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Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life
Steve Woolgar
Science and Technology StudiesSaïd Business School University of Oxford
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life
Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life
Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
Laboratory Life (1979, 1986)
• STS in the time of Kuhn: Structure of Scientific Revolutions– The problem of retrospective history
• Origin stories: a health warning• 1976 San Francisco meeting Use of
Quantitative Indicators in History of Science• 1976 First 4S meeting (Cornell)• A visit to the laboratory (Salk Institute)
• Science as it happens– in situ– contemporary (pace Kuhn)
• Bloor/Laudan disputes: objectivist philosophers as targets of provocation
• Mertonian sociologists as targets of provocation• Access negotiations for lab studies involve
philosopher stereotypes• Retrospective history again: Multiple discovery
of lab studies?– Latour and Woolgar, Lynch, Knorr-Cetina, Traweek
(Pasadena 4S 2006?)
Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life
Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
Epistemology Symmetry Character of studyScientific knowledge
Social scientific knowledge
Realist Realist Science as a social institution
Mertonian sociology
Relativist? Realist Paradigm Kuhn
Relativist Realist True/false Strong programme (Edinburgh)
Relativist Realist Human/non-human
Actor network theoryEthnography
Relativist Relativist Analyst/subject ReflexivityTechnography
Shifting provocations on science
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
It could be otherwise
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
It could be otherwise
T is congealed
social relations
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
It could be otherwise
T is congealed
social relations
T is action at a
distance
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
It could be otherwise
T is congealed
social relations
T is politics by other means
T is action at a
distance
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
It could be otherwise
T is congealed
social relations
T is politics by other means
T is action at a
distanceT is society made durable
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
Reception and use are socially
distributed
It could be otherwise
T is congealed
social relations
T is politics by other means
T is action at a
distanceT is society made durable
Shifting from essentialism to post-essentialism
• Constructivism usefully opens up technical phenomena, but– Restricted use of “it could be otherwise”– Assumes interpretive flexibility ends at moment of consensus– Collusion with definitive readings of technical capacity
• Less dependence on standard social/political variables, motives, interests, technical capacity, context, identity etc
• Greater emphasis on process, fluidity, performativity, messiness• Technology is achieved, rendered, constituted as an unavoidable
feature of the constant reproduction of social order• Technologies are recursive, tentative, messy, indeterminate,
contingent and multiple• Technology as situated action
Technology as situated action
• Imagine that technology is a constitutive social phenomenon.
• Treat questions about the definition and use of technology, and the deployment of terms such as ‘technical’ and ‘technical capacity’, as situated social actions.
• Examine how technical capacity is conferred, maintained, broken down, in specific social and institutional circumstances.
Objects as situated action
• Imagine that objects are a constitutive social phenomenon.
• Treat questions about the definition and use of objects, and the deployment of terms such as the ‘character’ and ‘nature of objects’, as situated social actions.
• Examine how the nature of an object is conferred, maintained, broken down, in specific social and institutional circumstances.
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
Reception and use are socially
distributed
It could be otherwise
T is congealed
social relations
T is politics by other means
T is action at a
distanceT is society made durable
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
Reception and use are socially
distributed
It could be otherwise
T is congealed
social relations
T is politics by other means
T is action at a
distanceT is society made durable
T is situated social action
Implications of relational ontology• Need to adopt strong not weak perspective on governance
– Governance in practice; not mere descriptions of reporting structures (corporate governance)
– Governance of ontologies not just of people– Governance based on recursive ontological accomplishment
• Is-ought connections are built into ontological constitution– Appropriate “solutions” are made preferentially available
through performance of accountability relations– What- the-object-is performs appropriate responses to it
• The achieved ontological status of objects is key to “behaviour”, not the “mentality” of the individuated human subject
• Ontology is situated, recursive– Between representational epistemology and idealised ontology– Making the object seem what it is
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
Reception and use are socially
distributed
It could be otherwise
T is congealed
social relations
T is politics by other means
T is action at a
distanceT is society made durable
T is situated social action
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral
Constructivism: technology associal (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse)
essentialism
postessentialism
Reception and use are socially
distributed
It could be otherwise
T is congealed
social relations
T is politics by other means
T is action at a
distanceT is society made durable
T is situated social action
Making T seem
what it is
What is the value of STS?• STS as a set of provocations
