| 1. |
- Abrahamsson, Sebastian, 1979-
(författare)
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Empiricist interventions: : Strategy and tactics on the ontopolitical battlefield
- 2012
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Ingår i: Science & Technology Studies. - 2243-4690. ; 25:1, s. 52-70
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent papers by prominent scholars in science and technology studies (notably John Law and Bruno Latour) have crystallized a fundamental disagreement about the scope and purpose of intervention in actor-network theory or what we here choose to bracket as empirical philosophy. While the precept of agnostic description is taken as a given, the desired eff ects of such descriptions are highly debated: Is the goal to interfere with the singularity of the real through the enactment of multiple and possibly confl icting ontologies? Or is it (also) to craft new and comprehensive common worlds supported by notions of due process and parliamentary procedure? In this paper we think about this disagreement as a question of research strategy (a normative discord about the desirable outcome of an intervention) in order to assess its implications for research tactics (a descriptive accord about the practical crafting of an adequate account). A key point here is to challenge the impermeability of such a division and show how the strategic dispute, if to be taken seriously, invariably spills over to swamp the level of tactics. To illustrate this point, we draw upon materials from our recent doctoral research projects and to facilitate the discussion we make two deliberate caricatures: Firstly, we operate with a simplifi ed history of actor-network theory in which a strategy of epistemological critique has been replaced by two contending agendas for ontological intervention. Secondly, we address these two contending agendas as distinct options which map on to the positions of our two main interlocutors. In doing so, it becomes possible to compare their respective tactical implications as we work through two examples of what might constitute an empiricist intervention.
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| 2. |
- Berglund, Eeva, et al.
(författare)
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Collaborative Confusion among DIY Makers
- 2020
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Ingår i: Science & Technology Studies. - : Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies. - 2243-4690. ; 33:2, s. 102-119
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Eco-oriented makers and grassroots subcultures experimenting with digital fabrication technologies, and other activists designing sustainable futures, are increasingly the subject of research. As they address problems of environmental sustainability beyond institutional contexts, their work may appear vague, even confused, yet their activities are underpinned by intense and principled commitment. Working through their confusion, many maker communities build new understandings about what ‘sustainability’ could mean. We argue that herein lie important resources for new knowledge, and further that ethnography is the ideal way to track these processes of learning and knowledge production. The ethnographer participates in local confusion, over values and the definitions of sustainability, but also about what constitutes useful knowledge. Supported by STS (and other) literature on environmental expertise, we argue that maker communities' own acknowledgement of this vagueness actually makes possible a position from which epistemological authority can be reasserted.
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| 3. |
- Coopmans, Catelijne, 1976-
(författare)
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Respect for Numbers : Lively Forms and Accountable Engaging in Multiple Registers of STS
- 2018
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Ingår i: Science & Technology Studies. - Tampere, Finland : Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies. - 2243-4690. ; 31:4, s. 109-126
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores an episode of numbers appearing on a screen and being read/spoken, looked at and received as numbers, by people who work together to achieve a particular goal. The events happened in Singapore, in 2012-2013, as part of periodic reporting on diabetic retinopathy screening in the context of efforts to innovate such screening. I tell of two parties at odds over how to engage numbers accountably. This question of ‘engagement’, of what can and should be done with numbers to secure their participation in organizational affairs, is worked out in how numerical forms are performed and sustained as working numbers. Using three STS analytics to analyse the episode – Helen Verran’s(2001) work on number as a relation of unity/plurality, John Law’s (1994) work on modes of ordering, and Steve Woolgar and Daniel Neyland’s (2013) work on mundaneity and accountability – I argue that numbers are brought to life in very different ways, each mobilizing a certain recognition of what numbers are and what it takes to respect this. In the conclusion, I comment on the article’s use and juxtaposition of these STS analytics, using the metaphor of a kaleidoscope.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Gleisner, Jenny, Fil. dr. 1982-
(författare)
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Between Standards and Voluntariness : Midwives’ Alignment Work in Antenatal Care
- 2023
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Ingår i: Science & Technology Studies. - : Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies. - 2243-4690. ; 36:4, s. 26-42
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Antenatal care in Sweden is voluntary but offered to all pregnant persons. It is organised in accordance with a standardised programme where midwives do pregnancy check-ups and inform about pregnancy, childbirth and becoming parents. But a standardised programme can be difficult to apply to the varying individuals’ wants and needs.Through interviews with midwives and observation of parental education, the article attends to the tension that arises between standards and voluntariness in antenatal care and the often-invisible alignment work done by midwives to make knowledge attractive and palatable to parents-to-be. It does so by showing that the recipients wanting the knowledge becomes important for it to be moved with stability and integrity without losing meaning. The article contributes to ongoing discussions about how scientific knowledge is turned into practice by elucidating the affective dimensions of alignment work and how feelings may facilitate or hinder the movement of knowledge.
