In this thesis, I attempt to develop the rudiments of a ’practice’ conception of scientific knowledge and activities as the basis for a suitable methodology for Science and Technology Studies. In order to do this, I examine the methodologies proposed by two sociologists who can be very broadly construed to be working within the tradition of the "Sociology of Scientific Knowledge’, Harry Collins and Steve Woolgar in the context of their application to a specific case, and attempt to develop an alternative conception by contrast. The thesis is structured as follows. I begin by describing Collins’ and Woolgar’s methodologies for the analysis of scientific knowledge development in some detail in Chapter One. In Chapter Two, I examine the application of these methodologies to the ’computer models of scientific discovery’ case (the case is of some interest because it is held to ’refute’ the possibility of the sort of analysis of scientific activities that Collins and Woolgar propose). I then use the material of the first two Chapters in Chapter Three to diagnose the shortcomings of Collins’ and Woolgar’s methodologies as illustrated by their application to the computer models of discovery case. This sets the stage for an alternative analysis of the computer models case which does not suffer from these shortcomings in Chapter Four. Finally, I develop a practice-based conception of scientific knowledge development in Chapter Five (which I derive from the material of Chapters One through Four), contrast it with the methodologies of Collins and Woolgar, and use it to illustrate and evaluate my alternative analysis. / Master of Science

Limited research has been conducted with regards to the applicability of topic extraction techniques in Sociology. Addressing the modern methodological opportunities, and responding to the skepticism with regards to the absence of theoretical foundations supporting the use of text analytics, I argue that Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), complemented by other text analysis techniques and multivariate techniques, can constitute a unique hybrid method that can facilitate the sociological interpretations of web-based textual data. To illustrate the applicability of the hybrid technique, I developed two case studies. My first case study is associated with the Sociology of media. It focuses on the topic extraction and sentiment polarization among partisan texts posted on two major news sites. I find evidence of highly polarized opinions on comments posted on the Huffington Post and the Daily Caller. The highest polarizing topic was associated with a commentator’s reference on Hoodies in the context of the Trayvon Martin’s incident. My findings support contemporary research suggesting that media pundits frequently use tactics of outrage to provoke polarization of public opinion. My second case study contributes to the research domain of the Sociology of knowledge. The hybrid method revealed evidence of topical divides and topical “bridges” in the intellectual landscape of the British and the American sociological journals. My findings confirm the theoretical assertions describing Sociology as a fractured field, and partially support the existence of more globalized topics in the discipline.

This thesis is a study of inquiry. Drawing upon the work of American pragmatist John Dewey, this work seeks to contribute to our understanding of the construction of knowledge within the social system of communities of inquiry. The process of inquiry that is traced in this work is one effected in the course of architectural designing. An ethnographically informed study of an architectural masterplan project is used to illustrate Dewey's ideas and how they are played out in design practice. This thesis is understood to correspond with the growing interest of the students of organisational learning and knowledge management in knowledge creation and the underlying social processes. It is further seen as a response to the claim that the key processes of knowledge creation remain largely an enigma. Agreement has been established with Dewey that knowledge is not just an end in itself but a form of action, a medium of change and social transformation. The formation of knowledge, however, within the operation of inquiry is not a matter that “naturally” runs its course. The process of inquiry as studied both in theory and practice has shown just how much its results, which by definition constitute knowledge, are shaped by the institution and control of a problem. A problem is a social construct and the product of the purposeful selection and arrangement of pieces of information. Inquiry is therefore considered a process of controlled knowledge formation. That which counts as knowledge in the realm of social phenomena has been shown to be a matter not so much of agreement between actions and their consequences but agreement in terms of intellectual acceptance. What “satisfies” as a solution (such as the final masterplan) has therefore been shown to be not necessarily a question of its logical status.

This thesis absorbs and reflects on Choiseul Island responses and caution towards the making of anthropological knowledge. Initial interests that can easily become familiar to anthropology as research topics such as village life, local cosmology and local alternatives to cosmologies of climate and ecology, make way here for another activity of working through Choiseul responses to anthropology. In taking seriously the precautions and the considerations of people in this Solomon Islands locality, anthropology is invited to put a stoppage to practices that it would consider ordinary and part of anthropological knowledge making. This impasse for the discipline is outlined and explored in various chapters, in which usual styles of ethnography and topic-making take formation in respect of a Choiseul world that does not fit easily into encapsulation by anthropology. Effects for the discipline of anthropology are given consideration, within a wider view of imagining how an alternative anthropology in the vernacular can also entail an obviation of anthropology itself in favour of new forms of cultural sensitivity.

