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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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22 citations
24 May 2021
TL;DR: This study applied theories from Bourdieu to address the question, "How was a partial and partisan scientific account of SARS-CoV-2 transmission constructed and maintained, leading to widespread imposition of infection control policies which de-emphasised airborne transmission?".
Abstract: Background: Scientific and policy bodies’ failure to acknowledge and act on the evidence base for airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in a timely way is both a mystery and a scandal. In this study, we applied theories from Bourdieu to address the question, “How was a partial and partisan scientific account of SARS-CoV-2 transmission constructed and maintained, leading to widespread imposition of infection control policies which de-emphasised airborne transmission?”. Methods: From one international case study (the World Health Organisation) and four national ones (UK, Canada, USA and Japan), we selected a purposive sample of publicly available texts including scientific evidence summaries, guidelines, policy documents, public announcements, and social media postings. To analyse these, we applied Bourdieusian concepts of field, doxa, scientific capital, illusio, and game-playing. We explored in particular the links between scientific capital, vested interests, and policy influence. Results: Three fields—political, state (policy and regulatory), and scientific—were particularly relevant to our analysis. Political and policy actors at international, national, and regional level aligned—predominantly though not invariably—with medical scientific orthodoxy which promoted the droplet theory of transmission and considered aerosol transmission unproven or of doubtful relevance. This dominant scientific sub-field centred around the clinical discipline of infectious disease control, in which leading actors were hospital clinicians aligned with the evidence-based medicine movement. Aerosol scientists—typically, chemists, and engineers—representing the heterodoxy were systematically excluded from key decision-making networks and committees. Dominant discourses defined these scientists’ ideas and methodologies as weak, their empirical findings as untrustworthy or insignificant, and their contributions to debate as unhelpful. Conclusion: The hegemonic grip of medical infection control discourse remains strong. Exit from the pandemic depends on science and policy finding a way to renegotiate what Bourdieu called the ‘rules of the scientific game’—what counts as evidence, quality, and rigour.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the ISSPP reinforces the centrality of the principalship and the importance of the office of the principal as a key component in the conceptualisation of the social order of schooling.
Abstract: On an international scale, irrespective of systemic variance, the office of the principal – the principalship – is a key component in our conceptualisation of the social order of schooling. Large-scale projects such as the ISSPP reinforce the centrality of the principalship.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors outline the value of a focus on "practical reflexivity" to assist in the dialogue with political practice and evaluate six strategies of coping with the dilemmas of engaging with practice.
Abstract: The simplistic, but still influential, idea of a clear-cut boundary between science and politics does not capture the complexities of the ongoing “dialogue between science and politics.” Neither do political scientists live in an ivory tower, nor do they breathe the air of a separate world. However, the relation between political science practitioners and the rest of the world remains knotty. In this contribution we outline the value of a focus on “practical reflexivity” to assist in the dialogue with political practice. Based on proposals from social theory we evaluate six strategies of coping with the dilemmas of engaging with practice. The strategies provide a menu of choice for political scientists, as well as systematization of furthering the discussion on practical reflexivity.
22 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...To Pierre Bourdieu, expert status is produced in a scientific field, set apart from political practice (Berling 2012; Bourdieu 2004)....
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TL;DR: This article identified eight rhetorical tools that helped promulgate these claims as facts and examined three general claims that are widely accepted as having been demonstrated empirically in the field of social movements: social networks are necessary for recruitment of new members; individual mental traits do not matter; and political opportunities are necessary to movement emergence.
Abstract: To develop inductively a preliminary list of rhetorical tools that sociologists use in their presentation of facts, we examine three general claims that are widely accepted as having been demonstrated empirically in the field of social movements: social networks are necessary for recruitment of new members; individual mental traits do not matter; and political opportunities are necessary for movement emergence. We identify eight rhetorical tools that helped promulgate these claims as facts. We all use techniques like these, but awareness about them can help us evaluate our arguments and find better ways to test them.
21 citations