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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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Journal ArticleDOI
12 Apr 2016
TL;DR: Tecknen et al. as mentioned in this paper present an artikel undersoker denna medikaliseringsprocess utifran Socialstyrelsens kunskapssammanstallning for personer med schizofreni och bipolar sjukdom.
Abstract: Tecknen pa en medikalisering av det psykosociala faltet har okat under senare tid. Denna artikel undersoker denna medikaliseringsprocess utifran Socialstyrelsens kunskapssammanstallning »Effekter av psykosociala insatser for personer med schizofreni och bipolar sjukdom«, som ska resultera i riktlinjer for socialtjansten.

10 citations


Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"

  • ...Därför hade det varit motiverat av både vetenskapliga och pedagogiska skäl att inkludera samhällsvetenskaplig forskning i genomgången och kritiskt analysera de egna begreppen och avgränsningarna (Bourdieu 2004)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examined the ways we structure knowledge in archaeology from hypothesis to theory that can develop to consensus, and how later consensus exercises a conservative influence on the production of new knowledge and suggested that the same amount of scrutiny should be applied to the established theories, which are not unchangeable representations of reality, but conventionally shared property of archaeologists.
Abstract: The association of Tomb II at Vergina, Greece, with Philip II initiated a debate concerning the use of barrel-vaults in Macedonian tombs. The accepted theory at the time held that, since no Macedonian tomb was dated prior to the last quarter of the 4th century BC, Macedonians copied the barrel-vault from the Persians after the military campaign of Alexander the Great in Asia, and therefore Tomb II should be dated to a later period. After an intense dispute, fresh archaeological evidence proved that this theory was false. This article examines the ways we structure knowledge in archaeology from hypothesis to theory that can develop to consensus, and how later consensus exercises a conservative influence on the production of new knowledge. New evidence that con - tradicts consensual theories is approached with stronger hostility and is confronted with higher demands of confirmation. I suggest that the same amount of scrutiny should be applied to the established theories, which are not unchangeable representations of reality, but conventionally shared property of archaeologists.

10 citations


Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"

  • ...So, it is the repeated experiment, as well as the acceptance of a claim from other scientists, which has the power in natural sciences to transform a discovery into established knowledge by creating certainty (Bourdieu 2004:52, 74; Ziman 1968:32)....

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  • ...Disagreement between researchers is unavoidable and necessary, because it produces the required validation and variation for the growth of knowledge (Bourdieu 2004:73; Shapin 1995:314; Trigger 1998:27)....

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  • ...It seems as if groups of scholars constitute consensual units/networks on different matters (Collins 1994:157–158; Kelley and Hanen 1988:110–111; Kohler 1982:7) and are always ready to defend the core beliefs of the group, when threatened by contradictory new evidence (Bourdieu 2004:65)....

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Journal Article
TL;DR: Husu et al. as mentioned in this paper connect Bourdieu's central concepts, such as field, capital and habitus, to identity movements and identity politics, drawing attention to the importance of social class in terms of social movement practices.
Abstract: Husu, Hanna-Mari Social Movements and Bourdieu: Class, Embodiment and the Politics of Identity Jyvaskyla: University of Jyvaskyla, 2013, 87 p. (Jyvaskyla Studies in Education, Psychology and Social Research ISSN 0075-4625; 488) ISBN 978-951-39-5527-4 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-5528-1 (PDF) Diss. Finnish summary This dissertation links Pierre Bourdieu's sociology to social movement research and the study of social movements. Bourdieu’s general sociological theory synthesizes different social movement approaches such as political process theory, resource mobilization theory, framing and the collective identity approach to a coherent framework overcoming dualisms in social movement research. More specifically, the study aspires to connect Bourdieu’s central concepts, such as field, capital and habitus and his theory of power, to identity movements and identity politics. This approach draws attention to the importance of social class in terms of social movement practices, as Bourdieu emphasized the role of social position, the volume and composition of capital and habitus in his theory of practice. Class manifests itself in instrumental and expressive goals of identity movements, in its values, beliefs and protest activities. Class, can, therefore, function as a specific resource having impact on movement outcomes. In addition, as Bourdieu’s idea of power refers to the effect of early socialization of individuals and groups in which power is interwoven and embodied in everyday relations and structures in the form of divisions, and ways of seeing, understanding, feeling and acting in everyday life, Bourdieu’s work clarifies the idea of ‘personal is political’. Power relations are reproduced in everyday life and practices. In this sense, social movements provide space for deand re-socialization, implying how aspiration for personal transformation becomes a central target of identity movements. Movements, thus, have the capacity to transform the cognitive and emotional schemes of individuals creating possibilities for the reformulation of habitus as a form of political and social resistance.

10 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Aug 2017-Geoforum
TL;DR: In this paper, a themed issue brings together scholars from political science, human geography, natural science and related fields with the common aim of exploring links between science/expertise and politics with a specific focus on security implications.

10 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight rivalries between the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the University sector, highlighting the fact that the former has lost its public funding but maintains its responsibilities within bodies devising and leading agricultural policy while the latter gives primacy to peer recognition and integration within international networks, but lacks co-financing required for being effectively included in international research projects.
Abstract: In Romania, agricultural researchers are enlisted to promote the agrochemical industry and large-scale intensive agriculture. This role can be made intelligible through notion of a scientific field, highlighting rivalries between the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the University sector. The former has lost its public funding but maintains its responsibilities within bodies devising and leading agricultural policy. The latter gives primacy to peer recognition and integration within international networks, but lacks co-financing required for being effectively included in international research projects. Each academic institution tries to devalue the rival's strong points and gain recognition for the superior value of its own assets. The funding provided by the private agrochemical industry adapts to the scientific field's structure: leading multinational firms take advantage of rivalries between academic institutions and fuel them at the same time. They consolidate current orientation taken by...

10 citations


Cites background from "Science of Science and Reflexivity"

  • ...…meets the expectations of the dominant authorities or businesses; these external demands are introduced within the field without being ‘translated’ into specific issues (Bourdieu, 2004, pp. 56–57).1 In the first analysis, the internationalization of scientific exchanges is a factor for autonomy....

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  • ...The bases of temporal power ‘tend to be more national, linked to national institutions, particularly those that govern the reproduction of the corps of scientists—such as Academies, committees, research councils, etc.—whereas scientific capital is more international’ (Bourdieu, 2004, p. 57)....

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  • ...When a scientific field lacks autonomy, its extension to an international scale helps to emancipate it from ‘national temporal powers’ (Bourdieu, 2004, pp. 75–76)....

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  • ...…itself situated in a space containing other laboratories, these together constituting a discipline (itself situated in a hierarchized space, that of the disciplines), and that it derives a major part of its properties form the position it occupies within that space’ (Bourdieu, 2004, p. 32)....

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