Global ETD Search

1	The making of dendroclimatological knowledge : a symmetrical account of trust and scepticism in science Ramírez-i-Ollé, Meritxell January 2016 (has links) This thesis presents an empirical study of dendroclimatology, with the purpose of contributing to a wider understanding of the way scientists generate knowledge about climate change. Dendroclimatology is a science that produces knowledge about past climates from the analysis of tree growth. For two years, I have studied the work of a group of dendroclimatologists, joining them on fieldwork and sampling expeditions in the Scottish Highlands, observing how they generate data from tree samples to reconstruct past temperatures in Scotland and examining how they have mobilised a Scottish temperature reconstruction in a scientific debate over historical changes in climate. This thesis develops two parallel narratives about the practice of making dendroclimatological knowledge and the roles of trust and scepticism in this process. In describing how dendroclimatologists work to extract information about past climates from trees, I identify the importance of trust relationships and scepticism at each stage of their work. I conduct a symmetrical analysis of both trust and scepticism in science. In the past, scholars studying science have emphasised the critical role of either trust or scepticism in the construction of scientific knowledge, and have paid relatively little attention to examining the relationship between the two. In my study, I demonstrate that scepticism is part of the ordinary practice of dendroclimatology, and that scepticism in normal science (which I call “civil scepticism”) is fundamentally dependent (or “parasitic”) on existing trust relationships established through a variety of means. Dendroclimatologists engage in intimate interactions and mutual scrutiny of each other’s competence throughout the work they do in the field and in the laboratory, and they build upon and expand these trust relationships to create and defend climate reconstructions. I show that dendroclimatologists sustain trust relationships in part by demonstrating that they are competent sceptics (which I call “sceptical display”) and, in part by provisionally suspending their scepticism to permit agreement on what constitutes valid dendroclimatological knowledge. I also analyse how these internal practices of scepticism and agreement are influenced by sceptical challenges from actors external to the dendroclimatology community, including challenges grounded in similar trust relationships (a further instance of civil scepticism) and challenges that are not (which I call “uncivil scepticism”). I conclude that dendroclimatological knowledge is only possible as a result of contingent social negotiations over the distribution of trust and the boundaries of a trusting community.
2	Exploring Educational Initiatives in Nanotechnology Networks Knefel, Ann Margaret Callender 01 December 2004 (has links) Nanotechnology has captured the attention of governments and corporations around the globe. It has become the subject and context for numerous conferences, media articles, websites and scientific research papers. Nano enthusiasts and government officials claim that it is an area that promises new understandings of nature, and use of that understanding to build technologies that might change our lives. Despite the growing hype surrounding this new science, what appears to be lacking is scholarly literature that examines its growth and expansion from a social science perspective. This study addressed this limitation through a sociological analysis of the network of actors, events, rhetorical strategies, practices and instrumentation that went into the construction and growth of nanotechnology. Relying heavily on actor-network theory (ANT), this study focused on a small part of the total network referred to as the knowledge education production process, which involved the enrollment of high school teachers into the nanotechnology network through a series of collaborative workshops -- the Nanotechnology Curriculum Development Project (NCDP) -- with Virginia Polytechnic and State University (Virginia Tech) scientists over a period of two years. By investigating how the nanotechnology network was constructed and maintained, this case study examined the relevance of ANT as nanotechnology moved beyond the laboratory into the public domain of high school education. It looked at the intermediary role of high school science and math teachers and revealed the function of conflict, power, authority, hierarchy, interests, motivations, gender and race in the construction and expansion of scientific networks. / Ph. D. actor network theory nanoscience nanotechnology conflict Collaboration sociology of scientific knowledge
3	The institutionalisation of GMOs : institutional dynamics in the GM regulatory debate in the UK, 1986-1993 Moroso, Mario January 2008 (has links) This thesis analyses the process of institutionalisation of the concept of genetically modified organism (GMO) in the UK between 1986-1993. The existing accounts of the GM debate have focussed on either the 1970s or the 1990s. Very little, however, has been said about the 1980s, long before that of GMOs became a popular issue. Through a detailed examination of the PROSAMO initiative – a series of experiments aimed at determining the environmental impact of GMOs with a regulatory purpose in mind – this thesis have been able to explore the important but rather neglected role of the UK dominant institutions in the historical development of the debate over the release of GMOs into the environment. In analysing the way ‘GMO’ institutionalised between the late 1980s and early 1990s, this thesis shows that the concepts of risk and uncertainty – which have dominated the GM debate – need to be conceived as collective constructs that are used strategically in order to pursue various objectives related to the context in which people using them operate. It is also argued that the legitimate use of these concepts is bound to the credibility and the authority of science. These considerations have stimulated some reflections on the nature and role of regulation in the GM debate. In particular, it is argued that the move from a voluntary system of controls to a statutory one represents a move from an epistemic community approach to policy-making to a logic of bureaucratic politics, in which the literal interpretation of rules became a solution to political disagreement. As rule following became a political requirement, GMOs became a bureaucratic issue and scientists turned into bureaucrats. Within these changes, the role of scientific expertise in the definition of GMOs decreased. From this point of view, the way ‘genetic modification’ and GMO institutionalised gave rise to new practices and behaviours that turned around GMO as a controversial but nevertheless stable category.
