Scientific Communities or Transepistemic Arenas of Research? A Critique of Quasi-Economic Models of Science

TLDR

Contemporary science studies often treat scientific specialty communities as the fundamental units of social and technical organization. The paper critiques the use of scientific communities as sociological constructs and the quasi‑economic models that treat them as internally focused and functionalist, arguing they misrepresent everyday scientific practice. The author bases the critique on a year of ethnographic observation in a Berkeley laboratory, using the data to illustrate the theoretical arguments. The study concludes that scientific inquiry operates in transepistemic arenas that include both scientists and non‑scientists, and that these arenas shape research through the decision criteria used in laboratory work.

Abstract

Most contemporary studies of science operate with some notion of scientific specialty communities as the basic units within which science is socially and technically organized. This paper presents a critique of scientific communities as sociological constructs which appear to be largely irrelevant to scientific work. Furthermore, the paper criticizes the prevailing quasi-economic models of such collectives for what appears to be a naive internalism and functionalism compared with the realities of scientific everyday life as they concern scientists themselves. It is argued that the arenas of action within which scientific (laboratory) inquiry proceeds are transepistemic — that is, they in principle include scientists and non-scientists, and encompass arguments and concerns of a `technical' as well as a `non-technical' nature. The paper also argues that the transepistemic connection of research is built into scientific inquiry (and thereby into the products of research) through the decision criteria invoked in laboratory work. The paper draws upon one year of observation in a scientific laboratory in Berkeley, California, which provides the grounds and the illustrations for the theoretical arguments presented.