- Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, Philosophy of Science, History of Science, Anthropology of Science, Higher Education, and 18 moreQualitative Research, Visual Sociology, Social Studies Of Science, Sociology of Technology, Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Sociology), Sociology of Science, Social study of ICT, Visual Studies, Sociology of Gender, Discourse Analysis, Ethnography, Computer Networks, Databases, Workplace Studies, STS (Anthropology), Science Policy, Sociology Of Scientific Knowledge, and science and technology studies (STS)edit
This new Yearbook addresses the question of how policy, place, and organization are made to matter for a new research field to emerge. Bringing together leading historians, sociologists, and organizational researchers on science and... more
This new Yearbook addresses the question of how policy, place, and organization are made to matter for a new research field to emerge. Bringing together leading historians, sociologists, and organizational researchers on science and technology, the volume answers this question by offering in-depth case studies and comparative perspectives on multiple research fields in their nascent stage, including molecular biology and materials science, nanotechnology, and synthetic biology. The Yearbook brings to bear the lessons of constructivist ethnography and the “practice turn” in Science and Technology Studies (STS) more broadly on the qualitative, comparative, and critical inquiry of new research fields. In doing so, it offers unprecedented insights into the complex interplay of national research policies, regional clusters, particular research institutions, and novel research practices in and for any emerging field of (techno-)science. It systematically investigates national and regional differences, including the variable mobilization of such differences, and probes them for organizational topicality and policy relevance.
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Anhand ethnographischer Fallstudien in vier Disziplinen – Architektur, Botanik, Pharmazie und Meteorologie – geht das Buch der Frage nach, ob und auf welche Weise sich die Geschlechterdifferenz im wissenschaftlichen Alltag artikuliert.... more
Anhand ethnographischer Fallstudien in vier Disziplinen – Architektur, Botanik, Pharmazie und Meteorologie – geht das Buch der Frage nach, ob und auf welche Weise sich die Geschlechterdifferenz im wissenschaftlichen Alltag artikuliert. Mit ihrer disziplinär vergleichenden Perspektive betritt die Studie Neuland: Sie vermittelt einen Blick auf die vielfältigen Unterschiede zwischen den Disziplinen und identifiziert damit die Konstellationen, unter denen geschlechtliche Zuschreibungen das wissenschaftliche Universalismusprinzip unterlaufen können. Damit stellt sie für die Geschlechter- wie auch für die Wissenschaftsforschung einen wichtigen und innovativen Beitrag dar.
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: This contribution reconstructs the history of Science and Technology Studies in Switzerland. With a focus on the institutional aspects of the field’s emergence, it traces early initiatives to foster social research on science and... more
: This contribution reconstructs the history of Science and Technology Studies in Switzerland. With a focus on the institutional aspects of the field’s emergence, it traces early initiatives to foster social research on science and technology, then considers, in more detail, the network building that led to the foundation of the Swiss Association for the Studies of Science, Technology, and Society (STS-CH). It also identifies important sites of STS research in the Swiss academic landscape. This reconstruction reveals characteristics of the field as it emerges such as the late uptake of STS research in Switzerland compared to other European countries, the importance of young researchers and bottom-up initiatives for the building of a relevant academic network, and processes of fragile institutionalization and of de-institutionalization. To conclude, the contribution reflects on the field’s (inter)national and (inter)disciplinary configuration. Keywords : STS; Institutionalization; Hi...
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Studies on ‘Big Science’ have shifted our perspective from the complexity of scientific objects and their representations to the complexity of sociotechnical arrangements. However, how scientists in large-scale research attend to this... more
Studies on ‘Big Science’ have shifted our perspective from the complexity of scientific objects and their representations to the complexity of sociotechnical arrangements. However, how scientists in large-scale research attend to this complexity to facilitate and afford knowledge production has rarely been considered to date. In this article, we locate organizational complexity on the level of organizing practices that follow multiple and divergent logics. We identify three strategies of managing organizational complexity, drawing on existing literature on large-scale research as well as own empirical research. The three strategies are: segmenting research infrastructure, introducing elements of bureaucratic governance, and implementing standards and standardization. We illustrate these strategies with examples from our empirical case study on experimental particle physics research at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. While the strategies we identified help to cope with the complexity o...