4	Forskares socialisation : Kunskapssociologisk visit i doktoranders livsvärldar Karlsson, Peder January 2004 (has links) <p>This thesis is an exploration into the socialization of researchers as it takes place in various research practices. Using a lifeworld-perspective, a qualitative interview-study with doctoral students from different academic milieus is conducted. The organizational context of the study is the academic department as it is experienced, apprehended and constructed by the doctoral student.</p><p>The “societal” context is described and discussed in a brief analytical exposé of Swedish science policy in the last decade of the twentieth century. Questioning the political reliance on a systems-perspective, and the shortcomings of system theory for the understanding of research practices in different academic milieus, a lifeworld-theoretical turn is suggested.</p><p>A lifeworld-perspective is formulated in a meta-theoretical discussion focusing on the concepts of <i>practice</i>, <i>time</i> and <i>language</i>. Jürgen Habermas’ critique of phenomenological lifeworld-perspectives is the point of departure and theoretical inputs are derived from the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of scientific knowledge and phenomenological sociology. The solution is found in an integrative model of socialization as continual synchronization of subjective systems of coordinates and socio-cultural networks. Mediating between subjective consciousness and inter-subjective knowledge is language, and this is manifested in concrete practices observed in “real-time”.</p><p>The empirical study reveals some influences of the system on the lifeworld. “Inside” the lifeworld, however, the interviewees mostly use their departments as frames of reference in their descriptions and discussions. A more elaborate exploration of the life-world results in an understanding of socialization in terms of <i>positioning</i>. This concept denotes the ways in which the interviewees describe themselves, their socio-cultural surroundings and themselves in relation to these milieus. At any given moment, positioning can be understood as a “co-construction” of subjective position and socio-cultural milieu. Positioning is thereby the empirical correlate to synchronization, and socialization can be “read off” from the ways in which doctoral students position themselves “here and now”. Problematic, though, is that “doctoral student”, and especially “female doctoral student”, are found to be vague and vulnerable categories with no clear meanings for the socialised nor for the socio-cultural environment. In a more speculative manner, these difficulties of positioning are put in relation to “scientist” as a vague category. If “scientist” cannot be defined, how then can we know what “scientists in the making” are?</p><p>This thesis offers an insight into the plural “realities” of doctoral students in different academic milieus. It offers a lifeworld-perspective on socialization and is thereby relevant for discussions of post-graduate education among scholars as well as among policy makers.</p> Sociology socialization lifeworld scientific practice sociology of science sociology of knowledge sociology of scientific knowledge Sociologi Sociology Sociologi
5	Forskares socialisation : Kunskapssociologisk visit i doktoranders livsvärldar Karlsson, Peder January 2004 (has links) This thesis is an exploration into the socialization of researchers as it takes place in various research practices. Using a lifeworld-perspective, a qualitative interview-study with doctoral students from different academic milieus is conducted. The organizational context of the study is the academic department as it is experienced, apprehended and constructed by the doctoral student. The “societal” context is described and discussed in a brief analytical exposé of Swedish science policy in the last decade of the twentieth century. Questioning the political reliance on a systems-perspective, and the shortcomings of system theory for the understanding of research practices in different academic milieus, a lifeworld-theoretical turn is suggested. A lifeworld-perspective is formulated in a meta-theoretical discussion focusing on the concepts of practice, time and language. Jürgen Habermas’ critique of phenomenological lifeworld-perspectives is the point of departure and theoretical inputs are derived from the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of scientific knowledge and phenomenological sociology. The solution is found in an integrative model of socialization as continual synchronization of subjective systems of coordinates and socio-cultural networks. Mediating between subjective consciousness and inter-subjective knowledge is language, and this is manifested in concrete practices observed in “real-time”. The empirical study reveals some influences of the system on the lifeworld. “Inside” the lifeworld, however, the interviewees mostly use their departments as frames of reference in their descriptions and discussions. A more elaborate exploration of the life-world results in an understanding of socialization in terms of positioning. This concept denotes