Ibn Khaldun is a great Moslem thinker of the fourteenth century (b. 1332, d. 1406 A. D.). Modern writers are inclined to consider him as a pioneer or a precursor in the science of society and the philosophy of history. Some of them consider him as the first sociologist in the history of mankind and even the founder of modern sociology. His Prolegomena, which is the primary subject of study in the present work, is regarded by one authority as one of the six important monographic works in general sociology. The aim of this dissertation is not to study either Ibn Khaldun or his theory in minute detail. In fact, other modern students have successfully achieved that task. The aim of this work is, rather, a different one. Our aim here is to see Ibn Khaldun in a different light, or, to use Mannheim's term, through a perspective which is greatly different from the customary one. Ibn Khaldun lived in a culture quite different from our present culture, and was accustomed to view the world within a frame of reference with which we are perhaps completely unfamiliar. The first duty that lies, therefore, before us, in order to be able to understand Ibn Khaldun, is to reconstruct his perspective or his frame of reference anew, and to try to look at the social phenomena through it. In this work, the space which is devoted to the discussion of Ibn Khaldun's theory per se is small in comparison to that devoted to the reconstruction of the perspective and the categories of thought according to which Ibn Khaldun and his fellow writers viewed their world. This work is, as its subtitle shows, a study in the sociology of knowledge. Ibn Khaldun is then taken as a point in case. He is studied primarily to show how his theory and the theories produced in his culture can fit into the general scheme of the sociology of knowledge as recently developed by modern sociologists. / text

Thesis (MPhil (Information Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This thesis explores the notion of communities of practice, and in particular how they make sense of their environment in order to create knowledge and enable learning. Traditionally communities of practice are viewed as stewards of expert knowledge, but this thesis argues that they are better understood as sensemaking phenomena. Chapter one introduces the theory of sensemaking as developed by Karl Weick. This chapter introduces the seven properties of sensemaking. It also explores organisational sensemaking by taking the intersubjective and generic subjective levels of sensemaking into account. Chapter two focuses on the literature on communities of practice as self-organising knowledge structures. Three structural aspects of communities of this kind are introduced, namely domain, community and practice. Following Etienne Wenger two additional aspects of communities of practice—namely meaning and identity—are analyzed as these provide the basis for a link to sensemaking theory. In the final part of this chapter the downside of communities of practice is reviewed as they do not only present opportunities but also unique challenges for organisations. Chapter three combines the conclusions from the previous two chapters by interpreting communities of practice from a sensemaking perspective. The seven properties of sensemaking are applied to communities of practice and the role of meaning in communities of practice is viewed through the lens of sensemaking. Furthermore the role communities of practice might play in enhancing the phases of organisational sensemaking is indicated. Chapter four concludes that communities of practice indeed function as sensemaking phenomena in their environments. It is argued that nurturing communities of practice as centres of sensemaking could be advantageous to organisations and recommendations are made on how to best achieve this.

