Science of Science and Reflexivity

Book•

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.

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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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Journal Article•DOI•

Rethinking therapeutic strategies in cancer: Wars, fields, anomalies and monsters

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Simon Stewart, Cyril Rauch¹•Institutions (1)

University of Nottingham¹

19 Oct 2016-Social Theory and Health

TL;DR: It is argued that the excessive focus on cancer as an insidious living defect that needs to be destroyed has obscured the fact that cancer develops inside human beings and it is important to gain a broader understanding of what cancer is and how it might be otherwise.

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Abstract: This article argues that the excessive focus on cancer as an insidious living defect that needs to be destroyed has obscured the fact that cancer develops inside human beings. Therefore, in order to contribute to debates about new cancer therapies, we argue that it is important to gain a broader understanding of what cancer is and how it might be otherwise. First, in order to reframe the debate, we utilize Pierre Bourdieu’s field analysis in order to gain a stronger understanding of the structure of the (sub)field of cancer research. In doing so, we are able to see that those in a dominant position in the field, with high levels of scientific capital at their disposal, are in the strongest position to determine the type of research that is carried out and, more significantly, how cancer is perceived. Field analysis enables us to gain a greater understanding of the complex interplay between the field of science (and, more specifically, the subfield of cancer research) and broader sources of power. Second, we draw attention to new possible ways of understanding cancer in its evolutionary context. One of the problems facing cancer research is the narrow time frame within which cancer is perceived: the lives of cancer cells are considered from the moment the cells initially change. In contrast, the approach put forward here requires a different way of thinking: we take a longer view and consider cancer as a living entity, with cancer perceived as anomalous rather than abnormal. Third, we theorize the possibility of therapeutic strategies that might involve the redirection (rather than the eradication) of cancer cells. This approach also necessitates new ways of perceiving cancer.

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3 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Downplaying class with style: Middle class anxiety and the aesthetic performance of role distance

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Jarkko Pyysiäinen, Max Ryynänen¹•Institutions (1)

Aalto University¹

01 Feb 2019-Poetics

TL;DR: In this paper, the analytical perspective is broadened and shifted from sociocultural distinction games between collective class agents to actual situated performances, and the stylistic and expressive means with which middle class agents relate themselves also to their own class and to its cultural, aesthetic and moral conventions and expectations.

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3 citations

Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"

...…might be applied to illustrate, for instance, how the overall setting could be read in the light of a logic of ‘interest in disinterestedness’ (e.g., Bourdieu, 1983, 2004) in the sense that Lester’s subjective desire to escape the cultural distinction game may nevertheless open him novel…...
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Dissertation•

The salience of boundaries :strategies of distinction, boundary reification and knowledge sharing in a nascent field of practice

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Katarzyna Anna Zdunczyk

01 Jan 2013

3 citations

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

...A field of practice is autonomous to the extent that entry into the field is restricted to those with high level of field-specific competence and the fundamental laws governing the field (the ‘nomos’) are distinctive and adhered to by participants in the field (Bourdieu, 2004)....
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...It is further argued that thus understood knowledge boundaries also describe and are influenced by relations of power within and across the same social sites (Bourdieu, 1984, 2004)....
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...As such, in relation to the study of fields, field dynamics, and principles of domination (Bourdieu, 1984, 1991, 2004) the EU RIS case represents a unique case (Yin, 2003) offering insights into rarely studied phenomena....
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...Attempting to identify the dominant principle of distinction (Bourdieu, 2004) in a homogeneous setting would not be conducive to advancing the understanding of the knowledge-sharing aspect of the problem....
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...…2004; Wenger, 1998) the present study reveals a much more dynamic model of boundaries that is also consistent with the key premises of leading practice theories (Bourdieu, 1977, 1984, 1991, 2004; Giddens, 1984) and theories of boundary enactment (Gieryn, 1983) and change (Tilly, 2004, 2005)....
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Lesson Study: Developing a Knowledge Base for Elementary Writing Instruction.

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Vicki McQuitty

01 Jan 2011

TL;DR: It is suggested that lesson study can, but does not always, produce knowledge suitable for the professional knowledge base for teaching writing.

