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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."
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TL;DR: The role of the classic quality control system in science, the peer review, is to produce trustworthy knowledge and act as a peer-to-peer learning process as discussed by the authors, however, in the university accidental and random models for learning is still dominating, leaving the important decisions in relation to learning to individual scientists and not to the organisation.
Abstract: The role of the classic quality control system in science, the peer review,is to produce trustworthy knowledge and act as a peer-to-peer learning process. Scientific work is to a large degree still organised as a craft guild with integrated and loosely organised apprenticeship training for young scientists. Recent studies of knowledge creation in organisations have demonstrated how complex the process of knowledge in organisations has become. However, in the university accidental and random models for learning is still dominating, leaving the important decisions in relation to learning to individual scientists and not to the organisation. Following the introduction of new models of research evaluation with an accounting perspective responding to policy demands for 'better' management, such individualised and loosely organised learning systems can easily be overlooked by large scale and systematic research evaluation systems introduced buy most universities. What will then become of the classic internal and tacit modes of scientist learning?
5 citations
TL;DR: Szakolczai and Srinivas as discussed by the authors argue that the figurational dynamics of sociological theory have often emphasized difference and polarity rather than continuity and shared intellectual trajectory.
Abstract: F of all, we should like most sincerely to thank Arpad Szakolczai and Nidhi Srinivas for their thoughtful commentaries, and Dennis Smith for facilitating this debate. This format provides a welcome opportunity both to present seemingly transparent ideas, and to clarify inevitable confusions and crossed wires, and to press forward in areas of genuine contention. In our reply we try to do both of the latter. Considerations of space demand brevity, and we apologize in advance if this engenders a brusqueness of tone. The main point that we wish to get across is that by ‘centrality’ we do not envisage an exclusive point of departure. We argue that in some ways Elias’s value lies, somewhat paradoxically, in his profound unoriginality. It has always been rather unhelpful to characterize process sociology as an exclusive cult. However, the figurational dynamics of sociological theory have often emphasized difference and polarity rather than continuity and shared intellectual trajectory. We should like to take this opportunity to redress the balance and present an argument for a renewed sociological canon – a ‘we-grouping’ that is both broad and encompassing, but at the same time clearly defined by a common orientation towards the project of sociology. Elias is there but he is not alone. We are most certainly seeking to get away from ‘the old great man theory’ (Elias, 1971b: 7). First, however, we do need to respond to some of the more egregious misinterpretations and misrepresentations of our argument.
5 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...But again, as Elias (1982) and Bourdieu (1975, 2004) have both pointed out, processes of secondary involvement allow aspects of interpersonal competition and even conflict, actually to facilitate the expansion of scientific knowledge....
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...…that sociology should be a scientific discipline aimed, in the broadest sense, at improving the means of orientation of individuals and groups enmeshed in increasingly complex relations of interdependence, the semiological visionaries (Bourdieu, 2004: 28) are beginning to exclude themselves....
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01 Jan 2019
5 citations
11 Jan 2018
TL;DR: One year before my academic life began, Jim Kemeny published a book called "Housing and Social Theory" (Kemeny 1992) as discussed by the authors, which has had a major impact within European housing and urban research over the last two and a half decades, not least by crystalizing its epistemic divisions into ‘mainstream’ and ‘critical’.
Abstract: One year before my academic life began, Jim Kemeny published a book called ‘Housing and Social Theory’ (Kemeny 1992) This book has had a major impact within European housing and urban research over the last two and a half decades, not least by crystalizing its epistemic divisions into ‘mainstream’ and ‘critical’ (Webb 2012) In the face of Kemeny’s critique, ‘mainstream’ housing and urban researchers have remained wedded to ‘policy oriented’ empiricist approaches about which they have been defensive In fact, it could even be argued that policy oriented housing researchers have been emboldened during this period On the other hand, some housing and urban researchers have spent the last 25 years exploring the relationship between housing and social theory with a view to developing a more ‘critical’ understanding of housing and housing policy My own work falls into this latter category and can be broken down into three phases (represented in the three parts of this thesis) which all bear the hallmarks of Kemeny’s influence, to greater or lesser degrees Kemeny’s influence is most obvious in part I of the thesis This contains a series of papers that represent my attempts to develop a sociology of housing and housing research Although my initial contributions to the literature focussed on the social construction of housing problems and policy, my subsequent interventions recognise that it is not enough to focus ‘critical’ theoretical attention on policy issues alone; the context of research practice, itself, requires the same critical theoretical attention This recognition set me on an intellectual track that resulted in published contributions to the sociology of knowledge literature, within the entrepreneurial context of the contemporary university These contributions examine how entrepreneurial contexts shape academic subjectivities and the sociological episteme If part I of the thesis finds sociology useful in illuminating housing policy and housing research practice then part II contains a book and two papers that call it into question The origins of this ‘hostile turn’ towards sociology are in two pieces of research (into the lives of heroin users and visual impaired children) where sociology had hindered my attempts to develop an adequate knowledge of the phenomena under the microscope The publications in this part of the thesis embrace phenomenology to make theoretical sense of the limits of the sociological episteme and to develop a more adequate understanding of the lives of heroin users and visual impaired children They also set me on an intellectual path that led to my theoretical development of a more fundamental critique of housing and urban research and, eventually, a constructive and reconciliatory resolution to what I have argued are its epistemic limitations The book and two papers contained in part III of the thesis were produced in conditions of acute conflict The book and ‘fallacy paper’ were written in response to the controversial housing market renewal programme but were contextualised within my wider intellectual concerns about the fundamental problems of housing and urban research They represent a full-frontal intellectual ‘attack’ on the professional enterprise of housing and urban research and its social consequences The ‘impact’ paper was written and published 5 years later, following a ‘career break’ during which I had reflected on the fundamentally conflictual nature of housing and urban research and sought nonviolent alternatives to such conflict It outlines a reconciliatory approach to housing and urban research that is true to the intellectual argument in the ‘fallacy paper’ whilst seeking to outline and advance the possibilities for collaboration between housing and urban researchers and their constituencies
5 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...Specifically, we learn that scientific fields are also social fields in which power relations regulate the context of knowledge production by, for instance, offering or withholding ‘credibility’, recognition and distinction to scientific work (Latour and Woolgar 1979; Bourdieu 2001)....
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01 Jan 2008
5 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...Such a conclusion is certainly at odds with a positivist philosophy that regards “the progress of science as a continuous movement of accumulation” (Bourdieu, 2004, p. 14), and is an important aspect of the contribution and impact of Kuhn’s work....
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