Sociology of Knowledge

How to Become an Iconic Social Thinker: The Intellectual Pursuits of Malinowski and Foucault

by Dominik Bartmanski

Published in European Journal of Social Theory

The present article develops a new approach to intellectual history and sociology of knowledge. Its point of departure... more The present article develops a new approach to intellectual history and sociology of knowledge. Its point of departure is to investigate the conditions under which social thinkers assume the iconic reputation. What does it take to become ‘a founding father’ of a humanistic discipline? How do social thinkers achieve the status of a trans-disciplinary star? Why some intellectuals attract tremendous attention and ‘go down in history’ despite personal and professional failures, while others enjoy only limited recognition or simply sink into oblivion, even if they have met all the standards of their day? Quite a few sociologists have tackled this elusive issue. Pierre Bourdieu, Michele Lamont and Randall Collins are among those who fleshed out strong explanatory frameworks. This project adds to this body of knowledge by emphasizing cultural factors that these authors downplayed in their seminal accounts, despite being aware of their significance. By showing why these underdeveloped aspects of their works need to be incorporated into the debate and how this can be achieved, this article introduces a new theorization of the iconic, lasting intellectual reputation substantiated by evidence from the lifeworks of Bronislaw Malinowski and Michel Foucault. As such, it aims, minimally, to make sociology of knowledge decisively ‘cultural’. Maximally, it seeks to demonstrate that the iconic success of intellectual intervention in social theory depends on carefully performed and contingently mediated engagement with the binary systems of symbolic classification.

Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2

by Dmitry Misyurov

The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.

From “Gastarbeiter” To “People With Migration Background”: A Critical Overview Of German Migration Sociology

by Cüneyd Dinc

Migration as a social fact was neglected by German society and public bodies until the 1990s. Hence as sub-discipline... more Migration as a social fact was neglected by German society and public bodies until the 1990s. Hence as sub-discipline migration sociology was a research area which received little attention. Only when the interest of German society on migration rose, migration sociology in Germany became important. The result was a explosion of academic publications on migrations and the problems of migrants. The aim of this article is to give a concise and critical overview about German migration sociology. It will draw its basic characteristics and the methodological and interpretative problems Migration sociology must deal with. By neglecting the fact that the contend of German migration sociology is shaped by means of public demand and discussion, the researchers with non migration background are faced with a lack of self reflexivity, which biased their results and gives a wrong picture of migration and migrants.

The McDonaldization of HE? Notes on the UK Experience

by Christian Garland

The McDonaldization of Higher Education? Notes on the UK Experience
in Fast Capitalism 4:1 2008

“We Teach All Hearts to Break” (2012)

by Christian Garland

“We Teach All Hearts to Break”: On the Incompatibility of Education with Schooling at All Levels, and the Renewed Need for a De-Schooling of Society
Published in Educational Studies: A Journal of the American Educational Studies Association 48:1, Special Issue: “Anarchism… is a living force within our life…” Anarchism, Education and Alternative Possibilities pps.30-38
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/heds20/48/1

2012, « The Historicity of the Neoliberal State », in Social Anthropology, volume 20, n° 1, pp. 80-94

by Mathieu Hilgers

Debate with Loic Wacquant “Three Steps to a Historical Anthropology of Actually Existing Neoliberalism." Social Anthropology, 20, 1, with responses in the next issue: Jamie Peck, Nick Theodore, and Neil Brenner, Stephen Collier, Daniel Goldstein, Johanna Bockman, Don Kalb...

What symbols

by Dmitry Misyurov

This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response? This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response?

Looking at me, looking at you: qualitative research and the politics of knowledge representations in advertising and academia

by Chris Hackley

Inter-epistemic Power and Transforming Knowledge Objects in a Biomedical Network

by Gerry McGivern

McGivern, G. & Dopson, S. (2010) ‘Inter-Epistemic Power & Transforming Knowledge Objects in a Biomedical Network’. Organization Studies, 31 (12), 1-20.

We examine a multidisciplinary network established to translate genetics science into practice in the British NHS.... more We examine a multidisciplinary network established to translate genetics science into practice in the British NHS. Drawing on theory about epistemic communities and objects, we describe three stages in their lifecycle (vision/formation, transformation and reincarnation) and epistemic clashes over knowledge objects. Medical academics captured jurisdiction over the network at formation, through their superior knowledge of the nascent genetics discipline, producing epistemic objects reflecting their interests. A governmental community challenged medical academics for jurisdiction but, unable to transform objects by changing their space of representation in performance reporting, ceased funding the network, which then closed. Afterwards, however, a NHS community successfully ‘reincarnated’ a discarded epistemic object into a technical object in NHS practice. We make a theoretical contribution by developing a processual framework for understanding biomedical innovation, focusing on transforming objects situated between different wider knowledge/power structures. This explains how objects were transformed at micro-level through the interaction and relative power of local communities, influenced by macro-level rules about knowledge formation in wider epistemic, organizational and governmental communities.