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Abstract: Concern about students’ writing skills has led to recommendations that elementary teachers receive more professional development in how to teach writing (National Commission on Writing, 2006). However, there is currently little evidence about the knowledge teachers need to teach writing well, and it is therefore difficult for teacher educators to design effective professional development experiences. What is needed is a better understanding of the knowledge base that informs teaching writing to elementary children.!One possible means of gathering evidence about this knowledge base is through a collaborative teacher research process known as lesson study (Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002; Lewis, Perry, & Murata, 2006). Lesson study engages teachers in planning, evaluating, and improving lessons, so the process generates knowledge teachers find useful for their practice and may provide a mechanism for identifying some of the knowledge needed to teach writing. The goal of this study was to explore that possibility by describing the knowledge about writing instruction that elementary teachers generated through the lesson study process. ! This qualitative case study drew on complexity theory (Davis & Sumara, 2006), to conceptualize lesson study as a knowledge producing process and the lesson study groups who participated as knowledge producing systems. It addressed two main questions: (1) How did the lesson study systems enable and constrain the knowledge about writing instruction that emerged through them? and (2) What was the nature and content of the knowledge about writing instruction that emerged through the lesson study systems? Four lesson study groups, two in each of two elementary schools, participated. Data was collected through videotaping the lesson study sessions, collecting the ! ! documents the groups created during the lesson study process, and interviewing the participants after the lesson study cycle ended. The findings indicated that instances of over constraint, under constraint, and enabling constraint occurred in each lesson study group and that the groups produced knowledge that varied in content and nature. In general, instances of enabling constraint produced knowledge that fit the criteria for professional knowledge outlined by lesson study proponents (Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002). Instances of over constraint and under constraint produced knowledge that did not fit the professional knowledge criteria. This knowledge may therefore be less useful for teachers outside the lesson study groups than for the teachers who generated it. The findings suggests that lesson study can, but does not always, produce knowledge suitable for the professional knowledge base for teaching writing. The implication is that, if lesson study groups are to generate knowledge for the knowledge base, they must be organized is such a way that they prompt enabling constraint within themselves. LESSON STUDY: DEVELOPING A KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR ELEMENTARY WRITING INSTRUCTION

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3 citations

Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"

...Human knowledge emerges not through a detached, neutral process of discovery, but from networks of people and the processes, technologies, artifacts, and theories that those people create (Bourdieu, 2004)....
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...Scientists, for example, decrease complexity by working within particular theories and research methodologies and by fitting their work to the frames of knowledge created in previous experiments (Bourdieu, 2004)....
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...Schon’s (1983) argument is well founded if we view knowledge as generated through particular, rather than generic, structures (Bourdieu, 2004)....
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...Throughout chapters one and two, I have drawn on complexity theory (Davis & Sumara, 2006), a theory of knowledge production within complex systems (Bourdieu, 2004; Cilliers, 2002), research on knowledge for teaching (Fenstermacher, 1994), and Hiebert et al.’s (2002) conception of lesson study to…...
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Book Chapter•DOI•

Pierre Bourdieu: View Points and Entry Points

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Linus Salö¹•Institutions (1)

Stockholm University¹

01 Jan 2017

TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce the principles of Bourdieu's relational sociology of science and depict the scientific field as a locus of struggle between agents with differing symbolic and material assets.

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Abstract: This chapter introduces the principles of Bourdieu’s relational sociology of science . The scientific field is depicted as a locus of struggle between agents with differing symbolic and material assets. This chapter accounts conceptually for the interests, strategies, and investments of those who act in scientific fields: Homo Academicus. It also makes salient the struggles between newcomers and dominant agents as a key facet of scientific fields. It is proposed that understanding language choice entails understanding discipline-specific values. Bourdieu’s idea of ‘relational thinking’ brings forth the understanding that discipline-specific values have two modes of existence: in disciplinary fields and in field agents—that is, researchers. The chapter explicates how this conception is translated into the study’s design and provides information on the study’s procedure and dataset.

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3 citations

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Science of Science and Reflexivity

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