Anthropological STS in Asia

Anthropological STS, distinct from its nearest neighbors social studies of science (SSK), social studies of technology (SCOT), and actor-network theory (ANT), is ( a ) more holistic and culturally embedded than those neighbors and ( b ) in conversation with comparative literature, film, and media studies, including imaginaries of networks beyond national boundaries. Asian STS, or theory from the Global East, rearranges theory from the Global North (traditional STS), the Global South (South Africa), India (postcolonial or subaltern studies), or white settler postcolonial theory from the antipodes. New key journals and networks are centers for STS in Asia. With consciousness of anthropocene changes and biological sensibilities of how systems interact, regenerate, stabilize, or collapse and morph, transform, and become otherwise, this article argues that we need more perspectives, located in different parts of the earth, on our bios and our polis, including revisionist histories of inter-Asian circulations and global circuitries, both as sentinels and as sources for robustness, consent, and legitimacy of flexible and responsive governance of emergent and interacting, if culturally variegated, technoscientific societies.