the ways in which the interviewees describe themselves, their socio-cultural surroundings and themselves in relation to these milieus. At any given moment, positioning can be understood as a “co-construction” of subjective position and socio-cultural milieu. Positioning is thereby the empirical correlate to synchronization, and socialization can be “read off” from the ways in which doctoral students position themselves “here and now”. Problematic, though, is that “doctoral student”, and especially “female doctoral student”, are found to be vague and vulnerable categories with no clear meanings for the socialised nor for the socio-cultural environment. In a more speculative manner, these difficulties of positioning are put in relation to “scientist” as a vague category. If “scientist” cannot be defined, how then can we know what “scientists in the making” are? This thesis offers an insight into the plural “realities” of doctoral students in different academic milieus. It offers a lifeworld-perspective on socialization and is thereby relevant for discussions of post-graduate education among scholars as well as among policy makers. Sociology socialization lifeworld scientific practice sociology of science sociology of knowledge sociology of scientific knowledge Sociologi Sociology Sociologi
6	Making Questions and Answers Work : Negotiating Participation in Interview Interaction Iversen, Clara January 2013 (has links) The current thesis explores conditions for participation in interview interaction. Drawing on the ethnomethodological idea that knowledge is central to participation in social situations, it examines how interview participants navigate knowledge and competence claims and the institutional and moral implications of these claims. The data consists of, in total, 97 audio-recorded interviews conducted as part of a national Swedish evaluation of support interventions for children exposed to violence. In three studies, I use discursive psychology and conversation analysis to explicate how interview participants in interaction (1) contribute to and negotiate institutional constraints and (2) manage rights and responsibilities related to knowledge. The findings of study I and study II show that child interviewees actively cooperate with as well as resist the constraints of interview questions. However, the children’s opportunities for participation in this institutional context are limited by two factors: (1) recordability; that is, the focus on generating recordable responses and (2) problematic assumptions underpinning questions and the interpretation of interview answers. Apart from restricting children’s rights to formulate their experiences, these factors can lead interviewers to miss opportunities to gain important information. Also related to institutional constraints, study III shows how the ideal of model consistency is prioritized over service-user participation. Thus, the three studies show how different practices relevant to institutional agendas may hinder participation. Moreover, the findings contribute to an understanding of how issues of knowledge are managed in the interviews. Study II suggests the importance of the concept of believability to refer to people’s rights and responsibilities to draw conclusions about others’ thoughts. And the findings of study III demonstrate how, in evaluation interviews with social workers, children’s access to their own thoughts and feelings are based on a notion of predetermined participation; that is, constructed as contingent on wanting what the institutional setting offers. Thus, child service users’ low epistemic status, compared to the social workers, trumps their epistemic access to their own minds. These conclusions, about recordability, believability, and predetermined participation, are based on interaction with or about children. However, I argue that the findings relate to interviewees and service users in general. By demonstrating the structuring power of interactive practices, the thesis extends our understanding of conditions for participation in the institutional setting of social research interviews. Interviews participation epistemics institutional-talk-in-interaction questions and answers social studies of childhood sociology of scientific knowledge discursive psychology conversation analysis
7	A ADMINISTRAÇÃO DA RELEVÂNCIA EM PESQUISAS SOBRE MUDANÇA CLIMÁTICA / THE ADMINISTRATION OF RELEVANCE IN RESEARCH ON CLIMATE CHANGE. Oliveira Filho, Antero Silveira de 26 February 2015 (has links) In this study I intend to investigate how it is performed, by scientists, the administration of the relevance of scientific research in the context of climate change. That is, as the importance of a particular scientific research object is presented through publications in technical-scientific network (LATOUR, 2008), taking into account the contextual contingencies of construction of scientific knowledge. Therefore, I will have reference to the scientific articles produced by researchers at Rede CLIMA within the Climate Modeling subnet, from 2007 to 2013, considering the concept of administration of relevance (KNORR-CETINA, 2005). Considering that in modern