This paper outlines a new approach to the study of power, that of the sociology of translation. Starting from three principles, those of agnosticism (impartiality between actors engaged in controversy), generalised symmetry (the commitment to explain conflicting viewpoints in the same terms) and free association (the abandonment of all a priori distinctions between the natural and the social), the paper describes a scientific and economic controversy about the causes for the decline in the population of scallops in St. Brieuc Bay and the attempts by three marine biologists to develop a conservation strategy for that population. Four ‘moments’ of translation are discerned in the attempts by these researchers to impose themselves and their definition of the situation on others: (a) problematisation: the researchers sought to become indispensable to other actors in the drama by denning the nature and the problems of the latter and then suggesting that these would be resolved if the actors negotiated the ‘obl...

Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay

The demarcation of science from other intellectual activities-long an analytic problem for philosophers and sociologists-is here examined as a practical problem for scientists. Construction of a boundary between science and varieties of non-science is useful for scientists' pursuit of professional goals: acquisition of intellectual authority and career opportunities; denial of these resources to "pseudoscientists"; and protection of the autonomy of scientific research from political interference. "Boundary-work" describes an ideological style found in scientists' attempts to create a public image for science by contrasting it favorably to non-scientific intellectual or technical activities. Alternative sets of characteristics available for ideological attribution to science reflect ambivalences or strains within the institution: science can be made to look empirical or theoretical, pure or applied. However, selection of one or another description depends on which characteristics best achieve the demarcation in a way that justifies scientists' claims to authority or resources. Thus, "science" is no single thing: its boundaries are drawn and redrawn inflexible, historically changing and sometimes ambiguous ways.

Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists

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The social constructionist movement in modern psychology

This paper explores the heterogeneous processes of social and technical change, and in particular the dynamics of techno-economic networks. It starts by considering the way in which actors and intermediaries are constituted and define one another within such networks in the course of translation. It then explores, first the way in which parts of such heterogeneous networks converge to create unified spaces linking incommensurable elements, and second how some of these links achieve longevity and tend to shape future processes of translation.

Techno‐economic networks and irreversibility

In this article Elliot Mishler reformulates validation as a process through which a community of researchers evaluates the "trustworthiness" of a particular study as the basis for their own work. Rather than relying for their assessments on an investigator's adherence to formal rules or standardized procedures, skilled researchers, Mishler argues, depend on their tacit understanding of actual, situated practices in a field of inquiry. Validity claims are tested through the ongoing discourse among researchers and, in this sense, scientific knowledge is socially constructed. Within this perspective, Mishler proposes an approach to the problem of validation in inquiry-guided studies that relies on Kuhn's concept of exemplars — concrete models of research practice. He then examines three studies of narrative, suggesting them as candidate exemplars for this area of research since they provide reasonable grounds for evaluating their trustworthiness.

Validation in Inquiry-Guided Research: The Role of Exemplars in Narrative Studies

I Discovery Accounts.- The Interaction between Theory and Data in Science.- The Scientist as an Analogical Reasoner: A Critique of the Metaphor Theory of Innovation.- Is it Possible to Reconstruct the Research Process? Sociology of a Brain Peptide.- II Discovery Acceptance.- Theoreticians and the Production of Experimental Anomaly: The Case of Solar Neutrinos.- The Role of Interests in High-Energy Physics: The Choice between Charm and Colour.- The Effects of Social Context on the Process of Scientific Investigation: Experimental Tests of Quantum Mechanics.- On the Construction of Creativity: The 'Memory Transfer' Phenomenon and the Importance of Being Earnest.- III The Research Process.- Struggles and Negotiations to Define What is Problematic and What is Not: The Sociologic Translation.- The Development of an Interdisciplinary Project.- IV Writing Public Accounts.- Discovery: Logic and Sequence in a Scientific Text.- Contexts of Scientific Discourse: Social Accounting in Experimental Papers.- V The Context of Scientific Investigation.- The Context of Scientific Investigation.

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William A. Schwartz

Papers

The Social process of scientific investigation

The Nuclear Seduction