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Studies on 'Big Science' have shifted our perspective from the complexity of scientific objects and their representations to the complexity of sociotechnical arrangements. However, how scientists in large-scale research attend to this... more
Studies on 'Big Science' have shifted our perspective from the complexity of scientific objects and their representations to the complexity of sociotechnical arrangements. However, how scientists in large-scale research attend to this complexity to facilitate and afford knowledge production has rarely been considered to date. In this article, we locate organizational complexity on the level of organizing practices that follow multiple and divergent logics. We identify three strategies of managing organizational complexity, drawing on existing literature on large-scale research as well as own empirical research. The three strategies are: segmenting research infrastructure, introducing elements of bureaucratic governance, and implementing standards and standardization. We illustrate these strategies with examples from our empirical case study on experimental particle physics research at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. While the strategies we identified help to cope with the complexity of some organizational tasks by dividing, ordering, or mediating between divergent organizational logics, we find that organizational complexity overall is not reduced but rather displaced. We argue that dealing with complexity is a dynamic and ongoing process, which inevitably generates novel organizational complexity.
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Der Artikel rekonstruiert die Entwicklung eines Smart Factory-Demonstrators in einem Großkonzern. Er zeigt auf, wie den dabei auftretenden Herausforderungen in der Praxis begegnet und eine bestimmte Vision der intelligenten Fabrik in... more
Der Artikel rekonstruiert die Entwicklung eines Smart Factory-Demonstrators in einem Großkonzern. Er zeigt auf, wie den dabei auftretenden Herausforderungen in der Praxis begegnet und eine bestimmte Vision der intelligenten Fabrik in Demonstrationen für ein Expertenpublikum inszeniert wurde. Der Demonstrator entspricht, in vereinfachter Form, der Vorstellung einer weitgehend automatisierten Fabrik, in der Roboter und andere "smarte" Produktionsmaschinen kleinteilige Geräte nach vorgegebenen "Rezepten" selbstorganisierend und dezentral produzieren. Aus Perspektive einer praxisorientierten Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung (STS) nimmt die zugrunde liegende ethnographische Untersuchung Aspekte der sozialen Organisation und technische Abläufe gleichermaßen in den Blick. Die Studie zeigt auf, dass Demonstratoren - hier als Modelle zukünftiger Smart Factories betrachtet - mehrere Zielsetzungen haben. Die identifizierten Zielsetzungen sind: die mit der Industrie 4.0-V...
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Résumé Cette étude porte sur les images dans la communication scientifique. Elle analyse, plus spécifiquement, le rôle des images microscopiques à l’échelle atomique dans les articles scientifiques avec, comme point de départ, le constat... more
Résumé Cette étude porte sur les images dans la communication scientifique. Elle analyse, plus spécifiquement, le rôle des images microscopiques à l’échelle atomique dans les articles scientifiques avec, comme point de départ, le constat qu’une image n’apparaît que rarement seule – elle est souvent accompagnée d’autres représentations visuelles, le tout formant une composition de construction hétérogène et complexe : une figure composite. Il sera donc question de l’interaction entre les éléments (visuels) d’une telle figure composite et des rôles et fonctions qu’assument ces figures dans l’ensemble d’un article. Nous considérerons, comme cas de figure, la recherche en nanotechnologie dans la perspective d’une sociologie des sciences.
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The ArgumentWhat kind of objects are computer programs used for simulation purposes in scientific settings? The current investigation treats a special case. It focuses on “event generators,” the program packages that particle physicists... more
The ArgumentWhat kind of objects are computer programs used for simulation purposes in scientific settings? The current investigation treats a special case. It focuses on “event generators,” the program packages that particle physicists construct and use to simulate mechanisms of particle production. The paper is an attempt to bring the multiplex and unfolding character of such knowledge objects to the fore: Multiple meanings and functions are embodied in the object and can be drawn out selectively according to the requirements of a work setting. The object's conceptual complexity governs its application in some contexts, while the object is considered a mere “black box,” transparent and ready-to-hand, in others. These two poles span a full spectrum of object aspects, functions, and conceptions. Event generators are ideas turned into software, testing grounds for models, just a tool to study the performance of a detector, etc. The object's multiplex nature is submitted to ne...
