The Ethnographic Study of Scientific Work: Towards a Constructivist Interpretation of Science

Abstract

Macro- vs. micro sociology of scientific knowledge The sociology of knowledge has been broadly defmed as the study of the social or existential conditioning of thought (Mannheim, 1954). In recent years, the sociology of knowledge has been revived within social studies of science. A number of research programmes focus on what one could loosely describe as the social conditioning of scientific know-ledge. What unites, the protagonists of these new sociologies of scientific knowledge is a common interest in the technical objects of knowledge produced in science as a target of analysis and explanation. The pro-grammes differ markedly in regard to the analytical perspective brought to bear on scientific knowledge. One major divide between relevant studies can be linked to the dif-ferencebetween maproscopically-oriented congruence models and microscopically-inclined genetic approaches. The classical approach of the sociology of knowledge is clearly a congruence approach: it