Social Constructionism in Science and Technology Studies • Sal Restivo Jennifer Croissant I n this chapter, we use certain moments and tensions in science and technology studies to explore constructionism in this interdisciplinary field. I Our starting point is the publication of Laboratory Life (1979) by Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar. They sub- titled this seminal monograph in the ethnog- raphy of science The Social Construction of Sci- entific Facts. They removed the word social from the subtitle for the 1986 edition. We look at this decision in the light of certain de- velopments sometimes referred to as "the death of the social" and of a historical An- glo-American resistance to a robust under- standing and application of the concept so- cial. A second moment occurs with the 1999 debate between David Bloor and Latour about the strong program and its critics. 2 From a wider perspective, one of the most significant moments in the discussions and debates over social constructionism is the emergence of the "science wars" in the mid- 1990s. 3 There are other moments that ground this story, but we do not address them all to the same extent. These moments include Harry Collins's (2006) defense of a weak sociology of science, the Sokal affair, and the science wars (e.g., Segestrale, 2000a), Langdon Winner's (1996) views on social construction and the politics of tech- nology, and debates over actor-network the- ory (e.g., Law & Hassard, 1999). Our objec- tives are (1) to demonstrate the centrality of social constructionism to any serious under- standing of what is behind the classical slo- gans in science and technology studies (STS)-science is social relations, and arti- facts have politics; (2) to underscore the fact that social constructionism is a key factor in 213