Vetenskapskrig och det goda samtalets retorik : - biologer talar om "tokfeminism"

• In this case study based article, Holmberg analyses a Swedish science based debate from 2002. The debate concerned what, from a certain position, came to be labelled “crazy-feminism” (“tokfeminism”). The first aim is to highlight how talk about the “science war” becomes contrasted, and yet intertwined, with talk about the “good conversation”. A second aim is to show how, what at a first glance can be interpreted as a hopeless and unfruitful controversy may include a subversive potential for unexpected alliances. The case study is based on a range of empirical materials; newspaper articles, private correspondence, web-based contributions and conference lectures. This is analysed from the sociology of science perspective, with focus set on the rhetorical nature of discourse. In the analysis Holmberg uses concepts such as categorisation, contrast structures and rhetoric strategies. The author investigates how one pole of this debate builds up rhetorical credibility primarily by way of irony, citation and extreme case formulations, attaching the opponents to the context of the science war, while at the same time distancing “us” from that same war. This is made by both poles as they embrace the ideal principle of the good and fruitful scientific conversation.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

genusvetenskap

vetenskapskrig

diskursanalys

retorik

tokfeminism

biologism

Sociology

Sociologi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)