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Science of Science and Reflexivity

01 Jan 2004-
TL;DR: Bourdieu's "Science of Science and Reflexivity" as mentioned in this paper argues that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit.
Abstract: Over the last four decades, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu produced one of the most imaginative and subtle bodies of social theory of the postwar era. When he died in 2002, he was considered to be a thinker on a par with Foucault, Barthes, and Lacan a public intellectual as influential to his generation as Sartre was to his. "Science of Science and Reflexivity" will be welcomed as a companion volume to Bourdieu's now seminal "An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology." In this posthumous work, Bourdieu declares that science is in danger of becoming a handmaiden to biotechnology, medicine, genetic engineering, and military research that it risks falling under the control of industrial corporations that seek to exploit it for monopolies and profit. Science thus endangered can become detrimental to mankind. The line between pure and applied science, therefore, must be subjected to intense theoretical scrutiny. Bourdieu's goals in "Science of Science and Reflexivity" are to identify the social conditions in which science develops in order to reclaim its objectivity and to rescue it from relativism and the forces that might exploit it. In the grand tradition of scientific reflections on science, Bourdieu provides a sociological analysis of the discipline as something capable of producing transhistorical truths; he presents an incisive critique of the main currents in the study of science throughout the past half century; and he offers a spirited defense of science against encroaching political and economic forces. A masterful summation of the principles underlying Bourdieu's oeuvre and a memoir of his own scientific journey, "Science of Science and Reflexivity" is a capstone to one of the most important and prodigious careers in the field of sociology."
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Lab practical work based on haloperoxidase enzymes and their important biological roles allow students with a wide spectrum of interests to engage with the practical work, and through it with biochemistry.

6 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a field theoretic model of change based on the concept of cycles of polarization and settlement, where moments of contention emerge when field entrepreneurs successfully build professional movements, resulting in polarization.
Abstract: Innovative theories and policy proposals originating in the economics profession have diffused globally over the past several decades, but these models and policy programs transform as they spread. Existing models of change based on the concept of “paradigm shifts” capture the transformation of the economics profession at a high level of abstraction, but analysis of more concrete policy changes and associated ideas requires developing theory at a lower level of abstraction. I propose a field theoretic model of change based on the concept of cycles of polarization and settlement. According to this model, settlements are characterized by multiple cross-cutting axes of competition and debate in a professional field. Moments of contention emerge when field entrepreneurs successfully build professional movements, resulting in polarization. However, contention is episodic and followed by the emergence of “centripetal forces” which lead a gradual return to the center. I develop this model by examining the case of monetary economics and policy in Latin America, a critical case for studies of the policy influence of economic ideas and experts.

6 citations


Cites background or methods from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"

  • ...Theorists working in a variety of different sociological traditions have recently turned towards the dynamics of institutionalized fields, including professions and academic disciplines (Abbott 2001; Bourdieu 2004; Fligstein and McAdam 2012; Rao et al. 2003)....

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  • ...This article proposes such a model, building on recent theorizations of professional, institutional, and field dynamics (Abbott 2001; Bourdieu 2004; Fligstein and McAdam 2012; Martin 2003; Rao, Monin, and Durand 2003)....

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  • ...When this happens, Bautonomous^ professional struggles become correlated with Bheteronomous^ (Bourdieu 2004) political divisions, such as partisan and ideological rifts....

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Journal Article
TL;DR: Wimmer and Schmaus as mentioned in this paper provided an analysis of postsecondary education in Alberta over the past 15 to 20 years using social theory, specifically "thinking tools" provided in Bourdieu's Field Theory to reveal power struggles in the system.
Abstract: While the landscape of postsecondary education in Alberta continues to expand and diversify, there seems to be very little written about the organization of postsecondary education in the province over the past 15 to 20 years (Wimmer & Schmaus, 2010). This paper provides an analysis of postsecondary education in Alberta over the past 15 to 20 years using social theory, specifically “thinking tools” (Grenfell & James, 2004) provided in Bourdieu’s Field Theory to reveal power struggles in the system. Government policies that drive postsecondary institutions to struggle for position in market-like conditions while tightly controlling the parameters of that market are explored. We discuss the role government policy plays in the reproduction of power structures and their distribution of capital in the province of Alberta. Alors que l’education postsecondaire en Alberta continue a s’etendre et a se diversifier, on a tres peu ecrit sur son organisation dans les 15 ou 20 dernieres annees (Wimmer & Schmaus, 2010). Cet article analyse l’education postsecondaire en Alberta dans les 15 ou 20 dernieres annees par le biais de la theorie sociale, notamment les outils de pensee (Grenfell & James, 2004) de la theorie des champs de Bourdieu, de sorte a devoiler les luttes pour le pouvoir au sein du systeme. Nous nous penchons sur les politiques gouvernementales qui poussent les etablissements postsecondaires a se battre pour leur position dans des conditions qui ressemblent a celles du marche tout en controlant strictement les parametres de ce marche. Nous discutons le role des politiques gouvernementales dans la reproduction des structures du pouvoir et leur repartition du capital aux etablissements postsecondaires en Alberta.

6 citations

Dissertation
14 Jul 2016
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the social meanings applied to the carrying and use of knives as a weapon by young people living in areas with high rates of knife crime and violence, and found that the knife represented for many participants a proxy form of resilience.
Abstract: This thesis explores the social meanings applied to the carrying and use of knives as a weapon, by young people living in areas with high rates of knife crime and violence The thesis situates data, generated through interviews and focus groups, within a theoretical framework based around the concept of ‘street life’, as a place in which young people, often in groups, draw on street codes as a response to the extant violence and a ‘security gap’ in their neighbourhoods This ‘gap’ was experienced to a greater or lesser extent by most of the young people who took part in the research, and was bound up in ongoing ‘integrational difficulties’ experienced in adolescence, and exacerbated by experiences of deprivation and marginality Some participants responded to violence by adhering to a street code that exposed them to violence, and, reproduced the violence they sought to confront Non-offending young people were able to draw on a ‘civic code’ as a means of sustaining collective resilience Social integration is shown to provide a crucial form of resilience for participants In the absence of sources of collective resilience, the knife represented for many participants a proxy form of resilience Participants were sometimes able to cultivate more effective forms of integration and social resilience as they disengaged with ‘street life’ and, as a consequence, the knife as a source of protection became increasingly redundant In this sense, the thesis is about how young people create and sustain identities, integration and resilience in difficult circumstances, and the sometimes-misguided ways in which they seek to do this Thus, the thesis adds novel empirical and conceptual findings to normative and subcultural understandings, not just of knife carrying but of gangs, and other collective responses to violence

6 citations