About

The Technoscience Research Unit at the University of Toronto is an Indigenous-led home for critical and creative research on the politics of technoscience. The TRU draws together social justice approaches to Science and Technology Studies from across the university with an emphasis on Indigenous, feminist, queer, environmental, anti-racist and anti-colonial scholarship. As a cross-faculty research unit, the TRU is located at the Faculty of Information and jointly supported by the Faculty of Arts and Science, with its start in the Women and Gender Studies Institute.  Since 2017, we are in multi-lab collaboration with the Semaphore Research Cluster of the Knowledge Media Design Institute.

The TRU membership is composed of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research fellows, community members, and affiliated faculty. It hosts the Environmental Data Justice Lab which focuses on Indigenous Science and Technology Studies.  We organize the Technoscience Salon, along with a collaborators such as the McLuhan Centre.  We  also support the editorial collective for the feminist STS journal Catalyst. TRU members work independently on their own research, but also collaborate on shared research projects, reading and writing groups, as well as conferences and other events.  The TRU was founded by director, Michelle Murphy, and Brian Beaton in 2007.

Technoscience as a term connects the study of scientific knowledge and laboratory practice with the politics of technologies and their worldly results in processes as diverse as social media, militarization, governance, and community organizing. The TRU draws from diverse fields and critical traditions in its expansive sense of technoscience studies.

Funding for TRU research, space  and activities comes from SSHRC grants that support particular projects, the Acceleration Consortium CFREF grant, and the Faculty of Information.  Support for the Technoscience Salon comes from the Canada Research Chair program.  Past support for the TRU has come from the Connaught Global Challenge Award,  the Faculty of Information, the Faculty of Arts and Science, and the Provost’s Office.  We acknowledge past support from the SSHRC Situating Science Network, New College, the Institute of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology,  and the Institute for Science and Technology Studies at York University.

Do you work in the area of technoscience and social justice and are interested in joining the TRU? Our lab includes both university and community members. Please contact the Lab Manager for an initial conversation about how your research area or project fits with the TRU mission and vision: technoscienceresearch@gmail.com