States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and the Social Order

by Sheila Jasanoff

In the past twenty years, the field of science and technology studies (S&TS) has made considerable progress toward illuminating the relationship between scientific knowledge and political power. These insights are now ready to be synthesized and presented in forms that systematically highlight the connections between S&TS and other social sciences. This timely collection of essays by leading scholars in the field meets this challenge. The book develops the theme of 'co-production', showing how scientific knowledge both embeds and is embedded in social identities, institutions, representations and discourses. Accordingly, the authors argue, ways of knowing the world are inseparably linked to the ways in which people seek to organize and control it. Through studies of emerging knowledges, research practices and political institutions, the authors demonstrate that the idiom of co-production importantly extends the vocabulary of the traditional social sciences, offering fresh analytic perspectives on the nexus of science, power and culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Philosophy, Science

Paperback

First published February 5, 2004

About the author

Sheila Jasanoff is an Indian American academic and significant contributor to the field of Science and Technology Studies. She is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School. A pioneer in her field, she has authored more than 130 articles and chapters and is author or editor of more than 15 books, including The Fifth Branch, Science at the Bar, Designs on Nature, The Ethics of Invention, and Can Science Make Sense of Life? Her work explores the role of science and technology in the law, politics, and policy of modern democracies. She founded and directs the STS Program at Harvard; previously, she was founding chair of the STS Department at Cornell. She holds AB, JD, and PhD degrees from Harvard, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Twente and Liège.

Reviews

[EvaLovesYA · Rating 2 out of 5]

En rigtig god kilde ifb. med et semesterfag på engelskstudiet.

- Brugt på universitetet (engelsk)