New Developments in Science Studies: The Ethnographic Challenge
Year: 1983
Type: article
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to bring together and review the results of a series of studies which, for the first time in the sociology of science, have chosen to study scientists at work through close, unmediated, ethnographic observation.The results of these studies vary with the theoretical outlook of their authors and the field of science investigated.I shall focus on what I consider to be their overlapping conceptions and concerns: first, the constructivist interpretation of scientific activities; second, the notion that the logic of research is indexical and opportunistic; third, the challenge of the concept of scientific communities and of quasi-economic models of science; and fourth, the rejection of the social-cognitive distinction and of the distinctions customarily drawn between the social and the natural sciences.Resume.Le but de ceUe etude est de reconcilier et de revoir les resultats d'une serie d'etudes qui, pour la premiere fois dans la sociologie des sciences, ont choisi d'etudier des hommes de science au travail par le biais d'une observation ethnographique serree et sans intermediares.Les resultats de ces etudes varient d'apres la vision theorique de leur auteur ainsi que le champ scientifique particulierement examine.Je me concentrerai sur leurs conceptions et leurs preoccupations qui se recoupent: tout d'abord I'interpretation constructiviste des activites scientifiques; ensuite, la notion que la logique de la recherche peut etre repertoriee et releve de I'opportunisme; puis, le defi du concept des communautes scientifiques et des modeles quasi-economiques de la science; et enfin, le rejet de la distinction socio-cognitive et des distinctions habituellement etablies entre les sciences sociales et les sciences naturelles.
DOI: 10.2307/3340124
Author: K. D. Knorr-Cetina
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W187650458