society science has important role, it is important to shed light, sociologically, on the knowledge of production processes and their relation to practical contexts of which emerge and in which they operate. The approach of the object is qualitative and descriptive, with literature, documentary research and content analysis. / No presente trabalho pretendo investigar como é realizada, por parte dos cientistas, a administração da relevância das pesquisas cientificas, no contexto das mudanças climáticas. Ou seja, como a importância de um determinado objeto de investigação científica é apresentada, através de publicações na rede técno-científica (LATOUR, 2008), levando-se em conta as contingências contextuais da construção do conhecimento científico. Para tanto, terei como referência os artigos científicos produzidos por pesquisadores da Rede CLIMA, dentro da sub-rede Modelagem Climática, no período de 2007 à 2013, considerando a noção de administração da relevância (KNORR-CETINA, 2005). Tendo em vista que na sociedade moderna a ciência possui destacado papel, é importante lançar luz, sociologicamente, sobre os processos de produção de conhecimento e sua relação com os contextos práticos dos quais emergem e no quais se inserem. A abordagem do objeto é qualitativa e de caráter descritivo, contando com pesquisa bibliográfica, pesquisa documental e análise de conteúdo. Sociologia do conhecimento científico Administração da relevância Mudanças climáticas Sociology of scientific knowledge Management relevance Climate change CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::SOCIOLOGIA
8	Thomas S. Kuhn: Verständnis und Mißverständnis - Zur Geschichte seiner Rezeption / Thomas S. Kuhn: Understanding and misunderstanding - On his reception Rose, Uwe 12 July 2004 (has links) No description available. 100 Philosophie Philosophy Thomas Kuhn Wissenschaftsphilosophie Wissenssoziologie Inkommensurabilität Thomas Kuhn Philosophy of Science Sociology of Scientific Knowledge incommensurability 08.25 08.32
9	Authority and the production of knowledge in archaeology Pruitt, Tera Corinne January 2011 (has links) This thesis examines the role of authority in the production of archaeological knowledge. It examines how fluid ideas and observations formed in the field become authoritative, factual, solid archaeological products, like scientific texts, reconstructions or museum displays. It asks, what makes a person, a thing or an account of history something that is authoritative? What makes someone an authority on the past? What is archaeological authority? This thesis deconstructs and exposes authority in archaeological practice. It targets how practitioners of archaeology actively enact, construct and implement authority in the process of producing knowledge. Formal representations of the past rely heavily on an underlying notion of the 'authoritative account'. The entire process of reconstructing the past in archaeology is dependent on individuals and institutions existing as authorities, who actively or passively imply that artefacts, sites and final interpretations are 'authentic' or have 'fidelity' to the past. This study examines how authority and acts of legitimation are employed and distributed through the medium of science, and how they need to be actively performed in order to acquire and maintain status. This thesis not only argues that authority is embedded in every stage of the archaeological process, but importantly, it identifies how this authority manifests through the medium of scientific acts. This thesis is structured around two comparative case studies: one case of professional archaeology and one case of alternative archaeology. Both are archaeological sites that produce their own 'authoritative' accounts of the past through practices, publications and presentations. The first case is the professional archaeological project of C̦atalhöyûk in the Republic of Turkey, under the direction of Ian Hodder at Stanford University. This case offers insights about how the processes of inscription, translation and blackboxing establish and maintain authority in archaeological practice. It also addresses how physical and intellectual space, as well as issues of access in localised knowledge-producing social arenas, affect archaeological authority. The second case is the controversial pseudoarchaeological project in Visoko, Bosnia, commonly referred to as the Bosnian Pyramids. This project, under the direction of amateur archaeologist Semir Osmanagić, has successfully created an account of prehistory that has been received by the general Bosnian public as authoritative, despite objections by the professional archaeological community. This case demonstrates how authority can be constructed, mimicked and performed by drawing on academic arenas of scientific practice and by eager public participation. Specifically, this case study highlights the importance of socio-politics, authoritative institutions and performative behaviour in the construction of archaeological authority. 930
