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.
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."
Citations
More filters
01 Dec 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest three broad ways in which transition can be conceived and, hence, three approaches to managing and supporting student transition in higher education: induction, development, and becoming.
Abstract: Student transition into higher education (HE) has increased in importance in recent times, with the growing trend in OECD nations towards universal HE provision and the concomitant widening of participation to include previously under-represented groups. However, 'transition' as a concept has remained largely uncontested and taken for granted, particularly by practitioners but also by many researchers. Based on an analysis of recent research in the field, the chapter suggests three broad ways in which transition can be conceived and, hence, three approaches to managing and supporting student transition in HE: as (1) induction; (2) development; and (3) becoming. The third — transition as 'becoming' — offers the most theoretically sophisticated and student sympathetic account, and has the greatest potential for transforming understandings of, and practices that support, transitions in HE. It is also the least prevalent and least well-understood. Apart from being explicit about how transition is defined, this chapter argues that future research in the field needs to foreground students' lived realities and to broaden its theoretical and empirical base if students' capacities to navigate change are to be fully understood and resourced.
21 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw on a close reading of Pierre Bourdieu's works, and offer five lessons for a science of crime and punishment: always historicize; dissect symbolic categories; produce embodied accounts; avoid state thought; and embrace commitment.
Abstract: Drawing on a close reading of Pierre Bourdieu’s works, I offer five lessons for a science of crime and punishment: (1) always historicize; (2) dissect symbolic categories; (3) produce embodied accounts; (4) avoid state thought; and (5) embrace commitment. I offer illustrative examples and demonstrate the practical implications of Bourdieu’s ideas, and I apply the lessons to a critique of orthodox criminology.
21 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...Social scientists, too, are historical creatures, inculcated with specific practices and acting as bearers of particularized modes of knowledge (Bourdieu 2004)....
[...]
...…of science or space of scientific practices, which mandates a reflexive ‘science of science’, or, more specifically, a ‘sociology of sociology’ (Bourdieu 2004); that is, an investigation into the conditions of scientific production and how the makers of this knowledge are themselves…...
[...]
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored what has changed in the field of communication and media studies since Edmund Lauf's research in 2005, in which he analyzed publication patterns of leading communication journals from 1998 to 2002.
Abstract: In this research, we explored what has changed in the field of communication and media studies since Edmund Lauf’s research in 2005, in which he analyzed publication patterns of leading communication journals from 1998 to 2002. We compared the results of our current analysis of 14,925 articles published in 72 Web of Science-ranked communication journals from 2013 to 2017 with Lauf’s earlier data. We found that most leading journals still publish articles almost exclusively from the developed world, and we found the same bias regarding the composition of journal editorial boards. Analysis shows a decreasing contribution of the U.S., while Asia and Western Europe greatly increased their participation, and developing regions are still underrepresented. Our research shows that the field is still deliberately dominated by Western articles in Western journals edited by Western editorial board members. Given this, we suggest that the international community of communication scholars develop strategies to expand common standards for a more balanced international contribution pattern.
21 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that it is time for historians to explore new ways of conceptualizing the social dimensions of archaeological knowledge and that certain debates held by historians and sociologists of science during the last years can encourage historians of archaeology to enquire more critically about the blurry boundaries between "archaeology" and its context.
Abstract: In recent years archaeologists have celebrated the emergence of a critical history of archaeology which has assumed a central position in disciplinary debates. This new historiography has been characterized by the adoption of an externalist or contextual approach primarily concerned with how social, economic and political conditions have influenced the interpretation of archaeological data. While externalism has played an essential role in the recognition of the history of archaeology as a field, I suggest in this article that it is time for historians to explore new ways of conceptualizing the social dimensions of archaeological knowledge. In particular, I consider how certain debates held by historians and sociologists of science during the last years can encourage historians of archaeology to enquire more critically about the blurry boundaries between ‘archaeology’ and its ‘context’.
21 citations
TL;DR: The findings indicated that most dissertations fell below the expected standard, with a paucity of higher-order thinking and application skills.
21 citations
Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"
...Although reflectivity and critical reflection are different from one another, the practices of reflectivity and critical reflection are aligned in that they both privilege a critical stance toward the self, knowledge and power (Bourdieu, 2004; Daley 2010)....
[...]