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Put to the Test: the Sociology of Testing

Put to the Test: The Sociology of Testing

The Special Issue of the British Journal of Sociology has now been published online. Put to the Test - The Sociology of Testing is edited by CIM Academics Noortje Marres and David Stark.

The Special Issue investigates the changing and expanding role of testing in contemporary society, politics, economy and everyday life, through empirical studies of testing in society - from pregnancy testing to citizen tests by immigration agencies, social credit experiments in China and randomized controlled trials of development - and brings together leading international sociologists and scholars in science and technology studies (STS).

In their introductory essay, the editors discuss why we need a new sociology of testing. For longer video content in which the contributors make links between the themes of the articles and the Coronavirus pandemic, please see the Blindspot website.

British Journal of Sociology, Volume 71, Issue 3

Table of Contents

Noortje Marres

David Stark

Preface to a special issue on the

sociology of testing

 

Noortje Marres

David Stark

Put to the Test:

For A New Sociology of Testing

Luciana de Souza Leão

What's on trial?

Joan Robinson

What the pregnancy test is testing

Janet Vertesi

Testing planets:

Institutions tested in an era of uncertainty

Jonathan Bach

The red and the black:

China's social credit experiment as a total test environment

Martín Tironi

Prototyping public friction:

Exploring the political effects of design testing in urban space

 

Nathan Coombs

What do stress tests test?

Experimentation, demonstration, and the sociotechnical performance of regulatory science

Noortje Marres

Co-existence or displacement: Do street trials of intelligent vehicles test society?

 

Willem Schinkel

State work and the testing contours of citizenship  

Giovanni Formilan

David Stark

Underground testing:

Name-altering practices as probes in electronic music

David Stark

David Stark introduces "Put to the Test"

David Stark

Have you been tested?

Silent lecture to accompany "Put to the Test"