• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.45-78
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• 2012

What is a disaster? And what can science and technology studies tell us about it? There might be numerous definitions about disaster. In this article, we will posit that disaster is an incident when sociotechnical system actor-network broke down against the other force in their "trial of strength". This is a process that punctualized actor-network is depunctualized, and a status that readiness-to-hand of Being recedes while pesentness-at-hand of tool-being comes forward. Using the concept of disaster as a case study, we will consider how Latourian ontology overlaps with Heideggerian philosophy of technology. This STS approach which hasn't been previously studied might provide us with new theoretical framework that enables us to construe the assemblage of technoscience and nature-society in the field of PUS or NPSS.