Professor honored for work introducing gender and feminist theory into social science studies

Sharon Traweek, associate professor of gender studies and history in the UCLA College, has received the Bernal prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science. The prize was awarded in recognition of Traweek’s internationally recognized work and in particular her pioneering methods helped to introduce ethnography, cultural analysis, gender and feminist theory into social science studies, all while providing exceptional mentorship to younger scholars in the field.

Traweek teaches and conducts research on 20th and 21st century “technosciences,” attending to their embodied gendered performance of subject formation of expertise, knowledge crafting, migration and narrative practices, including their strategic engagements with the global political economies in which they are embedded.

Her ethnographic, archival and theoretical work is informed by feminist epistemology and science studies, plus debates about affect, governmentality, intersectionality, performance and practice. Traweek is now engaged in or advising research collaborations based in Denmark, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. She has worked with graduate students engaged in studies of how media, public health, reproduction, science, sex work and technology are part of Japanese nation-state formation from the 17th to 20th centuries.