Laboratory life Latour, Bruno; Latour, Bruno; Woolgar, Steve
1986., 20130404, 2013, 1986, 2013-04-04
eBook
This highly original work presents laboratory science in a deliberately skeptical way: as an anthropological approach to the culture of the scientist. Drawing on recent work in literary criticism, ...the authors study how the social world of the laboratory produces papers and other "texts,"' and how the scientific vision of reality becomes that set of statements considered, for the time being, too expensive to change. The book is based on field work done by Bruno Latour in Roger Guillemin's laboratory at the Salk Institute and provides an important link between the sociology of modern sciences and laboratory studies in the history of science.
The wrong bin bag Woolgar, Steve; Lezaun, Javier
Social studies of science,
06/2013, Letnik:
43, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
There is in science and technology studies a perceptible new interest in matters of ‘ontology’. Until recently, the term ‘ontology’ had been sparingly used in the field. Now it appears to have ...acquired a new theoretical significance and lies at the centre of many programmes of empirical investigation. The special issue to which this essay is a contribution gathers a series of enquiries into the ontological and reflects, collectively, on the value of the analytical and methodological sensibilities that underpin this new approach to the make-up of the world. To what extent and in what sense can we speak of a ‘turn to ontology’ in science and technology studies? What should we make of, and with, this renewed interest in matters of ontology? This essay offers some preliminary responses to these questions. First, we examine claims of a shift from epistemology to ontology and explore in particular the implications of the notion of ‘enactment’. This leads to a consideration of the normative implications of approaches that bring ‘ontological politics’to centre stage. We then illustrate and pursue these questions by using an example–the case of the ‘wrong bin bag’. We conclude with a tentative assessment of the prospects for ontologically sensitive science and technology studies.
Bruno Latour (1947–2022) Woolgar, Steve
Nature (London),
11/2022, Letnik:
611, Številka:
7937
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Applying his thinking to climate change, he argued that nature could not be observed from a distance, because humanity is part of it. In later years, he turned his attention to the problems of the ...environment and climate change, on which he collaborated with artists and scientists, notably in a series of remarkable exhibitions and performance lectures. When he was being considered for a position at Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey, several eminent scientists there threatened to resign.
Representation in Scientific Practice, published by the MIT Press in 1990, helped coalesce a long-standing interest in scientific visualization among historians, philosophers, and sociologists of ...science and remains a touchstone for current investigations in science and technology studies. This volume revisits the topic, taking into account both the changing conceptual landscape of STS and the emergence of new imaging technologies in scientific practice. It offers cutting-edge research on a broad array of fields that study information as well as short reflections on the evolution of the field by leading scholars, including some of the contributors to the 1990 volume. The essays consider the ways in which viewing experiences are crafted in the digital era; the embodied nature of work with digital technologies; the constitutive role of materials and technologies -- from chalkboards to brain scans -- in the production of new scientific knowledge; the metaphors and images mobilized by communities of practice; and the status and significance of scientific imagery in professional and popular culture.ContributorsMorana Alac, Michael Barany, Anne Beaulieu, Annamaria Carusi, Catelijne Coopmans, Lorraine Daston, Sarah de Rijcke, Joseph Dumit, Emma Frow, Yann Giraud, Aud Sissel Hoel, Martin Kemp, Bruno Latour, John Law, Michael Lynch, Donald MacKenzie, Cyrus Mody, Natasha Myers, Rachel Prentice, Arie Rip, Martin Ruivenkamp, Lucy Suchman, Janet Vertesi, Steve Woolgar
As the neurosciences make their way beyond the laboratory, they become influential in a wide range of domains. How to understand this process? What are the prospects for, and dynamics of, influence, ...uptake and rejection? This article reports our attempts to track the emergence of neurosciences with particular reference to the emergence of the field of neuromarketing. Our key initial tasks included the identification and definition of the field, the negotiation of access, and establishing relations with participants and informants. These tasks gave rise to what are often construed as familiar ‘methodological difficulties’, such as how to define the field and what to make of the reactions and responses of those involved in neuromarketing. In this article we present some of our experiences of researching the empirical materials of neuromarketing to assess different responses to ‘methodological difficulties’ in studying science and technologies in the making. We draw on analytic resources provided by Science and Technology Studies to address the challenge of studying emerging fields of science, practices and technologies. In particular, we draw on the concepts of multiplicity, performativity and practical ontology to argue that a particular approach to ‘methodological difficulties’ can actually enrich our research objectives. We suggest that reflexivity be understood, not predominantly as a methodological corrective to the problems of detecting an antecedent object of research; but as revealing some of the ways in which neuromarketing is enacted.
Is science and technology studies (STS) a luxury that our society cannot afford anymore? In this interview, Koichi Mikami tries to learn lessons from Steve Woolgar’s distinguished career on how the ...kind of sensibilities treasured within the field of STS and the type of critical engagement that its researchers aspire to might be best exercised in a changing landscape of higher education and academic research. Woolgar explains how he, at some key moments in his career, managed to create “a room” for reflexive thought and critical engagement in domains that could otherwise have been dominated by simple deterministic discourses. He explains that the questions of how and to whom you sell your criticism deserve as much attention as what your criticism is. A reflection by Koichi Mikami follows the interview.
This research note proposes that it is instructive to ask what happens when evaluative practices go wrong. It shows how a close study of mistakes and mishaps in evaluation - both in the process of ...their disclosure and subsequent management - provides important insights into ways in which evaluation practices contribute to performing and sustaining the relations of accountability involved. The note examines two cases: 1) the mistaken award of the 2017 Oscar for Best Picture and 2) the incident in November 2016 when Thomson Reuters notified a large number of scholars that they had been awarded the distinction of being a “Highly Cited Researcher” in their field, only a few hours later to retract these awards. Studying such instances provides insights into what is at stake for participants, the choreography of performing and revealing evaluations, the ways in which different evaluation practices fold together, and the accountability structures which support valuation practices.
Our introductory essay in this journal's 2013 Special Issue on the 'turn to ontology' examined the shift from epistemology to ontology in science and technology studies and explored the implications ...of the notion of enactment. Three responses to that Special Issue argue that (1) there is no fundamental qualitative difference between the ontological turn and social constructivism, (2) we need to be wary of overly generic use of the term 'ontology' and (3) the language of 'turns' imposes constraints on the richness and diversity of science and technology studies. In this brief reply, we show how each of those critiques varies in its commitment to circumspection about making objective determinations of reality and to resisting reification. We illustrate our point by considering overlapping discussions in anthropology. This brings out the crucial difference between the science and technology studies slogan 'it could be otherwise' and the multinaturalist motto 'it actually is otherwise'.
This paper reflects on the origins and subsequent reception of the paper “Ontological Gerrymandering: The anatomy of social problems explanations”, published in 1985. It describes the circumstances ...of my turning up at McGill University as a Visiting Professor in Sociology and meeting Dorothy, then a graduate student and the TA assigned to an undergraduate course on Social Problems which I was asked to teach. The paper reflects on the twin benefits: of an interloper, from Europe and from Science and Technology Studies (STS), entering the exotic and heady fray of North American social problems; and of Dorothy’s steady and resolute guidance in introducing me to a new field. The paper suggests some reasons for the endurance of the paper’s arguments, more than 35 years after its publication, drawing on some parallel developments in Social Problems and STS. It asks why has there been rather little mutual interaction between these disciplines, given their common concern with questions, among others, about values, effects and interventions in academic scholarship. The paper concludes that many more of us might have done well to pursue the path of strident agnosticism.
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