ABSTRACT: As we move discussions around publishing forward and adopt open-access models, social scientists need to consider how digital infrastructure opens and closes possibilities for scholarly production and engagement. Attention to changes in publishing infrastructure— which, like most...Read more
Ludwik Fleck uses cases studies in the history of biology and medical science to develop his conception of thought styles and thought collectives, arguing that all knowledge is relative to epistemic communities with historically specific manners of thinking and interacting.Read more
ABSTRACT: This paper examines the use of cultural probes as a method for fostering collaboration within groups of diverse experts working on creative projects. Using two case examples, we show that probes—short, oblique, and at times whimsical sets of activity prompts—have boundary object...Read more
Peter Galison looks a the collaborative practices of microphysicists to develop his theory of "trading zones". Read more
In this article, Kim Fortun discusses her affiliation with the Bhopal Group for Information and Action and her experiences as an advocate for the Bhopal Gas Affected Working Women's Union. She uses this discussion to develop a theory of advocacy "as a way to expertise, which complicates...Read more
Abstract: Experiments in collaboration open new investigative possibilities for cultural anthropologists. In this report, we use our research on matsutake mushrooms to show the promise of collaborative experiments for ethnographers of scale making, global connection, and human–nonhuman relations...Read more
Abstract: There are three components to boundary objects as outlined in the original 1989 article. Interpretive flexibility, the structure of informatic and work
process needs and arrangements, and, finally, the dynamic between illstructured
and more tailored uses of the objects. Much of...Read more