10	The Social Construction of Economic Man: The Genesis, Spread, Impact and Institutionalisation of Economic Ideas Mackinnon, Lauchlan A. K. Unknown Date (has links) The present thesis is concerned with the genesis, diffusion, impact and institutionalisation of economic ideas. Despite Keynes's oft-cited comments to the effect that 'the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood'(Keynes 1936: 383), and the highly visible impact of economic ideas (for example Keynesian economics, Monetarism, or economic ideas regarding deregulation and antitrust issues) on the economic system, economists have done little to systematically explore the spread and impact of economic ideas. In fact, with only a few notable exceptions, the majority of scholarly work concerning the spread and impact of economic ideas has been developed outside of the economics literature, for example in the political institutionalist literature in the social sciences. The present thesis addresses the current lack of attention to the spread and impact of economic ideas by economists by drawing on the political institutionalist, sociological, and psychology of creativity literatures to develop a framework in which the genesis, spread, impact and institutionalisation of economic ideas may be understood. To articulate the dissemination and impact of economic ideas within economics, I consider as a case study the evolution of economists' conception of the economic agent - "homo oeconomicus." I argue that the intellectual milieu or paradigm of economics is 'socially constructed' in a specific sense, namely: (i) economic ideas are created or modified by particular individuals; (ii) economic ideas are disseminated (iii) certain economic ideas are accepted by economists and (iv) economic ideas become institutionalised into the paradigm or milieu of economics. Economic ideas are, of course, disseminated not only within economics to fellow economists, but are also disseminated externally to economic policy makers and business leaders who can - and often do - take economic ideas into account when formulating policy and building economic institutions. Important economic institutions are thereby socially constructed, in the general sense proposed by Berger and Luckmann (1966). But how exactly do economic ideas enter into this process of social construction of economic institutions? Drawing from and building on structure/agency theory (e.g. Berger and Luckmann 1966; Bourdieu 1977; Bhaskar 1979/1998, 1989; Bourdieu 1990; Lawson 1997, 2003) in the wider social sciences, I provide a framework for understanding how economic ideas enter into the process of social construction of economic institutions. Finally, I take up a methodological question: if economic ideas are disseminated, and if economic ideas have a real and constitutive impact on the economic system being modelled, does 'economic science' then accurately and objectively model an independently existing economic reality, unchanged by economic theory, or does economic theory have an interdependent and 'reflexive' relationship with economic reality, as economic reality co-exists with, is shaped by, and also shapes economic theory? I argue the latter, and consider the implications for evaluating in what sense economic science is, in fact, a science in the classical sense. The thesis makes original contributions to understanding the genesis of economic ideas in the psychological creative work processes of economists; understanding the ontological location of economic ideas in the economic system; articulating the social construction of economic ideas; and highlighting the importance of the spread of economic ideas to economic practice and economic methodology. 410401 Design Theory 349901 Political Economy 370000 Studies in Human Society 340302 History of Economic Thought 349900 Other Economics 410402 Design Innovation 360201 Public Policy 360000 Policy and Political Science 380100 Psychology 360100 Political Science 360200 Policy and Administration 370101 Social Theory 370102 Social Policy and Planning 340100 Economic Theory genesis spread diffusion impact institutionalisation economic ideas idea ideation psychology of creativity Wallas Wertheimer stage model productive thinking creative creativity process economic economics sociology social methodology methodological self-altering self-fulfilling self-denying prophecy belief reflexive reflexivity institution institutionalise institutionalised social construction Berger Luckmann Bhaskar critical realism Lawson Bordieu habitus field spread impact ideation ideational structure social structure action creativity creative economists sociology philosophy of science homo economicus homo oeconomicus economic man economic agent rational economic man man lucas critique Goodhart's law Keynes Marx Mill Hayek Hicks Samuelson Walras Jevons Arrow Debreu Samuelson Merton sociology of economics sociology of scientific knowledge SSK Holton prediction control reflexive prediction reflexivity Whitley Mackie canonization Henshel Grunberg Modigliani Morgenstern Lucas Muth Simon Blyth Hall Sikkink Hira Hood institutionalize institutionalized socialise socialisation internalise internalisation internalization socialization behaviour behavior Thomas theorem expectations stage model productive thinking evolution

Search results