Knowledge is often tacit and under researched in educational fields. In order for student access to knowledge and its related academic discourses to be facilitated, a deep understanding needs to be gained of the form that this knowledge takes. This study interrogates the ways in which knowledge is constituted in the first year of a Public Management Diploma and a Public Administration Degree at a comprehensive university in South Africa. The study takes a social realist approach that understands reality as fact but sees our knowledge thereof as a social phenomenon. The study was concerned with knowledge structures and knower structures as it argues that these have not been adequately accounted for in the sociology of education research. But this study comes to this concern from a strongly ideological view of student reading and writing. This study calls on a social practices approach that sees literacy as embedded within specific academic discourses, which vary from context to context. It uses this ideological understanding of literacy as the orienting framework for the study of knowledge. The study takes place in a Higher Education mileu that has begun to transform from its divisive past. The transformation brought about new institutional formations such as the comprehensive university, with its mix of vocational, professional and formative programmes and varied emphasis on contextual and conceptual curriculum coherence. Increasingly, the transformation agenda also shifts concern from simply providing physical access to a previously disenfranchised majority to ensuring full participation in the context of high attrition rates in first year and low retention rates. The data was analysed using the Specialisation Codes of Legitimation Code Theory to see what was being specialised in the Diploma and Degree curricula of the Public Management and Administration fields. These fields are characterised in the literature by ongoing tensions about focus, and perceptions of there being a theoretical vacuum and an inability to deal adequately with challenges in the South African public sector. Analysis of lecturer interviews and first-year curriculum documentation showed that both the Public Management Diploma and Public Administration Degree have stronger epistemic relations (ER), with an emphasis on claims to knowledge of the world. The data showed relatively weak social relations (SR), in that there was not the valuing of a particular lens on the world or a specific disposition required for legitimation within this field. The combination of ER+ and SR- indicates that these curricula are Knowledge Codes, where legitimation is through the acquisition of a set of skills and procedures. The programmes were characterised by fairly low-level procedural knowledge, which may point to a workplace-oriented direction that is dominant in the comprehensive university. In keeping with concerns raised in the literature about this field, there was little evidence of theoretical or propositional knowledge in the Public Management Diploma and while the Public Administration Degree had some evidence of this, it was arguably not to the extent expected of a degree as described in the National Qualifications Framework. This study was limited to the first-year of the Diploma and Degree and subsequent years could present different findings. Lecturers showed awareness of student challenges with literacy practices and made concerned attempts through various interventions to address this but they were found to value the surface features of writing practices over personal engagement with the knowledge. Though the expectations of student literacy practices in tests and assignments were aligned to the ways in which knowledge was constructed in the curriculum, there was little evidence of student induction into disciplinary discourses of the field as knowledge was presented as being neutral and student writing primarily took the form of retelling objective facts. The implications of these findings could include student exclusion from higher-level academic discourse, more powerful knowledge in the workplace and, finally, constrain them from becoming producers of knowledge.

This dissertation is a comparative inquiry into the formation of the urban order as a product of different discursive practices. Three main textual objects are taken into examination to dissect the interaction of textual form with the crystallization of a new social order centered in the city. The first is a martial arts manual written by the Spanish hidalgo and luckless conquistador Bernardo de Vargas Machuca in 1599, titled Milicia y descripción de las Indias. The second is Teatro de virtudes políticas que constituyen a un príncipe, a piece of Baroque literature composed in 1680 by the Creole savant Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora on the occasion of the arrival of the new viceroy to Mexico City. The last is a manual of public hygiene, Trattato d’igiene e sanità pubblica, published between 1905 and 1912 by Luigi Pagliani, one of the main figures behind the reorganization of the public health administration in post-Unification Italy. I approach these works first as cohesive systems of knowledge, and then investigate their individual components, argumentative logic, representational strategies, and tropes. Though heterogeneous in nature, these texts identify foundational moments when the city, as a discursive construct, is molded or thoroughly redesigned through the rationality of an emerging field of knowledge: military theory, Baroque literature and spectacle, hygiene and public health. As a constitutive element in the systematization of their respective fields, these texts envision, craft, and perform three “model cities”, or paradigms of urban order, that capture the succession of different mechanisms of power: the ciudad indiana established by colonizers at the fringes of the Spanish empire, the Creole city of the Novohispanic elites, and the hygienic city at the rise of the modern nation-State. These models enable processes of subjectivation to enfold, refashion the urban order into distinct arrangements, and reflect shifts and recalibrations in the modalities of power, the deployment of new techniques of government or means of social control. Vargas Machuca, Sigüenza, and Pagliani are treated, as it were, metonymically. They express, stand for, and intercept the social dynamics proper to their own cultural and historical horizons. They represented different social types (the indiano militiaman, the Baroque letrado, and the positivist technocrat) and operated as organic intellectuals of their times, who channeled and articulated on the ideological level the demands and injunctions of rising social groups. It is the complex entanglement of power relations, ideological investments, socio-economic transformations, and collective identities, that I have tried to unravel throughout my dissertation. The city, I argue, comes into sight as a field crossed by multiple forces, an apparatus that engenders sameness and difference, selfhood and otherness, emplaces ranks, hierarchies, and divisions that structure the polity, forges subjectivities through inclusionary or exclusionary strategies.