Multi-sited Ethnography as a Middle Range Methodology for Contemporary STS

TLDR

Merton’s provocation urged sociology to engage with empirical data and guide interventions beyond single cases, a stance that informs contemporary STS research. The paper aims to use Merton’s concerns with engagement and adequacy to interrogate contemporary STS approaches. The authors employ recent anthropological ethnographic fieldwork concepts to study scientific and technological cultures. Multi‑sited ethnography enables new intervention concepts and alternative contributions to theory and practice, yet its stretching beyond methodological canons highlights a need for methodological debate and skill‑sharing in STS.

Abstract

The paper draws its inspiration from the provocation which Merton offered sociology both to engage with empirical data and to perform analyses adequate to guide intervention beyond the particular case. Whilst contemporary STS is very different both in its models of theory and its forms of methodology, this paper suggests Merton's concerns with engagement and adequacy provide a useful way to interrogate current approaches. Specifically, the paper explores some recent anthropological conceptions of ethnographic fieldwork that have provided potent models for the study of scientific and technological cultures. These multi-sited approaches have also provided the opportunity to develop new notions of intervention and explore alternative ways of making contributions to development of theory and practice. In the process of pursuing the goals of engagement and adequacy notions of ethnography have however become stretched. This sense of detachment from methodological canons accentuates the need for methodological debate and skill-sharing in STS.