Acknowledgements
First of all, we would like to thank all the chapter authors, including those whose work did not make it into the final book. Each of you have generously shared your ideas and stories with us, which has been truly inspiring. You also put up with a long publishing process and many revisions, including serving as dedicated commentators on each other’s chapters. Thanks for that. We could literally not have done this without you, and this is obviously also your book.
Similar thanks go to all the participants at the workshop ‘STS and democratic politics’, which we hosted in Copenhagen in November 2017 to kickstart the project – and not least to Kristin Asdal and Andrew Barry for their captivating keynotes at the workshop. Thanks is also due to the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST), the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School, and the Department of Culture and Learning at Aalborg University, all of which supported the workshop financially. Extra thanks go to the last institution, which in addition to workshop funding also supported the book project itself with a substantial contribution.
In addition to all the above, we would very much like to indicate our appreciation for Mattering Press. In the original book proposal, we argued that Mattering Press is unique in offering the combination of straightforward Open Access publishing and high-quality editorial support. This turned out to be true. It has been a real privilege to work with other STS scholars at each step in the publishing process. First and foremost a huge thanks to Endre Dányi, who was a rock of support, experience, and strong ideas throughout the journey from conceptualisation to printed book. Thanks also to Julien McHardy whose ingenuity made the wonderful cover possible. Finally, a big thank you to our extremely competent external reviewers, to whom this book owes a lot.
We would also like to acknowledge our many phenomenal mentors and colleagues in different locations. You are too many to mention, but you nevertheless provide the web that makes projects such as this one possible. To list some of the more institutionalised conversations: The Technologies in Practice group at IT University Copenhagen and the Techno-Anthropology/TANTLab group at Aalborg University both offered valuable feedback at internal seminars. Both James Maguire and Casper Bruun Jensen offered detailed written feedback at crucial points, which warrants special thanks. Thanks also to the participants at the 4S 2020 conference track ‘Democracy in the Making’, convened by Jason Chilvers and Jan-Peter Voß. Jan-Peter also invited us to Berlin for a 2018 workshop on ‘Sciences of democracy’, where he, Brice Laurent, and Mark Brown offered valuable feedback on the book project. Thank you. Thanks also to all the participants in the track on ‘STS and democratic politics’ at Nordic STS 2017, which we convened together with Linda Soneryd and Anne Kathrine Vadgaard, and which served as an important warm-up for the book project.
Anne Kathrine (AK) deserves very special thanks. She was the third person on the team in the early stages of this project. Her ideas and spirit have shaped the final book in irreplaceable ways.
Andreas and Irina
Copenhagen, August 2021