A Manifesto for Knowledge Democracy

by Paul Lachelier

I presented this paper at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

This paper takes up the debate surrounding public sociology by arguing for “knowledge democracy.” The argument starts... more This paper takes up the debate surrounding public sociology by arguing for “knowledge democracy.” The argument starts by distinguishing between private and public divisions of labor, the former specializing people in more manual or mental labor, the latter ensuring that everyone to some extent engages in both mental and manual labor, making “public chores” the responsibility of all rather than the jobs of some. The implications of the private division of labor for the distribution of “knowledge power” are then discussed before concluding with arguments for conceptualizing public sociology as a movement toward knowledge democracy.

Democracy, Knowledge and the Division of Labor

by Paul Lachelier

This paper was published in the sociology journal "Humanity and Society" in May 2006.

This article draws from my reading and thinking in sociology in interaction with my lived experience as a sociology... more This article draws from my reading and thinking in sociology in interaction with my lived experience as a sociology graduate student and a political activist over the last ten years. As a graduate student, I have found it frustrating to see politically-minded faculty and students become or remain academic specialists satisfied with defining their public engagement largely in terms of teaching and research. As a political activist and a 2002 Green Party candidate for state elected office, I have been frustrated with what sociologist Richard Flacks would call the taken-for-granted distance for most people between making history and making everyday life, and the consequently evanescent, crisis or election-focused nature of most political participation. The paper suggests some fundamental social problems with the existing division of labor, including the division of “knowledge power,” and proposes some ways sociologists can help address these problems.

When the Chick Hits the Fan: Representativeness and Reproducibility in Technological Tests

by John Downer

Downer, John 2007 ‘When the Chick Hits the Fan: Representativeness and Reproducibility in Technological Testing’, Social Studies of Science 37 (1): 7-26.

Before a new turbojet engine design is approved, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must assure themselves... more Before a new turbojet engine design is approved, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must assure themselves that, among many other things, the engine can safely ingest birds. They do this by mandating a series of well-defined - if somewhat Pythonesque - ‘birdstrike tests’ through which the manufacturers can demonstrate the integrity of their engines. In principle, the tests are straightforward: engineers run an engine at high speed, launch birds into it, and watch to see if it explodes. In practice, the tests rest on a complex and contentious logic. In this paper I explore the debate that surrounds these tests, using it to illustrate the now-familiar idea that technological tests - like scientific experiments - unavoidably contain irreducible ambiguities that require judgments to bridge, and to show that these judgments can have real consequences. Having established this, I then explore how the FAA reconciles the unavoidable ambiguities with its need to determine, with a high degree of certainty, that the engines will be as safe as Congress requires. I argue that this reconciliation requires a careful balance between the opposing virtues of reproducibility and representativeness - and that this balance differs significantly from that in most scientific experiments, and from the common perception of what it ought to be.

Forbidden Knowledge: Public Controversy and the Production of Nonknowledge

by Joanna Kempner

Sociologists, philosophers, and historians of science tend to focus their attention on the production of knowledge.... more Sociologists, philosophers, and historians of science tend to focus their attention on the production of knowledge. More recently, scholars have begun to investigate more fully the structures and processes that impede the production of knowledge. This article draws on interviews conducted with 41 academic researchers to present a phenomenological examination of ‘‘forbidden knowledge’’—a phrase that refers to knowledge considered too sensitive, dangerous, or taboo to produce. Forbidden knowledge has traditionally been understood as a set of formal controls on what ought not be known. We argue that the social processes that create forbidden knowledge are embedded in the everyday practices
of working scientists. The narrative legacies of past controversies in science are of particular importance, as they serve as a tool that working scientists use to justify, construct, and hide their acceptance of forbidden knowledge. As a result, the precise contents of forbidden knowledge are fluid,
fuzzy, essentially contested, specialty specific, locally created, and enforced.

