This week Indigo Keel interviews our regular host, Samara Greenwood, on societal contexts and science.

Samara is currently undertaking a PhD in which she investigates the various ways in which changes in society can come to shape change in science. In this episode Samara discusses some of the controversies of drawing links between political contexts and scientific change, including links between second wave feminism and Primate Field Studies in the 20th century. She also discusses how studying context-to-science relations can provide us with a richer and more inclusive understanding of science, one which does justice to the positive contributions social and political change can have on knowledge production.

If you are interested in learning more about context, or reading examples of contextual histories of science, Samara suggests the following books:

• Naomi Oreskes Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped what we Do and Don't know about the Ocean
• David Kaiser How the Hippies Saved Physics
• James Poskett Horizons: A Global History of Science
• Upcoming work by Samara (you'll have to wait a little for this)

A transcript of the episode can be found here:  https://www.hpsunimelb.org/post/episode-8-transcript

Thanks for listening to The HPS Podcast with your current hosts, Samara Greenwood and Carmelina Contarino. You can find more about us on our blog, website, bluesky, twitter, instagram and facebook feeds. This podcast would not be possible without the support of School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne.
HPS Podcast | hpsunimelb.org