Book•
We Have Never Been Modern
01 Jan 1991-
TL;DR: This article argued that we are modern as long as we split our political process in two - between politics proper, and science and technology, which allowed the formidable expansion of the Western empires.
Abstract: What makes us modern? This is a classic question in philosophy as well as in political science. However it is often raised without including science and technology in its definition. The argument of this book is that we are modern as long as we split our political process in two - between politics proper, and science and technology. This division allows the formidable expansion of the Western empires. However it has become more and more difficult to maintain this distance between science and politics. Hence the postmodern predicament - the feeling that the modern stance is no longer acceptable but that there is no alternative. The solution, advances one of France's leading sociologists of science, is to realize that we have never been modern to begin with. The comparative anthropology this text provides reintroduces science to the fabric of daily life and aims to make us compatible both with our past and with other cultures wrongly called pre-modern.
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01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: In Sorting Things Out, Bowker and Star as mentioned in this paper explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world and examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary.
Abstract: What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification -- the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.
4,480 citations
TL;DR: A multitype epistemology is begun which admits both the pre- and subconscious modes of human knowing and, reframing the concept of the cognizing individual, the collective knowledge of social groups, to help managers discover their place in the firm as a dynamic knowledge-based activity system.
Abstract: Knowledge is too problematic a concept to make the task of building a dynamic knowledge-based theory of the firm easy. We must also distinguish the theory from the resource-based and evolutionary views. The paper begins with a multitype epistemology which admits both the pre- and subconscious modes of human knowing and, reframing the concept of the cognizing individual, the collective knowledge of social groups. While both Nelson and Winter, and Nonaka and Takeuchi, successfully sketch theories of the dynamic interactions of these types of organizational knowledge, neither indicates how they are to be contained. Callon and Latour suggest knowledge itself is dynamic and contained within actor networks, so moving us from knowledge as a resource toward knowledge as a process. To simplify this approach, we revisit sociotechnical systems theory, adopt three heuristics from the social constructionist literature, and make a distinction between the systemic and component attributes of the actor network. The result is a very different mode of theorizing, less an objective statement about the nature of firms ‘out there’ than a tool to help managers discover their place in the firm as a dynamic knowledge-based activity system.
4,224 citations
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TL;DR: The authors advocate an externalism about mind, but one that is in no way grounded in the debatable role of external reference in fixing the contents of our mental states, rather, they advocate an *active externalism*, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes.
Abstract: Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? The question invites two standard replies. Some accept the intuitive demarcations of skin and skull, and say that what is outside the body is outside the mind. Others are impressed by arguments suggesting that the meaning of our words "just ain't in the head", and hold that this externalism about meaning carries over into an externalism about mind. We propose to pursue a third position. We will advocate an externalism about mind, but one that is in no way grounded in the debatable role of external reference in fixing the contents of our mental states. Rather, we advocate an *active externalism*, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes.
4,172 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors ask methodological questions about studying infrastructure with some of the tools and perspectives of ethnography, which is both relational and ecological, and they propose a methodology for studying infrastructure that is both ecological and relational.
Abstract: This article asks methodological questions about studying infrastructure with some of the tools and perspectives of ethnography. Infrastructure is both relational and ecological—it means different ...
2,435 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 1967
TL;DR: This work focuses on Ethnomethodology, which investigates the role of sex status in the lives of the Intersexed Person and some of the rules of Correct Decisions that Jurors Respect.
Abstract: 1. What is Ethnomethodology?. 2. Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities. 3. Common Sense Knowledge of Social Structures: The Documentary Method of Interpretation in Lay and Professional Fact Finding. 4. Some Rules of Correct Decisions that Jurors Respect. 5. Passing and the Managed Achievement of Sex Status in the Intersexed Person. 6. "Good Organizational Reasons for a Bada Clinic Records". 7. Methodological Adequacy in the Quantitative Study of Selection Criteria and Selection Practices in Psychiatric Outpatient Clinics. 8. The Rational Properties of Scientific and Common Sense Activities. Appendix.
11,533 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1984
TL;DR: In this article, the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and how the flow of information is controlled in the Western world are discussed.
Abstract: Many definitions of postmodernism focus on its nature as the aftermath of the modern industrial age when technology developed. This book extends that analysis to postmodernism by looking at the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and the way the flow of information is controlled in the Western world.
10,912 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1975
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of the concept of culture on the concepts of man and the evolution of mind in Bali has been discussed in the context of an interpretive theory of culture.
Abstract: Part I * Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture Part II * The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man * The Growth of Culture and the Evolution of Mind Part III * Religion As a Cultural System * Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols * Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example * Internal Conversion in Contemporary Bali Part IV * Ideology As a Cultural System * After the Revolution: The Fate of Nationalism in the New States * The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States * The Politics of Meaning * Politics Past, Politics Present: Some Notes on the Uses of Anthropology in Understanding the New States PART V * The Cerebral Savage: On the Work of Claude Lvi-Strauss * Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali * Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight
9,103 citations
6,926 citations
TL;DR: In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Emile Durkheim set himself the task of discovering the enduring source of human social identity as discussed by the authors, and investigated what he considered to be the simplest form of documented religion - totemism among the Aborigines of Australia.
Abstract: 'If religion generated everything that is essential in society, this is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.' In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Emile Durkheim set himself the task of discovering the enduring source of human social identity. He investigated what he considered to be the simplest form of documented religion - totemism among the Aborigines of Australia. Aboriginal religion was an avenue 'to yield an understanding of the religious nature of man, by showing us an essential and permanent aspect of humanity'. The need and capacity of men and women to relate socially lies at the heart of Durkheim's exploration, in which religion embodies the beliefs that shape our moral universe. The Elementary Forms has been applauded and debated by sociologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, philosophers, and theologians, and continues to speak to new generations about the origin and nature of religion and society. This new, lightly abridged edition provides an excellent introduction to Durkheim's ideas. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
6,633 citations