AO: The analysts highlight that the strategic use turning the diversity of epistemic cultures into a resource marks the politics of collaboration. It is a bit difficult to nail exactly which “stage” of the research process they are thinking about but it seems like it is especially during the fieldwork and political engagement / practice aspects when the intellectual is working alongside the organizations.
Star and Griesemer are, in part, looking to answer the question of how the epistemic culture of early 19th century zoology was founded. They argue that this was founded in part by the development of standardized methods of collecting and preserving specimens along with precise data on the ecological context of the collection site. But they also needed help from those with diverse passions and skill sets. The amateur scientists were given forms to fill out about the ecological context to ensure consistency and thorough detail. They were also instructed on how to evaluate the quality of a specimen they might acquire from local trappers and farmers. The local trappers had the right equipment, skills, and intimate knowledge of the landscape, the locations, and the behaviors of desired animals. But they were also not used to caring about the way animals were killed, packaged, and transported to preserve their biological and ecological integrity. Thus they needed to be disciplined by the amateurs.
If one considers a domain of “expertise” to be loosely akin to an epistemic culture, Gorman seems to think that actors with diverse expertise are necessary for addressing the complex techno-scientific problems of the contemporary. He seems to be arguing that, through sustained interaction and the “right” attitude, these actors will be able to attain “a common understanding of a goal and collaborate closely” (Gorman 2002, 934).
Epistemic cultures are akin to Star’s concept of “Social Worlds” or what she also refers to as “communities of practice.” Boundary objects mediate cooperative working relationships between members of different social worlds. Or, inversely, one could also say that the particularities of these relationships would also limit what would be able to “function” as an effective boundary object. In Star’s words, “the forms this may take are not arbitrary. They are essentially organic infrastructures that have arisen due to what Jim Griesemer and I called ‘‘information needs’’ in 1989. I would now add ‘‘information and work requirements,’’ as perceived locally and by groups who wish to cooperate” (Star 2010, 602).
Star also admits that the idea of “interpretive flexibility” was fundamental to the constructivist approach to science studies well before it was integrated into the concept of boundary objects. Though, at this point, the two are inextricably intertwined.
AO: Shared topic interests (e.g. discussion about the self-interested nature of people; historically different opinion with regard to the rationality of people).
AO: The paper is co-authored and authors note the first author’s “insider” status and second and third authors’ “outsider” status (although they all reside in Switzerland?). Here, there appears to be an unarticulated assumption that the collaborative writing with members of “insider” and “outsider” status is beneficial (in order to get both insider and outsider insights). They do not discuss in detail the subject positions or epistemic cultures of the interlocutors.
“The first author, Halabi, is a PhD student who grew up in Syria and is currently in his late twenties. He has a profile similar to CTVC members, and benefits from this situation by being able to understand the community activities in detail. Most of the data presented in this paper was collected by him. At the beginning of the research project, he was also able to travel to Syria to meet with some CTVC members. The second and third authors, Courant and Zimmermann, are more experienced researchers who have Swiss backgrounds and did not travel to Syria recently. In a traditional social sciences perspective, they benefit from their cultural distance with the data to raise questions about aspects which may appear normal to community members.”
AO: The paper puzzles over why there might be more collaboration in a theoretical field like mathematics over others where they assumed material constraints like lack of expensive lab materials would lead to more collaboration.
AO: Cerwonka highlights how the political scientists viewed her project as “somewhat literary?” and how the book emerged in part to “justify my process of knowledge production to myself and to the larger political science community, which, on the whole, does not consider ethnography to be a useful method for understanding the political.” (10).
AO: Western researchers (with funding) assume they know the best “problem space” so design the survey whereas non-Western local researchers feel that the research design and instrument developed in Aberdeen were not that suitable and therefore were puzzled about what to do.
“some words were used in the research instrument which were not acceptable for the Southern researchers, such as ‘non-western belief’.”
AO: Local researchers feel like their localness enables them (“from the very beginning”) to have a better understanding of the situation. (from direct quote from global South interviewee in the paper): “In fact, it is the reality that none of the Northern partners are experts on culture and values of the Southern society (though they presume so), therefore there is a gap in ideas.” (1959)