Ecologies of Knowledge: Work and Politics in Science and Technology (Science Tech Society (Dis)) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791425665 ISBN 13: 9780791425664

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1995

Synopsis

This collection of articles provides a comprehensive overview of personal and public issues related to social change and how they shape scientific and technical knowledge.

Ecologies of Knowledge provides a comprehensive overview of issues relating to work, politics, and the latest perspectives on the role of materials, feminism, "nonhumans," and work practices as shaping scientific and technical knowledge. In addition to theoretical contributions, the authors cover biotechnology, computing, representations and space, aerospace engineering, and a variety of ethical perspectives and controversies in these domains.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Leigh Star is Associate Professor of Sociology and faculty affiliate in Women's Studies and Computer Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Affiliate Research Scientist at the Institute for Research on Learning, Palo Alto. She is the author of Regions of the Mind: Brain Research and the Quest for Scientific Certainty, and editor of The Cultures of Computing.

Review

"This collection illustrates the robustness of theoretical concerns in the field in their applicability to the diverse subject matter of science studies, well represented here in the inclusion of studies in biological and physical sciences along with technology. Assembled as a set within the context of Star's introductory comments, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

"The authors are concerned with the inter-relatedness of the techniques of techno-science and human life and culture, not simply with the impact of science and technology on society. They elucidate HOW the everyday practices of work and its technical aspects, including in varying degrees: bureaucracy, funding organizations, materials supply, particular movements and bandwagons, and politics, including the politics of representation, collectively construct scientific theories and technological artifacts and their applications."--Henderson, Texas A&M University

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0791425665
• ISBN 13: 9780791425664
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 434
• Editor: Star Susan Leigh