230140 SE Exploring society‘s knowledge practices (2017W)

Knowledge is an integral part of contemporary societies. For instance, governance of communities, provision of services and infrastructures, as well as everyday interactions with our environment are based on producing, interpreting, and processing different kinds of knowledge. Thereby, scientific knowledge plays a key role. Yet, for becoming practicable and manageable, scientific knowledge needs to be adapted to the specific context of application, and it needs to be aligned with other kinds of knowledge, such as professional, experiential and embodied knowledge. How knowledge is produced, linked and used in specific societal settings is not a merely technical or ‚neutral‘ process, but it is constitutive for possibilities for action and therefore triggers specific social and political effects.

Science and Technology Studies (STS) has a long tradition of exploring the ‚how‘ of knowledge production - it does not regard knowledge production as a universal and purely cognitive process, but as an embedded and situated practice that includes social, political, practical, moral and material aspects. Thus, STS scholars have studied scientific research as a cultural activity. They were following scientists into their laboratories and observed how they interact with each other, with their material surroundings and with their research objects - like anthropologists who study a foreign culture. This specific approach allows to see how facts are produced and stabilised through practices.

In this seminar, we will look at how knowledge is produced, assessed and used in specific societal settings. For doing so we will visit selected sites and explore the knowledge cultures there and how they are constituted by the material and organisational setting, the people, and the technologies and techniques, and the shared (or contested) aims, values and assumptions. We will discuss similarities and specificities of these knowledge cultures; and we will reflect upon interrelations between societal and scientific knowledge cultures.

Based on selected literature on knowledge cultures in science and beyond and on background information about the sites, students will have to prepare and reflect upon each of the three excursions. Students will have to prepare the discussion about one of the excursions in small groups. Thereby, relating theoretical concepts and empirical observations is of central importance.