Recent scholarship in Science, Technology and Society studies (STS) pays a greater attention to material objects and material practices. This has elevated materiality to a subject of analysis and marks a departure from traditional sociological questions such as what a material object means or signifies for social practices. The acceptance of the inextricable relation between the material and the social contributes to our understanding of the nature of technological change, which in turn may reduce failures in technology design and implementation. Focusing especially on radiation therapy, the implementation and consequences of technologies used in the dosimetry laboratory for the calibration of the radiation therapy equipment (TLD dosimeters) have not been adequately explored. In this paper I discuss the use of simple radiation technologies such as TLDs that are used in radiation dosimetry to argue that mundane things can play a crucial role in the production of science and technology and its implementation in the medical clinic.

Maria Rentetzi works as Associate Professor at The National Technical University of Athens, Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law School of Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences.

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