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Wie kann man mit Verfahren der qualitativen Sozialforschung die Funktionsweisen komplexer Organisationen untersuchen? Wie ist es möglich, Einblick in die Praktiken, die Abläufe und nicht zuletzt in das spezifische Wissen zu erhalten,... more
Wie kann man mit Verfahren der qualitativen Sozialforschung die Funktionsweisen komplexer Organisationen untersuchen? Wie ist es möglich, Einblick in die Praktiken, die Abläufe und nicht zuletzt in das spezifische Wissen zu erhalten, die den produktiven Weiterbestand von Organisationen ermöglichen? Der vorliegende Beitrag ist aus einem Forschungsprojekt entstanden, das Praktiken der Wissensproduktion in der experimentellen Teilchenphysik untersucht. Die Organisationen, mit denen wir es zu tun haben, sind internationale Forschungskollaborationen. Sie zeichnen sich einerseits durch ihre herausragende Größe (über 3000 beteiligte Physikerinnen und Physiker in einem Experiment) und einen hohen Grad an interner Arbeitsteilung und Spezialisierung aus; andererseits können wir auch eine zunehmend institutionalisierte Bürokratie der Entscheidungsabläufe beobachten. Ein weiteres Merkmal dieser For- schungskollaborationen ist, dass, trotz ihrer vergleichsweise starken medialen Präsenz und aktiven Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, nur sehr wenig über ihre inneren Strukturen und Funktionsweisen bekannt ist.
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ZusammenfassungAusgehend von interaktionstheoretischen Überlegungen geht der Aufsatz der Frage nach, unter welchen Bedingungen personalisierende Beurteilungen in sachbezogene Interaktionsprozesse einfließen können. Diese Bedingungen... more
ZusammenfassungAusgehend von interaktionstheoretischen Überlegungen geht der Aufsatz der Frage nach, unter welchen Bedingungen personalisierende Beurteilungen in sachbezogene Interaktionsprozesse einfließen können. Diese Bedingungen werden für den Fall der Wissenschaft aufgrund einer ethnographischen Studie in vier Disziplinen (Botanik, Pharmazie, Meteorologie und Architektur) spezifiziert. Es werden drei Dimensionen identifiziert, anhand derer sich Disziplinen klassifizieren lassen: (a) Standardisierungsgrad der epistemischen Praktiken, (b) Grad der wechselseitigen Abhängigkeit und Kooperationszwang sowie (c) Trennbarkeit von beruflichen und privaten Erwartungszusammenhängen. Diese drei Dimensionen sind nicht nur wissenschaftssoziologisch instruktiv, sondern eröffnen auch eine neue Perspektive auf die Frage, unter welchen Bedingungen die immer mitlaufende Wahrnehmung der Geschlechtszugehörigkeit zu einem kommunikativ relevanten Merkmal wird.
... M. Merz (B) University of Lucerne e-mail: martina.merz@unilu.ch 1Nanotechnology is employed in this text as a synonym for both nanotechnology and ... 9 In 2001, physics professor and expert in materials research Louis Schlapbach was... more
... M. Merz (B) University of Lucerne e-mail: martina.merz@unilu.ch 1Nanotechnology is employed in this text as a synonym for both nanotechnology and ... 9 In 2001, physics professor and expert in materials research Louis Schlapbach was appointed as the new CEO of Empa. ...
