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Suspect Technologies: Scrutinizing the Intersection of Science, Technology, and Policy

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Drug testing is widely deployed in the United States throughout the public and private sectors. This case study uses two emergent drug-testing technologies—hair analysis and the sweat patch—as examples of techniques of governance that should be subjected to the political equivalent of strict scrutiny. The article contributes to conceptual debates in science and technology studies, arguing that the study of social structure and subject formation should be integral rather than epiphenomenal to analysis in the transdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS). The article contextualizes the development and deployment of drug-testing technologies within the structural and epistemological categories of racial and ethnic difference, gender, sexuality, and class formation. Conflicts between proponents of the technologies and critical advocates who seek to constrain their use mark sites of productive theoretical engagement with structural sociology, racial formation theory, critical race theory, and feminist critique.¹ Finally, the article demonstrates how STS analyses can contribute to the struggles of strategic counterpublics as they advocate for changing the meaning and material consequences of suspect technologies.

Key Words: drug testing • surveillance technology • technology studies • legal studies

Science, Technology & Human Values, Vol. 30, No. 3, 374-402 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0162243903261952


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