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aims of this study were to establish whether there had been discernable changes in the nature of knowledge production at higher education institutions in the Eastern Cape since the transition to democracy, and to relate these to international and national trends in the way knowledge is produced. In view of the emphasis in government policy on the development of science and technology, the study was focused on researchers in this area and on the administration of research in this context. The research was conducted through structured interviews with administrators and active researchers at the three technikons and five universities in the province. The study found that there had indeed been changes, both in the way research is managed, and in the nature of the research itself. Research has become more applied over the last five years and there has been a move towards multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research, although administrators tended to underestimate the extent of this change. Research management has also become businesslike with the establishment of dedicated Deans/Directors of research on most campuses. Administrators ascribe these changes to new government policies and to changes in the requirements of funding agencies. Researchers, however, generally ascribe the changes to factors more directly related to themselves, such as changes in institutional research policy, more opportunities for multidisciplinary work and to greater linkage with the private sector. The study also found that many of the changes were already underway some time ago and that there was a degree of proactiveness in the way some institutions had realigned their research. The study found that there are significant differences between formerly advantaged institutions and their historically disadvantaged counterparts. The latter are dominated by less well qualified staff and produce fewer research outputs than the former. Research cultures are less well developed and researchers complain of a lack of institutional support for research. Despite this, research continues to be a significant activity on these campuses. In general, staff at technikons are more positive about the future of research than their colleagues at universities, irrespective of historical advantage. The study found that knowledge production has assumed some of the characteristics of so-called Mode 2 knowledge production as a result of a variety of national and international influences, and historically advantaged institutions have been able to initiate adjustments to the way in which research is done in anticipation of new policies. Publication of government policy on science and technology and on higher education may have accelerated the change but did not initiate it. The historically disadvantaged institutions, however, appeared to have done little in anticipation of new policy and have been forced to be reactive to recent government initiatives. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doel van die studie was om ondersoek na die voorkoms van waarneembare veranderinge in die karakter van die lewering van kennis by hoer-onderrig institute in die Oos- Kaap, na die oorgang van demokrasie, in te stel. Verder is gepoog om hierdie veranderinge in verband met internasionale en nasionale tendense, met betrekking to die wyse waarop kennis voortgebring word, te bring. In die lig van die regering se beleid aangaande die ontwikkeling van wetenskap en tegnologie was die studie op navorsers in hierdie rigting, sowel as die aanpassing van navorsing in hierdie konteks, gefokus. Die ondersoek was deur middel van gestruktureerde onderhoude met administrateurs en aktiewe navorsers aan die drie tegnikons and vyf universiteite in hierdie provinsie uitgevoer. Die ondersoek het aangedui dat veranderinge in die wyse waarop navorsing bestuur word en in die karakter van navorsing op sigself, inderdaad plaasgevind het. Navorsing het gedeurende die afgelope vyf jaar toenemend toepaslik geword en hoewel administrateurs geneig het om die omvang daarvan te onderskat, was daar 'n merkbare verplasing na multidissiplinere en multi-institution ale navorsing. Die administrasie van navorsing het ook, na die aanstelling van teogewyde Dekane/Direkteurs van navorsing by die meerderheid kampusse, toenemend bedryfsgerig word. Administrateurs skryf hierdie verplasing toe aan die nuwe staatsbeleid sowel as die veranderinge in die voorskrifte van befondsingsliggame. Op hul beurt skryf navorsers die varanderinge egter aan faktore wat meer op hulself van toepassing is, toe. Hierdie faktore sluitveranderinge in die institutionele beleid, die toename in geleenthede met betrekking tot multi-dissiplinere werk, sowel as die toename in skakeling met die private sektor, in. Dit is gevind dat verskeie van hierdie veranderinge al 'n geruime tyd onderweg is en dat daar 'n mate van pro-aktiwiteit met betrekking tot die wyse waarop sommige institute hul navorsing hers poor het, bestaan. Die studie het bevind dat betekenisvolle verskille tussen voormalige bevoorregte institute en hul histories onbevoorregte ekwivalente voorgekom het. U it die resultate het dit duidelik geword dat die personeel van die laasgenoernde institute oor die algemeen minder gekwalifiseerd is en dat 'n laer navorsingsopbrengs geproduseer word. Die navorsingskultuur is minder ontwikkel en navorsers is ontevrede oor die gebrek aan institutionele ondersteuning wat navorsing aanbetref. Ten spyte hiervan is navorsing voortdeurend 'n betekenisvolle akwitiwiteit op hierdie kampusse. Personeel verbonde aan tegnikons is oor die algemeen meer positief oor die toekoms van navorsing in teenstelling met hul kollegas verbonde aan universitiete, ongeag die historiese agtergrond. Die studie het ook bevind dat, weens die verskeidenheid nasionale en internasionale invloede en die oorspronklike aanpassings wat historiese bevoorregte institute tot stand laat kom het met betrekking tot die wyse waarop navorsing, met die oog op nuwe beleid, uitgevore word, die produksie van kennis van die eienskappe van "Mode 2" aangeneen word. Die bekendmaking van die staatsbeleid aangaande wetenskap en tegnologie en hoer-onderrig kon uit eie beweging hierdie veranderinge bespoedig het, maar het dit nie geinisieer nie. Histories onbevoorregte institute het tot dusver min werk gemaak van die vooruitsigte van die nuwe beleid en word genoodsaak om op onlangse regerings inisiatiewe te reageer.