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Bilder, Modelle und Simulationen, die ihren Ursprung in der Wissenschaft haben, sind in allen Bereichen des gesellschaftlichen Lebens gegenwärtig und außerordentlich wirkmächtig. Hochauflösende Bilder von Mars und Mikroben unterstützen... more
Bilder, Modelle und Simulationen, die ihren Ursprung in der Wissenschaft haben, sind in allen Bereichen des gesellschaftlichen Lebens gegenwärtig und außerordentlich wirkmächtig. Hochauflösende Bilder von Mars und Mikroben unterstützen Erklärungsansätze und prägen letztlich unsere Weltsicht; Klima- und Finanzmarktmodelle dienen der Politik als Entscheidungs- und Verhandlungsgrundlage; Simulationen unterstützen Entwurfs- und Planungstätigkeiten in Architektur und Industrie – um nur einige Beispiele zu nennen.
Virtual laboratory, digital laboratory, dry lab – notions such as these frequently become associated with computer simulation be it in popular accounts or in the discourse of practitioners. The notions seem to suggest that computers and... more
Virtual laboratory, digital laboratory, dry lab – notions such as these frequently become associated with computer simulation be it in popular accounts or in the discourse of practitioners. The notions seem to suggest that computers and simulation applications constitute research environments in their own right, allowing one to perform computer experiments and endowing one with the potential to replace traditional
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ABSTRACT This chapter introduces the notion of a "disunity of e-science:" It posits that different epistemic cultures privilege different forms of digital infrastructure, integrate them into their practice in... more
ABSTRACT This chapter introduces the notion of a "disunity of e-science:" It posits that different epistemic cultures privilege different forms of digital infrastructure, integrate them into their practice in historically and culturally specific ways and assign to them distinct functions, meanings and interpretations. Based on an ethnographic case study of theoretical particle physics, the chapter demonstrates how digital infrastructures are firmly embedded and deeply entwined with epistemic practice and culture. The case is made, firstly, by investigating the practice of distributed collaboration and how it is sustained by e-mail-based interaction and, secondly, by analyzing the practice of preprinting and how an electronic preprint archive has turned into a central element of the scientists' culture. In its conclusion, the chapter cautions against techno-deterministic views of how digital infrastructure might align sciences and turn them into a homogenized "e-science."
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Modellers of biological, ecological, and environmental systems cannot take for granted the maxim... more
Modellers of biological, ecological, and environmental systems cannot take for granted the maxim 'simple means general means good'. We argue here that viewing simple models as the main way to achieve generality may be an obstacle to the progress of ecological research. We show how complex models can be both desirable and general, and how simple and complex models can be linked together to produce broad-scale and predictive understanding of biological systems.
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This paper reconstructs the development of a smart factory demonstrator in a large corporation. It shows how the associated social and technical challenges were dealt with in practice, and how a particular vision of the smart factory was... more
This paper reconstructs the development of a smart factory demonstrator in a large corporation. It shows how the associated social and technical challenges were dealt with in practice, and how a particular vision of the smart factory was staged and enacted in demonstrations that addressed an expert public. The demonstrator presents an attempt at prototyping a largely automated factory in which robots and other “smart” production machines assemble small devices by following product “recipes” in a self-organizing and decentralized manner. Conducted from the perspective of practice-oriented Science and Technology Studies (STS), our ethnographic investigation is equally concerned with issues of social organization and technical processes. We show that demonstrators, understood as models of future smart factories, have multiple purposes. The purposes identified are: to examine the promises associated with the Industry 4.0-vision in a real production environment in view of feasibility and plausibility; to exploit the demonstrator project as a learning environment within the corporation; and to render concrete the vision of a smart factory. This final purpose takes into account the concerns of both system developers and potential customers of intelligent production machines.