– Perspectives and approaches which include eg actor networks, certainty trough, it could be otherwise
• STS as a fund of examples, stories, case studies, research reports which can organise and/or stimulate thinking– Cf relation between management consultants/gurus and managers
• STS as a set of sensibilities– A propensity to cause trouble, provoke, be awkward– A preference to work through difficult conceptual (theoretical) issues
using specific detailed empirical cases– An inclination to deflate grandiose concepts and claims– An emphasis on the local, specific and contingent– Caution about the unreflexive adoption and use of standard social science
lexicons (eg power, culture, meaning, value)– Reflexive attention to (frequently unexplicated) notions of audiences,
value and utility• STS scepticism: It could be otherwise
It could be otherwise• Convert revered and standard ideas and concepts into objects of
analysis• 1. Emphasise historical contingency: revert to a time when the
concept was not established or taken for granted• 2. Emphasise the concept’s cultural specificity: identify a
different cultural context in which the concept is not the same as in our own situation
• “Ethnographise” the target concept: add “-ography”– Epistemology – epistemography– Scale – scalography– Ontology - ontography
• 3. Emphasise complex processes and practices• “Gerundise” the target concept: add – “ing”
– Governance – governancing– Futures – futuring– Ethics – ethicising– Evidence - evidencing
Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life
Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
• Steve Woolgar and Dan Neyland: Mundane Governance (OUP, forthcoming)
• Increasing regulation and control in relation to everyday objects and ordinary technologies
– Recycling and waste– Traffic (speed cameras, parking, traffic lights)– Passenger movement and security in airports
Mundane Governance
Current thinking on governance• Main focus on human, social and organisational relations
– Procedures, structures, committee composition, frequency of meetings, reporting protocols, retirement age
• Neo Foucauldian perspective: governance is idealised compliance through subject positions
– Little evidence of widespread internalisation– No acknowledgement that governance is uncertain, disconnected and
messy– Does not explain resistance, disruption, ambivalence
• Weak perspective:– Neglect of material things, objects, devices, technologies, instruments– Ontological indifference: existence and status of entities taken for granted
“To govern without governing society, that is to say, to govern through the regulated and accountable choices of autonomous agents – citizens, consumers, parents, employees, investors” (Rose, 1993: 298)
An alternative perspective• Governance through accountability relations• The importance of the mundane
– More pervasive and consequential• Two senses of “mundane”
– Routine, everyday, taken for granted– Of the world, just the way things actually are (Latin:
mundus)• Accountability relations enact entities (objects,
things, others/audiences) and vice versa• Accountability is performative rather than an
intrinsic property of actors or objects
Disquiet/outrage about the mundane
• Recent marked changes in governance and accountability regimes
• Accountability good and bad • Public consternation, outrage, indignation• Excessive government interference, nanny state, over
zealous policing• Especially in relation to “ordinary” objects and
practices• Nature and extent of governance and accountability
appears to centre upon common place things
Examples• Fines for putting “inappropriate” materials in a recycling
container• Newly issued wheelie bins are discovered to contain
microchips• Speed cameras generate excessive income for the police• Courses for re-educating speeding drivers• Schadenfreude with failures of traffic control systems
(break down of traffic lights, suspension of parking improves traffic flow)
• Proposals to introduce ID cards with biometric data• Extraordinary airport security measures in response to
threat of terrorists attacks; liquid rules
Passage through the airport of objects and their persons
Passenger management and security: monitoring and assessing the object-person relation
Mundane terror: ordinary objects possess potentially extraordinary properties
Ordinary objects acquire an insecure ontology; they are not what they seem
Mundane terror
August 2006: EU wide change in security rules about carry on liquids
Who is going to read and learn these detailed instructions?
Typology of liquids enacts the “responsible traveller”
Compliance with the typology enacts the “person with nothing to hide” (cf ID cards)
Ontological politics
• Research principle: it could be otherwise• Examine social and material practices whereby
entities acquire mundane status• Mundanising and de-mundanising• Not just objects but ontologies• Specify ontological politics• The processes and practices whereby entities
emerge from an ontological soup• “Politics” to denote the contingency of processes
and practices
Ontological politics• Ontography• Document how the existence, nature and capacity
(indeed, all attributes) of these entities come into being– The nature of entities is not pre determined ie not just
“labelling” of known entities– The nature of relations between them is not predetermined
• Interrogate the relational basis for agency• Invert (subvert) accepted definitions, understandings and
agential relations– Eg Mundane governance: objects and their persons
A. McOntology
• Who/what is accountable for obesity caused by fast foods?– McDonalds’ products make children obese/diabetic (Pelman vs
McDonalds, 2002)– Media response derides the lawsuit: of course fast foods have
propensity for obesity!– Case succeeds on unreasonable danger and inadequate warning;
but fails on causation• Who/what is accountable for burns caused by hot coffee?
