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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: This article recovered a lost scientific study by W.E.B. DuBois, "Negro Labor in Lowndes County," through readings of his 1911 novel, The Quest of the Silver Fleece.
Abstract: This essay recovers a lost scientific study by W.E.B. DuBois, "Negro Labor in Lowndes County," through readings of his 1911 novel, The Quest of the Silver Fleece. DuBois's study of the predominantly-black Lowndes County sought to refute the dominant belief in blacks' mental and physical inferiority—sometimes called the "retrogression hypothesis"—by amassing extensive empirical evidence of black American vitality and health through anthropometric research. In the wake of the U.S. government's destruction of his 500-page Lowndes County study, DuBois would undertake Quest in the effort to circulate his scientific findings through the medium of popular domestic fiction. Against retrogressionist claims that the black "race is undoubtedly dying out," as seen in their "diminished brain capacity," Quest highlights the findings of DuBois's fieldwork in the rural south, with the Lowndes study's empirical data furnishing the details and incidents of the novel's depiction of a flourishing utopian community. Deftly employing the conventions of domestic and plantation fiction, DuBois's fictional account of the dramas of sharecropping and sexual morality offers a powerful refutation of the claims of racialist brain science, as well as providing an alternative venue for DuBois's controversial findings in the wake of his thwarted efforts to gain a foothold in professional scientific culture.
26 citations
TL;DR: Public sociology is only possible at the intersection of two distinct fields (the academic field and the political field) as discussed by the authors, and the difficulty of public sociology is the obduracy of common sense that cannot be easily dislodged, the very attempt often arousing open hostility.
Abstract: This introduction sets out from the unresolved paradox to be found in the writings of Bourdieu, namely the theoretical impossibility of public sociology and his own sustained practical engagement with publics. I appropriate and develop his concept of the ‘field’ to account for his success as a public sociologist. It requires us to understand that public sociology is only possible at the intersection of two distinct fields – the academic field and the political field. Public sociology proves to be a rather precarious pursuit, then; first, because of competing demands internal to the academic field; second, because of the difficulty in operating at the intersection of the academic and political fields; and third, because of the obduracy of common sense that cannot be easily dislodged, the very attempt often arousing open hostility. Difficult though it may be, the development of its public face will be necessary for the survival of sociology as well as an important ingredient in defending human existence fro...
26 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined Chinese international doctoral students' academic socialization into TESOL discourses and communities, rooted in the academic discourse socialization theory, and complemented by the social mobility theory.
Abstract: This study examines Chinese international doctoral students’ academic socialization into TESOL discourses and communities. Rooted in the academic discourse socialization theory, complemented by the...
26 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...The structure of a field is determined by “the state of power relations between protagonist in the struggle” (Bourdieu 2004, 59)....
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TL;DR: It is suggested here that Pgp-mediated MDR relies fundamentally on pH alterations mediated by the Warburg effect, and the use of proton pump and/or transporters inhibitors (PPIs/PTIs) in cancer are key to controlling both MDR, i.e. sensitize tumors to antineoplastic agents, and drug-related adverse effects.
26 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...Over time, fields of scientific research gain autonomy in proportion to the extent to which they have been freed from economic necessity [1]....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reconstruct Bourdieu's understanding of the state in order to examine if the opposition between these two apparently opposite approaches are in as sharp contention as they first appear.
Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu's writings on the state consist of a series of more or less coherent investigations approaching the state from different angles. His writings on the state may seem to contain internal ambiguities. On the one hand, they argue for an actor-centered approach to the state while, on the other hand, elaborating the power of the state as an institution transcending these actors. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct Bourdieu's understanding of the state in order to examine if the opposition between these two apparently opposite approaches are in as sharp contention as they first appear. The article starts out by discussing how Bourdieu has approached the state through his broader sociological approach and concepts. Afterwards it outlines the state formation processes lying at the foundation of the state's power. Next it focuses on his special emphasis on the actor strategies that lie behind the emergence of the bureaucratic field. It moreover discusses Bourdieu's analysis of the abdicatio...
26 citations