From exploring practice to exploring inquiry: a practitioner researcher's experience (this PhD thesis gives the beginnings of "messy method")

by Nigel Mellor

Vist website www.nmellor.com for this thesis - on page called "messy method"

Last Call for Papers "Raumwissen und Wissensräume"; Deadline 25-04-12

by Stefan Schreiber

Call for Papers: "Raumwissen und Wissensräume. Interdisziplinärer Theorie-Workshop für NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen" des Lesezirkels der Cross Sectional Group V „Space and Collective Identities“ des Exzellenzclusters „Topoi. The Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations” vom 7.–9. August 2012 in Berlin

more info at: http://www.topoi.org/event/raumwissen-und-wissensraume/

How strong is Dr. Bloor's 'strong programme'?

by Gad Freudenthal

Saint Matthew strikes again: An agent-based model of peer review and the scientific community structure

by Flaminio Squazzoni

Journal of Informetrics, Volume 6, Issue 2, April 2012, Pages 265–275

This paper investigates the impact of referee reliability on the quality and efficiency of peer review. We modeled... more This paper investigates the impact of referee reliability on the quality and efficiency of peer review. We modeled peer review as a process based on knowledge asymmetries and subject to evaluation bias. We tested various levels of referee reliability and different mechanisms of reviewing effort distribution among agents. We also tested different scientific community structures (cohesive vs. parochial) and competitive science environments (high vs. low competition). We found that referee behavior drastically affects peer review and an equal distribution of the reviewing effort is beneficial only if the scientific community is homogeneous and referee reliability is the rule. We also found that the Matthew effect in the allocation of resources and credit is inherent to a ‘winner takes all’ well functioning science system, more than a consequence of evaluation bias.

Saint Matthew strikes again: An agent-based model of peer review and the scientific community structure

by Flaminio Squazzoni

Journal of Informetrics, Volume 6, Issue 2, April 2012, Pages 265–275

This paper investigates the impact of referee reliability on the quality and efficiency of peer review. We modeled... more This paper investigates the impact of referee reliability on the quality and efficiency of peer review. We modeled peer review as a process based on knowledge asymmetries and subject to evaluation bias. We tested various levels of referee reliability and different mechanisms of reviewing effort distribution among agents. We also tested different scientific community structures (cohesive vs. parochial) and competitive science environments (high vs. low competition). We found that referee behavior drastically affects peer review and an equal distribution of the reviewing effort is beneficial only if the scientific community is homogeneous and referee reliability is the rule. We also found that the Matthew effect in the allocation of resources and credit is inherent to a ‘winner takes all’ well functioning science system, more than a consequence of evaluation bias.

THE SECRETS OF THE DOCTORATE: An introduction to messy method as a means of creating knowledge: A primer for researchers.

by Nigel Mellor

A video of a seminar around this book is available on
https://lectopia.ncl.ac.uk/lectopia/lectopia.lasso?ut=17374&id=17493

More information about the topic is on
https://sites.google.com/site/nigelsbitsandbobs/Home/messy-method-the-secrets-of-the-doctorate

In particular, this web page establshes the validity (strength) of the approach, with other PHD thesis and over 50 citations relating to the topic (see the file VALIDITYCITATIONS)

The original thesis which this book builds on is listed ealier. This thesis is designed to be "a good read".

Curriculum Differentiation: A knowledge point of view DRAFT

by Suellen Shay

This draft paper is under review but I would welcome any feedback on it in th meantime. I'm using a Bernsteinian conceptual frame to try and expose what differentiates different kinds of curricula with a particular interest in vocational & professional curriculum.

Sociologists of education rooted in social realism have for more than a decade argued persuasively that knowledge... more Sociologists of education rooted in social realism have for more than a decade argued persuasively that knowledge matters in education, there are different kinds of knowledge, not all knowledge is equal and that these differentiations have significant implications for curriculum (Muller 2000, Young 2008, Moore 2007, Maton 2000 , Wheelahan 2010 ). While these arguments has made an important contribution to both theoretical and policy debate across various national contexts, the implications for curriculum have not been sufficiently addressed. In other words, a theory of differentiated knowledge has not translated into an adequate theory of differentiated curriculum. This paper offers an empirically derived emerging framework for conceptualizing differentiated higher education curricula with a particular interest in occupationally and professionally-oriented curricula.

The conceptual framework takes as its starting point Bernstein’s work on knowledge differentiation. Bernstein distinguishes between horizontal discourses (or everyday knowledge) and vertical discourses (or theoretical knowledge). This is a useful starting point but requires further elaboration to describe other forms of knowledge, for example, professional knowledge. Drawing on the semantic codes of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) this paper offers a framework for mapping shifts in knowledge as well as what happens when these knowledges are recontextualized into curricula. I illustrate the use of the framework by drawing on case study data from the SANTED project. Exposing these underlying principles illuminates not only curriculum differentiation but enables a richer conversation about epistemological access and progression.