptation is not only shaped by political orders as it is ... -
Bodies from below : decomposition, death certificates, and the politics of 'natural' death
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2020-08)This dissertation focuses on human decomposition research within the forensic sciences, in particular forensic entomology, and how the death certificate Manner of Death category ‘Natural Death’ effects forensic research ... -
Car guys and martial artists : knowledge classification and validity in non-occupational communities of practice
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2019-05)This study argues that while these communities are increasingly using the internet to communicate and organize, expertise that new members gain from the internet is not truly ‘valid;’ because expertise in these communities ... -
Disability and cyberspace : the politics of inclusion & exclusion in web development groups
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2016-05)This dissertation attempts to answer the question “how can the online experiences of disabled people in the United States be improved?” To that end, it explores why the web is such an inaccessible place, including the ... -
Disruptive enactments: five dimensions of change in sociotechnical ecologies
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2016-12)This dissertation presents a heuristic analytical framework that examines change in sociotechnical ecologies through five dimensions that diffract through each other. These five dimensions are: agentogenesis/agenticide, ... -
Engineering knowledge and student development : an institutional and pedagogical critique of engineering education
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2014-12)Educators have recommended the integration of engineering and the liberal arts as a promising educational model to prepare young engineers for global economic, environmental, sociotechnical, and ethical challenges. Drawing ... -
Engineering the global Indian: skills, cosmopolitanism, and families in circuits of high-tech migrations between India and the United States
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2010-08) -
Environmental media systems : innovations at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Exposure Research Laboratory
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2012-08)This multi-sited ethnography analyzes challenges and opportunities in the design and development of digital media systems in the Office of Research and Development (ORD) at the United States Environmental Protection Agency ... -
High-tech worship: digital display technologies and protestant liturgical practice in the U.S.
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2009-05) -
Info@War.Mil: nonlinear science and the emergence of information age warfare in the United States Military
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2008-08) -
Interrogating mobiles: a story of Nigerian appropriation of the mobile phone
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2009-08) -
Knowledge representation in scruffy worlds : an ethnography of semiotic infrastructure design work
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2018-05)The research presented in this dissertation is based on four years of ethnographic fieldwork with diverse data communities – including the Semantic Web community and the human services informatics community. It is also ... -
Making cultures : politics of inclusion, accessibility, and empowerment at the margins of the maker movement
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2017-08)By examining the margins, I trouble the Maker Movement label, the people who hold sway over this categorization, and consider both proponents as well as dissenters from within and without its bounds. I question claims that ... -
Navigating choice : medical tourism, travel, and care in the new global biomedicine
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2014-12)This thesis is an analysis of what the discourse of choice enables in the practice of medical tourism, an industry providing for travel across national or regional boundaries by patients to receive direct medical services. ... -
Parasite labs: laboratory protocols of do-it-yourself biology
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2015-12)I seek to answer three questions about DIY biologists: how do they affirmatively refigure what it means to be a scientist; how do they differentially reproduce the contents and contexts of laboratories; and how do they ... -
Plastics without petroleum: History and politics of 'green' plastics in the United States
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2012-12)Research in science and technology studies (STS) indicates that social structures shape perceptions of problems, condition viable solutions, and limit the diversity of stakeholders and ideas present in the social construction ... -
Promising data for public empowerment : the making of data culture and water monitoring infrastructures in the Marcellus Shale gas rush
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2015-08)These arguments are developed through an ethnographic study of participatory watershed monitoring projects that seek to document the impacts of shale gas extraction in Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia. Energy ... -
Relationships of care with pediatric patients requiring long-term care
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2020-05)Observing care relationships for pediatric patients in long-term care facilities provides important insight into caregiving practices, notions of independence and autonomy, and communication practices. Caregivers may fulfill ... -
The cultural politics of constructionist computing : STS approaches to the critique and design of educational technology
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 2017-08)This dissertation aims to fill in this gap by asking: what education research opportunities open up in STS once the loop between STS and CLT is acknowledged? I introduce three ways to approach STS educational research by ...