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| 6. |
- Grankvist, Hannah
(författare)
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Facilitating the Movement of Knowledge in Occupational Health Services: Building and Aligning Relationships
- 2023
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Ingår i: Science & Technology Studies. - : FINNISH SOC SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY STUDIES. - 2243-4690. ; 36:4, s. 43-61
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article examines the establishment and maintenance of structures and relationships within interorganizational collaborations, specifically focusing on occupational health services in Sweden. It investigates how these collaborations are adjusted to existing structures to facilitate the movement of knowledge. The study draws attention to the gaps or seams (Vertesi, 2014) that arise when occupational health services providers and employers have different interests and objectives concerning occupational health and safety, and explores the continuous and often unnoticed relational work (Zelizer, 2012) undertaken by occupational health services providers to make their expertise and services relevant and appealing to customers and employers. This article contributes to the ongoing discussion on alignment work (Kruse, 2021, 2023) by highlighting its current limitations and underscoring the importance of relational work in creating the necessary conditions for moving knowledge.
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| 7. |
- Johnson, Ericka, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Enrolling Men, their Doctors, and Partners : Individual and Collective Responses to Erectile Dysfunction
- 2012
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Ingår i: Science & Technology Studies. - Tampere : Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies. - 2243-4690. ; 25:2, s. 46-60
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using the Pfizer funded Swedish informational site about erectile dysfunction (ED), www.potenslinjen.se, we examine how potential users, their partners, and medical doctors are enrolled in the process of creating the Swedish Viagra user. Contextualized against other critical work on Viagra, our analysis shows how the commercial discourse embeds the ED patient into a network of actors. Three separate actors are co-constituted and enrolled by this erectile dysfunction information discourse, comprising Viagra marketing material in a country which forbids direct to consumer advertising of prescription medication. Doctors are enrolled to produce the cultural authority of expert medical knowledge, whereas partners are given responsibility for the emotional aspects of a man’s sexuality and encouraged to direct the man toward the relationship-saving Viagra. Throughout, though, the man is the patient responsible for taking Viagra to fix his dysfunctioning penis. We problematize this individualised solution by contrasting it with the social aspects of the discourse and examining other qualitative and historical studies of impotence. We then ask if the enrolment presented by the Swedish Viagra website could be (mis)used to expand the circle of actors involved in ED, redefi ning the ‘problem’ and opening for a wider variety of treatments.
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| 8. |
- Johnson, Ericka, 1973-
(författare)
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Pepper as Imposter
- 2023
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Ingår i: Science & Technology Studies. - : Finnish Society for Science and Technology Studies. - 2243-4690.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- “An imposter is commonly understood as a person who pretends to be someone else in orderto deceive others” (Vogel et al., 2021: 3). This isthe starting point of Woolgar and colleagues’(2021) recent work on imposters, in which theyexplore how thinking with imposters can be auseful analytic for social theory, i.e. a tool or lensthrough which to observe social-material phenomena. In the book, they trace early sociologicaluse of imposters to articulate (underlying and/orperformative) social orders, and how impostering was initially seen as an example of deviationfrom the normal. In these early uses, examplesof impostering could be interpreted for clues towhich mechanisms held together the social order.However, their reworking of the term imposteringmoves the figure of the imposter to ‘center stage’and uses it to explore indeterminacy, uncertaintyand disorder, the frictions and disruptions thatare actually central to social relations (Vogel et al.,2021: 4). Rather than using it to discover underlying normative mechanisms, this new use of impostering keeps the analytical focus on the messypractices of social relations but also encouragesanalysis of which other actors are collaborating inthe impostering practices, and what purposes theimposter is supposed to serve.
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| 9. |
- Karasti, Helena, et al.
(författare)
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Knowledge Infrastructures: Part I
- 2016
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Ingår i: Science & Technology Studies. - : Science and Technology Studies. - 2243-4690. ; 29:1, s. 2-12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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| 10. |
- Karasti, Helena, et al.
(författare)
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Knowledge Infrastructures: Part II
- 2016
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Ingår i: Science & Technology Studies. - : Science and Technology Studies. - 2243-4690. ; 29:2, s. 2-6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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