Toward a socially-distributed mode of knowledge production: Framing the contribution of lay people to scientific research

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Alexander Douglas ◽  
Rosalba Manna ◽  
Rocco Palumbo
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Lay People

scholarly journals Data Telling Stories and Stories Telling Data: The Role of Fiction in Shaping Ethnographic Truth

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-14
Author(s):  
JT Torres
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
False Dichotomy ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Primary Focus

The following essay explores the use of fiction in ethnographic research. While the concept of fiction as a research methodology is not a new one, most proponents claim that fiction is most useful in the writing of ethnographic data. Despite the gradual acceptance of arts-based methods in ethnography, there still remains a false dichotomy of art and scientific research. This essay contributes to the discussion by arguing that fiction also plays an active role in producing knowledge and truth. To make this argument, the author brings together in conversation scholars of art and literature with social researchers. While multiple examples are illustrated to show how fiction creates knowledge in ethnography, the primary focus will be Clifford Geertz’s (2005) “Notes on a Balinese Cockfight.” The purpose is to demonstrate how fiction can be a means of knowledge production, so long as it is situated in sound research methods.

Academic Divination

2021 ◽  
pp. 156-164
Author(s):  
Oluwole Olumide Durodolu ◽  
Samuel Kelechukwu Ibenne
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Limiting Factors ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Modest Improvement ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Factors Of Production ◽  
Sub Saharan

Information is a significant factor of production in the 21st century, and the effectiveness of other factors of production is contingent on the quality of information available. Production of goods and services will be inoperable if not adequately coordinated with current and time-tested knowledge. Hence, application of knowledge is key to increased and optimal utilisation of other factors of production. Available records put the contribution of Africa to global knowledge production at an insignificant rate of 1.1%. Therefore, the drive of this research is to evaluate the limiting factors to Africa's contribution to scientific research by appraising the research environment, publication outlets, policy renewal, academic funding, availability of academic databases, speed and reliability of the internet, and other incentives. The literature reviewed indicates that African academics and researchers are caught in wide-ranging limitations, to the extent that striking a balance between local and international research outlets has become an uphill task. In some cases, the context under which African scholars operate makes their intellectual contribution unattractive to global audiences. According to the UNESCO science report 2015, it was established that between 2008 to 2014, the global knowledge production improved by 23.4%.In disparity, all the 42 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa put together account for 1.4% of the worldwide share of scientific publications in 2014, a modest improvement from 1.2% in 2008.During the same period, China doubled its stake from 9.9% to 20.2% in 2014.In the light of this glaring paucity of the African contribution to scientific research, discovery and literature, this chapter discusses plausible solutions to the problem.

Imagining E-Science beyond Computation

2006 ◽  
pp. 48-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Wouters ◽  
Anne Beaulieu
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Women’S Studies ◽  
Epistemic Culture ◽  
Epistemic Cultures

This chapter problematizes the relation between the varied modes of knowledge production in the sciences and humanities, and the assumptions underlying the design of current e-science initiatives. Using the notion of “epistemic culture” to analyze various areas of scientific research practices, we show that current conceptions of e-science are firmly rooted in, and shaped by, computer science. This specificity limits the circulation of e-science approaches in other fields. We illustrate this using the case of women’s studies, a contrasting epistemic culture. A view of e-science through the analytic lens of epistemic cultures therefore illustrates the limitations of e-science and its potential to be reinvented.

scholarly journals Androcentrism in the Scientific Field: Brazilian Systems of Graduate Studies, Science and Technology as a case study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia C Barbosa ◽  
Roberta Areas ◽  
Alice R. P Abreu ◽  
Ademir E Santana ◽  
Carlos Nobre
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Initial Level ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Scientific Activity ◽  
Graduate Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Management Positions ◽  
Methodological Procedures

This article will carry out an analysis of female participation in science,considering the Brazilian system of graduate studies and scientific research as a casestudy. Goals. Considering that science is a central supporting structure for modernsocieties, a detailed analysis of the scientific power structure behind academic policycreation can reveal aspects of androcentrism in scientific activity. The main goal of thiswork is to identify the process of misogyny in science through the description of itsreproductive pattern. Theoretical and methodological procedures. The concept of ascientific field developed by Bourdieu is used to analyze the data identifying thedynamic structure of misogyny in science. Initially, a historical and present-day outlineis constructed in such a manner. This panoramic description is analyzed, taking intoconsideration the essential elements for knowledge production in Brazil, includingwomen participation in the initial levels of scientific research as undergraduate andgraduate students, in the organization of research groups, and in their participation atsenior management positions in science. Results. A significant increase in femalepercentage in scientific activities is observed at the initial and intermediary levels,except for the most prestigious areas as hard science. However, a scissor effect isidentified between the initial level and the more prominent positions. At the top of thescientific career, the presence of women is extremely low. This unbalanced participationreveals that female occupations in science are basically as labor force since in thiscareer, women are quite far from the social circles of decisions.

