Observing and/or intervening? Large-scale collaboration from the pers...

To experiment is to study controlled variation, but introducing variation requires intervention. How, as STS scholars, may or should we intervene in the research collaborations we normally “just” observe? This talk draws on insights from three types of research collaborations: the interdisciplinary research group “The Epistemology of the Large Hadron Collider” (ELHC), the particle physics collaboration that this group and my dissertation study (ATLAS), and the emerging “new generation” of the Event Horizon Telescope (ngEHT). This astrophysics collaboration will produce high-quality images of black holes by combining observations from telescopes around the globe. It features a working group on history, philosophy and culture, involving scholars from the humanities and social sciences. The idea is to address ethical (responsible siting of telescopes), epistemological, and governance challenges to avoid past mistakes and create a better collaboration from the start. While the ELHC is a project connecting heterogeneous research interests, and ATLAS a collaboration looking for improvement within established frameworks, ngEHT is intended to be a true experiment: It introduces new variables into known conditions, with the potential of transforming those conditions altogether. As an STS scholar who is a member of ELHC and ngEHT, and an observer of ATLAS, I take this panel as an opportunity to discuss the limitations and opportunities of getting involved in experimental collaborations. In particular, setting up and learning from experiments raises questions of scale and translation: How do we transfer insights from one context to another? And how do we transform critical observations into constructive collaboration?