In recent years, the concept of boundaries has been at the center of influential research agendas in anthropology, history, political science, social psychology, and sociology. This article surveys some of these developments while describing the value added provided by the concept, particularly concerning the study of relational processes. It discusses literatures on (a) social and collective identity; (b) class, ethnic/racial, and gender/sex inequality; (c) professions, knowledge, and science; and (d) communities, national identities, and spatial boundaries. It points to similar processes at work across a range of institutions and social locations. It also suggests paths for further developments, focusing on the relationship between social and symbolic boundaries, cultural mechanisms for the production of boundaries, difference and hybridity, and cultural membership and group classifications.

The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences

▪ Abstract In recent years, the concept of boundaries has been at the center of influential research agendas in anthropology, history, political science, social psychology, and sociology. This article surveys some of these developments while describing the value added provided by the concept, particularly concerning the study of relational processes. It discusses literatures on (a) social and collective identity; (b) class, ethnic/racial, and gender/sex inequality; (c) professions, knowledge, and science; and (d) communities, national identities, and spatial boundaries. It points to similar processes at work across a range of institutions and social locations. It also suggests paths for further developments, focusing on the relationship between social and symbolic boundaries, cultural mechanisms for the production of boundaries, difference and hybridity, and cultural membership and group classifications.

Today, the life course perspective is perhaps the pre-eminent theoretical orientation in the study of lives, but this has not always been the case. The life histories and future trajectories of individuals and groups were largely neglected by early sociological research. In the pioneering study, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918-1920), W. I. Thomas (with Florian Znaniecki) first made use of such histories and trajectories and argued strongly that they be investigated more fully by sociologists. By the mid-1920s, Thomas was emphasizing the vital need for a “longitudinal approach to life history” using life record data (Volkart, 1951, p. 593). He advocated that studies investigate “many types of individuals with regard to their experiences and various past periods of life in different situations” and follow “groups of individuals into the future, getting a continuous record of experiences as they occur.” Though this advice went unheeded for decades, Thomas’s early recommendations anticipated study of the life course and longitudinal research that has become such a central part of modern sociology and other disciplines.

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The Emergence and Development of Life Course Theory

At a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals—often referred to under the umbrella acronym LGBT—are becoming more visible in society and more socially acknowledged, clinicians and researchers are faced with incomplete information about their health status. While LGBT populations often are combined as a single entity for research and advocacy purposes, each is a distinct population group with its own specific health needs. Furthermore, the experiences of LGBT individuals are not uniform and are shaped by factors of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographical location, and age, any of which can have an effect on health-related concerns and needs. While some research about the health of LGBT populations has been conducted, researchers still have a great deal to learn. To help assess the state of the science, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to assess current knowledge of the health status of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations; to identify research gaps and opportunities; and to outline a research agenda to help NIH focus its research in this area. A committee of experts was convened by the IOM to consider this task, and its findings are presented in its report, The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding.

The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding

Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

thirty printings of the collection of Merton's essays entitled Social Theory and Social Structure.35 Science, Technology and Society remained unavailable until 1970, when both a hardback and a paperback reprint, with a new preface by Merton, appeared. So from 1949 to 1970 the monograph was out of print, while the essays were reprinted again and again. Although since 1970 Science, Technology and Society has at long last been translated into Italian and Spanish, and most recently into Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese, Social Theory and Social Structure has appeared not only in these languages, but in Hebrew, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, and Czech (samizdat) as well.36 These bare facts indicate which of Merton's publications were most widely read until 1970 (and even later) and why the \"Merton thesis\" generally came to allude to topics that Merton explored in those articles-primarily the relationship between radical Protestantism or Puritanism and the rise of science in seventeenth-century England, and the economic factors in science in that same period-rather than the other challenging \"theses\" explored in Science, Technology and Society.37

Distancing Science from Religion in Seventeenth-Century England

Our inquiry begins with an observation by historian M.D. King, put forth in 1971 and then widely ignored: 
The sociologist…must discover the sources of scientific authority and the manner of its exercise…. Science is acclaimed and patronized to the extent that its intellectual authority…is acknowledged. The failure to give due priority to the problem of cognitive authority wielded by scientists has vitiated much of the sociology of science of the last three decades (1).

Scientists Protect their Cognitive Authority: The Status Degradation Ceremony of Sir Cyril Burt

How does 'place' contribute to the credibility of scientific claims? The Chicago School of urban studies (1918-32) had close ties to the city for which it was named: its social scientists lived in Chicago, were affiliated with the University of Chicago, and made Chicago the object of almost all of their empirical research. In order for this city to become a legitimate source of claims about urban form and process, Chicago is textually made to oscillate between two available authorizing spaces. As a field-site, the city of Chicago becomes a found and uncorrupted reality, the singularly ideal place to do urban research, and requiring the analyst to get up- close and personal. As a laboratory, Chicago becomes a controlled environment where artificial specimens yield generalities true anywhere, requiring of the analyst distance and objectivity. The distinctive epistemic virtues of both field and laboratory are preserved as complementary sources of credibility, and Chicago becomes the right place for the job.

Laboratories and Field-Sites in Urban Studies

To what extent is contemporary science — for instance, biotechnology — a public or private thing? What does it mean for a science to be labelled public or private? Where should the responsibility for making such judgements be lodged?

Thomas F. Gieryn

Papers

Distancing Science from Religion in Seventeenth-Century England

Scientists Protect their Cognitive Authority: The Status Degradation Ceremony of Sir Cyril Burt

Laboratories and Field-Sites in Urban Studies

Biotechnology’s Private Parts (and Some Public Ones)

The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in Nineteenth-Century Britain.