ABSTRACT
As I noted in Chapter 1, cultural studies of science did not magically emerge in
the last decades of the twentieth century, although the recent rapid proliferation of
the termmight create that impression. This chapter addresses the very basic question:
‘How did cultural studies of science and technology come about?’ However, it
tackles this question not by telling an origin story, but rather by doing some
tracing: uncovering and highlighting some of the multiple makings of cultural
studies of science and technology. The question about how cultural studies of science
and technology became a practice must be answered with reference to femin-
ism. As I shall show, feminist researchers have been key agents in the making
and doing of cultural studies of science and technology. For some time now,
feminist scholars have decried the resistance to gender analysis and feminist
insights within social studies of science (see, for example, Harding 1986; Dela-
mont 1987; H. Rose 1994; Haraway 1997: esp. 26-8; Wajcman 2000, 2004).
Inspired by these protests, I set out to document in this chapter how the rela-
tively new kind of science studies – cultural studies of science and technology –
was forged and feminist researchers figure prominently in my account.