– Woman sues McDonalds for serving hot coffee, which she spilt on her lap (Liebeck vs McDonalds, 2005)
– Another example of an over litigious society where individual refuses to accept responsibility? Coffee is meant to be hot!
Accountability shifts• Lawyers argue that the coffee:
– Is hotter than other restaurants– Caused “the most serious kind” of (third degree) burn– Is just one of a long series of similar burns
• Award of $2.7 million for “wilful, reckless or malicious conduct”
• Ontological respecification of the coffee performs a redistribution of accountability relations
• The capacities, identities, expectations shift in relation to the shift from “hot” to “recklessly-knowably-in-defiance-of-warnings-ably, as just-the-latest-in-a-series-of-similar-events-ably hot”
B. The Wrong Bin Bag
A tabloid depiction of the moral order of waste disposal (The Sun)
The wrong bin bag• What are processes of political constitution of entities?• How does discursive organisation make possible the
relations of governance (Smith: “relations of ruling”)?• Organisation of text provides for moral order: makes
available a cast of characters, assigns attributes to each, depicts network of rights and responsibilities
• Not just a story weaved around acceptable/curious behaviours in relation to a given object
• The very character of the object, the ontology of the bin bag, is constituted in and through the organisation of the text
• Can a mere bag disrupt political relations? How can a bag become an event? How can a bin bag be wrong?
• Moral order is portrayed through an additive contrast structure between entities in the story
• The contrast is between evil doers (barmy council bosses etc) and innocent victims (normal people, unmarried mum of four)
• Barmy/normal turns on apprehension of the object ( a bin bag) and what counts as appropriate behaviour with and towards it
• The mundaneity of the bin bag – what every reasonable person knows about the nature and purpose of bin bags - reinforces the moral contrast between barmies and normals
• What the object (bag) is, what it’s for, what should be in it, what is (in)appropriate behaviour towards it, are all tied to (and exemplify) the structure of the moral order
Evil doers Innocent victims
Barmy council bosses
Lynette
Over zealous wardens
Unmarried mum of four
Ripped open the bags
Kids to feed and clothe
Any normal family
Wardens for Crewe and Nantwich Borough council
A woman fined for littering (while feeding …
….Birds
Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life
Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
The influence of STS• The growing influence of STS:
• The potential utility (use, value) of STS– For a wide range of disciplines– For scientists and technologists (a distraction or a help?)– For business and management
• What happens when STS is appropriated by new institutions eg business schools?
• How much is the radical/critical provocation of STS attenuated?– Pollner (1991) “Radical reflexivity has settled down and moved out to the suburbs”!– Consumers “misuse” STS? eg citation of Laboratory Life in US court case– “Misuse”, or the reader writes the text?– Has STS now both settled down and got its MBA?!
In the past decade and a half, STS has evolved intellectually, built institutional strength, forged links with other disciplines, new communities and policy relevant areas. STS has begun to make its mark in economic theory, anthropology, music, environmental governance, legal discourse, science education, and science policy; and a broad range of public institutions – from funding agencies to science museums to transnational NGOs are beginning to incorporate STS insights into their thinking (Cornell, 2003)
Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life
Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
Conclusions• What is value of STS?
– Capacity to renew and reinvent itself– Capacity to provoke and challenge assumptions
• Use STS itself to answer this question….– What is STS’ actor network?– How can users of STS be configured; how can they
be taught what to want? – What is STS’ certainty trough?
• Is there one thing called STS?– no! it could be otherwise– no! there are multiple STSs
Conclusions
• A central enduring provocation of STS:– “It could be otherwise”
• This cashed out in different dimensions– Symmetry– Essentialism
• New audiences for STS• BUT tendency towards safe explanatory formulae• Ethnography – technography – ontography• Science is no longer the hardest possible case eg
mundane governance