The environment in which higher education institutions operate is changing, and these changes are impacting on all aspects of higher education, including postgraduate levels. Changes wrought by globalisation, heralded by rapid advances in technology have inaugurated a new era in which there are long term consequences for higher education. The shift towards more quantitative and measurable "outputs" signifies a fundamental change in the educational ethos in institutions. Effectiveness is now judged primarily on numbers of graduates and publications rather than on other aspects. The drive is to produce a highly educated population, especially through increasing postgraduates who can drive national innovation and improve national economies. This affects academics in a range of ways, not least in the ways in which they engage in teaching, what they are willing to do and how they do it. Such changes influence the kinds of research done, the structures and funding which support research, and thus naturally shapes the kinds of postgraduate programmes and teaching that occurs. This study, situated in the field of Higher Education Studies, adopting a critical realist stance and drawing on the social theory of Margaret Archer and the concepts of expert and novice, explores the experiences of postgraduate supervisors from one South African institution across a range of disciplines. Individual experiences at the level of the Empirical and embodied in practice at the level of the Actual allow for the identification of possible mechanisms at the level of the Real which structure the sector. The research design then allows for an exploration across mezzo, macro and micro levels. Individuals outline their own particular situations, identifying a number of elements which enabled or constrained them and how, in exercising their agency, they develop their strategies for supervision drawing on a range of different resources that they identify and that may be available to them. Student characteristics, discipline status and placement, funding, and the emergent policy environment are all identified as influencing their practice. In some instances supervisors recognise the broader influences on the system that involve them in their undertaking, noting the international trends. Through their narratives and the discourses they engage a number of contradictions that have developed in the system with growing neo-liberal trends and vocationalism highlighting tensions between academic freedom and autonomy, and demands for productivity, efficiency and compliance, and between an educational focus and a training bias in particular along with others. Especially notable is how this contributes to the current ideologies surrounding knowledge and knowledge production. Their individual interests and concerns, and emergent academic identities as they take shape over time, also modifies the process and how individual supervisors influence their own environments in agentic moves becomes apparent. Whilst often individuals highlight the lack of support especially in the early phases of supervision, the emergent policy-constrained environment is also seen as curtailing possibilities and especially in limiting the possibilities for the exercise of agency. Whilst the study has some limitations in the range and number of respondents nevertheless the data provided rich evidence of how individual supervisors are affected, and how they respond in varied conditions. What is highlighted through these experiences are ways pressures are increasing for both supervisors and students and changing how they engage. Concerns in particular are raised about the growing functional and instrumental nature of the process with an emphasis on the effects on the kinds of researchers being developed and the knowledge that is therefore being produced. As costs increase for academics through the environments developed and with the varied roles they take on so they become more selective and reluctant to expand the role. This research has provided insights into ideas, beliefs and values relating to the postgraduate sector and to the process of postgraduate supervision and how it occurs. This includes the structures and cultural conditions that enable or constrain practitioners as they develop in the role in this particular institution. It has explored some of the ways that mechanisms at international, national and institutional levels shape the role and practices of supervisors. The effects of mechanisms are in no way a given or simply understood. In this way the research may contribute to more emancipatory knowledge which could be used in planning and deciding on emergent policies and practices which might create a more supportive and creative postgraduate environment.