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Mit Fokus auf Innovation im Kontext wissenschaftlicher Wissenserzeugung diskutiert und vergleicht dieser Text ausgewählte Konzepte epistemischer Innovation in den Science Studies. Ausgehend von einer Reflexion der wegweisenden Arbeiten... more
Mit Fokus auf Innovation im Kontext wissenschaftlicher Wissenserzeugung diskutiert und vergleicht dieser Text ausgewählte Konzepte epistemischer Innovation in den Science Studies. Ausgehend von einer Reflexion der wegweisenden Arbeiten Thomas Kuhns zu wissenschaftlichen Revolutionen wird zunächst ein selektiver Blick auf die Debatten der frühen Laborstudien mit ihrer Mikroperspektive auf Wissenserzeugung geworfen. Auf dieser Grundlage werden zwei prominente objektzentrierte Ansätze hinsichtlich ihrer Konzeption der Dynamik epistemischer Innovation vorgestellt. Eine damit verwandte Perspektive, so das Argument, ist auch für die Analyse der Computersimulation als neue Innovationspraxis ertragreich. Dementsprechend wird Simulation zugleich in ihrem praktischen Vollzug und mit Blick auf die ihr zugrunde liegenden Computermodelle als produktive Entitäten, die explizites wie implizites Wissen hervorbringen, untersucht. Der Text schließt mit einem Vergleich der vorgestellten Konzepte epistemischer Innovation, insbesondere hinsichtlich der mit ihnen jeweils assoziierten Vorstellungen der Durchsetzung wissenschaftlicher Neuerungen.
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Contemporary science is typically conceived as an international endeavor. Especially the natural and technical sciences are seen as internationally constituted with their adoption of English as a lingua franca as well as widespread... more
Contemporary science is typically conceived as an international endeavor. Especially the natural and technical sciences are seen as internationally constituted with their adoption of English as a lingua franca as well as widespread cooperation and mobility of researchers across national borders and continents. Such an international perspective on science, however, should not neglect that the configuration of individual research fields may vary considerably between locations, regions, and national contexts. Variation is particularly noticeable in the case of research fields in their nascent and early stages such as current nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and the neurosciences. It is this locally specific character of new research fields and how they come into being that this chapter and the present volume move into the spotlight.
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This article addresses the local configuration of new research fields in a novel analytical perspective, inspired by Knorr-Cetina’s (1982) “transepistemic arenas of research.” Based on a qualitative investigation, it analyzes the... more
This article addresses the local configuration of new research fields in a novel analytical perspective, inspired by Knorr-Cetina’s (1982) “transepistemic arenas of research.” Based on a qualitative investigation, it analyzes the development of nanoscale research at a select Swiss University through the lens of resource-relationships and the resources involved. The article’s central argument is that resources have to be articulated according to local conditions to become productive. Three temporal phases are differentiated to show how the current state of affairs has come about. Each phase involved specific material and immaterial resources as well as particular ways in which these were locally articulated. A first phase was characterized by the placing of probe microscopy in the local research cultures. In a second phase, nanoscale research became staged as an interdisciplinary project. Finally, a third phase involved resource relationships in the transepistemic arena of academic science and regional politics.
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Compared with the situation in other countries, the sociological study of science and technology has developed only hesitantly in Switzerland. The present text reconstructs this process from the 1990s onward and provides a sketch of the... more
Compared with the situation in other countries, the sociological study of science and technology has developed only hesitantly in Switzerland. The present text reconstructs this process from the 1990s onward and provides a sketch of the current state of affairs. It shows how early initiatives within sociology converged with a broader multidisciplinary movement to strengthen and foster Science and Technology Studies in Switzerland. The «Research Committee Sociology of Science and Technology» and the «Swiss Association for the Studies of Science, Technology, and Society» played an important role in initiating, fostering, and coordinating activities across locations, languages, and disciplinary orientations. The local development of STS in places such as Zurich, Lausanne, Basel, Geneva, or Lucerne was neither synchronous nor did their dominant dis- ciplinary orientations coincide. A few strong local centers of STS have emerged. Considering the Swiss situation as a whole, however, the dominant picture is that of a still institutionally fragile field of research and teaching, especially as the social science stream of STS is concerned.
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Modellers of biological, ecological, and environmental systems cannot take for granted the maxim ‘simple means general means good’. We argue here that viewing simple models as the main way to achieve generality may be an obstacle to the... more
Modellers of biological, ecological, and environmental systems cannot take for granted the maxim ‘simple means general means good’. We argue here that viewing simple models as the main way to achieve generality may be an obstacle to the progress of ecological research. We show how complex models can be both desirable and general, and how simple and complex models can be linked together to produce broad-scale and predictive understanding of biological systems.