scholarly journals Uses and Perspectives of Aging Well Terminology in Taiwanese and International Literature: A Systematic Review

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shih-Ni Chen ◽  
Mary Elizabeth Riner ◽  
Joel F. Stocker ◽  
Min-Tao Hsu
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
International Literature ◽  
Usage Frequency ◽  
Lay People ◽  
Lay Perspectives ◽  
Aging Well

The aim of this study is to examine aging well (AW) terminology in Taiwan in its local and global contexts, and to suggest ways of communication by Taiwanese professionals that is sensitive to the lay public’s preferences. Researchers conducted a systematic review using Khan et al.’s strategy, and Harden and Thomas’ method, to sift through seven databases and synthesize diverse studies on AW. Primary aging well terms used in English and Chinese, their usage frequency in Taiwanese academia, and one term uniquely used by lay people in Taiwan were identified. The synthesized literature illustrated commonality as well as diversity in use and interpretation of aging well terms within Taiwanese society and compared with the Western-based research. More qualitative research is needed to explore how AW is experienced, interpreted, and expected from lay perspectives in Taiwan and other countries have primarily relied on translation and adaptation of Western terms in their scientific research.

scholarly journals Between Scientists, Writers and Artists: Theorising and Critiquing Knowledge-Production at the Interstices between Disciplines

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1 and 2) ◽  
pp. 399-412
Author(s):  
Aaron Plasek
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Creative Work ◽  
Interdisciplinary Work ◽  
Science And Art

Stars are Symbols was a collaboration between more than 40 individual writers, poets, artists, and scientists. Each writer/artist conversed with a scientist about the research the scientist was conducting. They then generated new creative work inspired by this process. All the art, creative writing and scientific research was galleried, culminating in an Associated Writing Programmes Conference Off-Site Reading on 7 April 2010. This paper considers some challenging questions that an exhibition like Stars are Symbols engenders. What can we hope to learn about the intersections of science and art by responding to these intersections in discipline-specific modes such as creative writing or fine art? How does one discuss such exhibitions in a precise manner that neither simplifies nor misrepresents ideas in science, nor echoes trite bromides, but helps us recognize new perspectives about the discourses we are considering? Three categories of interdisciplinary work are posited: convergent, radical, and phantasmal. Tentative comments on these questions and others will be offered in the hope of facilitating further discussion.

Overt Research

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal White ◽  
John Beck
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Experimental Research ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Manhattan Project ◽  
Industrial Enterprise ◽  
Scientific Knowledge Production ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Material Evidence

One of the major consequences of the Cold War and the commingling of scientific and military interests by world powers was the increasingly secretive nature of scientific research. From the Manhattan Project onwards, the free exchange implicit in the collective enterprise of scientific knowledge production became regulated and increasingly clandestine. Neal White's artistic research is explicitly engaged in interrogating both the investigative procedures of science as method and the ways in which these procedures can be turned toward an investigation of secrecy itself. In their discussion, Beck and White explore the ideas and practices that inform White's conception of art as a mode of experimental research. Central to this project is what White calls 'overt research,' whereby the spaces of techno-scientific and military-industrial enterprise are explored through the documentation of physical sites and material evidence. In the exhibition Dark Places (Hansard Gallery, Southampton, 2009), White and others explored the ways in which such places are both embedded and imaginatively narrated as part of a contemporary UK landscape. White’s projects are discussed in relation to issues shaped by Cold War research: secrecy, surveillance, accountability, participation, and the power relations implicit in knowledge production.

scholarly journals Tracing Technoscientific Collectives in Synthetic Biology: Interdisciplines and Communities of Knowledge Application

2021 ◽  
pp. 163-181
Author(s):  
Alexander Degelsegger-Márquez
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Research Governance ◽  
Field Observations ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Knowledge Application ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Sociological Literature

AbstractThe relevance of collectives for scientific research has long been a matter of debate among sociologists of science and STS scholars. In this article, I revisit the notion of scientific communities from the perspective of practices in technoscientific fields of research. The case I focus on is synthetic biology, a field of research characterised by introducing engineering principles to biology. Drawing from field observations, a discussion of community concepts in sociological literature and interview data, I argue that concepts of community in the technosciences oversimplify the aspects and types of collectives that come to matter in research practices. The case of synthetic biology suggests that, when thinking about technoscientific communities, we have to consider aspects of research practices that point beyond knowledge production. To address this issue, I propose the notion of communities of knowledge application, which helps to reflect current trends in technoscientific research and research governance. Both contexts of knowledge production and contexts of knowledge application should be taken into account in an analysis of technoscientific communities.

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