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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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01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: The network structure of ISPIM research topics from the SNA point of view is evaluated and the contemporary body of knowledge of innovation management research is described and visualized as keyword networks.
Abstract: The usefulness of keywords and keyword networks as a fundamental carrier of knowledge has been recognized but the prior studies identifying and analyzing innovation management research topics and their evolution at ISPIM have not addressed the Social Network Analysis (SNA) viewpoint. Therefore this study evaluates the network structure of ISPIM research topics from the SNA point of view. By applying SNA to the ISPIM keyword and research topic data from 2009 to 2014 full academic paper publications (N=1081), this study is explicitly modelling how the different keywords are inter-linked with each other. By analyzing various centrality measures, the importance of a particular keyword within the whole ISPIM network are determined. As a result the contemporary body of knowledge of innovation management research is described and visualized as keyword networks. Implications for future innovation management research are discussed.
2 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...Since ISPIM is among the leading research communities (Bourdieu, 2004)...
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...Since ISPIM is among the leading research communities (Bourdieu, 2004) This paper was presented at The XXVII ISPIM Innovation Conference – Blending Tomorrow’s Innovation Vintage, Porto, Portugal on 19-22 June 2016....
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01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present and analyse an in-depth interview study of behavioural economists at Swedish universities, using a theoretical framework derived from the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu and the styles of reasoning approach.
Abstract: Though there are numerous studies attempting to describe and analyse the internal dynamics of academic economics, the results of these studies are often contradictory. In order to assess the potential usefulness of certain theoretical tools to the sociology of economics, this study presents and analyses an in-depth interview study of behavioural economists at Swedish universities. The theoretical framework under assessment is derived from the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu and the styles of reasoning approach. Utilizing the concept of styles of scientific reasoning, field theory, capital theory, and the notion of scientific habitus to analyse the rise of behavioural economics into the mainstream of the economics discipline, this study concludes that the theoretical framework provides tools that are very useful in the analysis of social phenomena in academic economics.
2 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...Arguing that the process by which behavioural economics has become an accepted part of mainstream economics offers relevant material for a study of the internal dynamics of the discipline, this thesis specifically attempts to evaluate the usefulness of Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory and the concept of styles of reasoning to the sociology of economics....
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...“The Positions of Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Touraine Respecting Qualitative Methods”, The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 1–19....
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...“Towards a Reflexive Sociology: A Workshop with Pierre Bourdieu”, Sociological Theory, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 26-63....
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...2.1.4 Sociology of Science Though Bourdieu is perhaps generally not thought of as a sociologist of science, he did utilize and adapt his thinking tools to research and discuss the nature of scientific production (e.g. Bourdieu, 1975, 1991, 2004)....
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...In line with Pierre Bourdieu (1975, 1991, 2004), this thesis views the production of scientific knowledge as a largely social phenomenon and consequently focuses on social explanations of this phenomenon....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors untersuchten, in which orientierungsrahmen das akademische Personal innerhalb der akademischen Selbstverwaltung agiert.
Abstract: Zusammenfassung Zu den zentralen Aufgaben einer Professur an deutschen Universitäten gehört neben Forschung und Lehre die Beteiligung an der akademischen Selbstverwaltung, wobei sich die Hochschulforschung vor allem auf die ersten beiden Berufsfelder konzentriert. Die wenigen Erkenntnisse zum Engagement in der Selbstverwaltung beziehen sich vorrangig auf veränderte organisationale Aspekte. Dieser Beitrag zeigt, wie mit Hilfe der praxeologischen Wissenssoziologie untersucht werden kann, in welchen Orientierungsrahmen das akademische Personal innerhalb der akademischen Selbstverwaltung agiert. Dazu wurden teilnarrative Interviews durchgeführt und mit der dokumentarischen Methode ausgewertet. Im Ergebnis unterscheiden wir zwischen den „Hochschulmanagenden“, „Zurückhaltenden“ und „Pflichtbewussten“, wobei insbesondere der Orientierungsrahmen der „Pflichtbewussten“ erklärt, warum sich Professorinnen und Professoren wiederkehrend in der akademischen Selbstverwaltung gewissenhaft engagieren, obwohl sie der Forschung und Lehre den Vorrang einräumen.
2 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: This paper demonstrates how Astronomy aspires to be open and transparent given their criteria for high research quality, and explores the current mode of openness in Astronomy and how incentives due to funding, publication practices and indicators affect this field.
Abstract: Open Science has been a rising theme in the landscape of science policy in recent years. The goal is to make research that emerges from publicly funded science to become findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) for use by other researchers. Knowledge utilization policies aim to efficiently make scientific knowledge beneficial for society at large. This paper demonstrates how Astronomy aspires to be open and transparent given their criteria for high research quality, which aim at pushing knowledge forward and clear communication of findings. However, the use of quantitative metrics in research evaluation puts pressure on the researcher, such that taking the extra time for transparent publishing of data and results is difficult, given that astronomers are not rewarded for the quality of research papers, but rather their quantity. This paper explores the current mode of openness in Astronomy and how incentives due to funding, publication practices and indicators affect this field. The paper concludes with some recommendations on how policies such as making science more open have the potential to contribute to scientific quality in Astronomy.
2 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...More applied sciences, “where the products of research are highly profitable, such as medicine, biotechnology, genetics and military research” [9], face a different economic pressure, the expectation to produce more and better....
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01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: In this article, the case of Romanian resurgent positivism after 1970s in the line of criticism opened by postmodernist, Marxist and feminist thinking is discussed, and they situate Romanian positivism in the wider world system transformations as a plausible and pertinent strategy of doing science in particular fields of power with a certain historicity.
Abstract: The paper engages the case of the Romanian resurgent positivism after 1970s in the line of criticism opened by postmodernist, Marxist and feminist thinking. I situate Romanian positivism in the wider world system transformations as a plausible and pertinent strategy of doing science in particular fields of power with a certain historicity. I do not deconstruct science as a corrupt endeavor or reject science altogether, but I engage positivism critically through an alternative way of imagining objectivity as a process of creating falsifiable theories. Data has meaning only in relation to some theory, in relation to the effort of disproving some theoretical statement by accommodating anomalies in a continual effort to reconstruct some analytical framework. This is not just an alternative way of doing science, which can assist and counterbalance the specific weaknesses of positivism. In fact, these are two competing perspective for envisioning objectivity in social sciences, with hegemonic claims, coded in institutions, individual careers, and intelligibility maps with policy effects.
2 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...The enduring presence of positivism is not just a matter of some social science internal dynamics, but there are wider forces at work conspiring for its continuous vitality (Foucault, 1972; Lukács, 1972/1922; Latour, 1993; Adorno, 2000/1957; Bourdieu, 2004; G Steinmetz, 2005)....
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