Querying Collaboration

Collins, Harry, Robert Evans, and Mike Gorman. “Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 38, no. 4 (December 2007): 657–66.

Abstract: The phrase ‘trading zone’ is often used to denote any kind of interdisciplinary partnership in which two or more perspectives are combined
and a new, shared language develops. In this paper we distinguish between different types of trading zone by asking whether the
collaboration...Read more

Fortun, Michael. “Institutionalizing Indirection: Science at the Crossroads of Scholarship and Politics.” Science as Culture 7, no. 2 (June 1998): 173–92.

In this article, Mike Fortun discusses discusses the complicated double-binds that impacted his "response-ability" while working in and on the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies (ISIS).Read more

Star, Susan Leigh, and James R. Griesemer. “Institutional Ecology, `Translations’ and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39.” Social Studies of Science 19, no. 3 (August 1989): 387–420.

Abstract: Scientific work is heterogeneous, requiring many different actors and viewpoints. It also requires cooperation. The two create tension between divergent viewpoints and the need for generalizable findings. We present a model of how one group of actors managed this tension. It draws on...Read more

Rees, Tobias, insitigator. “Concept Work and Collaboration in the Anthropology of the Contemporary,” ARC Exchange, No. 1, July, 2007.

From the Introduction: "The relationship between ethnography and anthropological method is at the center of these questions raised in the Exchange presented here. On the one hand, the participants consider various questions concerning the status of ethnographic authority, and its relationship to...Read more

Gorman, Michael E. “Levels of Expertise and Trading Zones: A Framework for Multidisciplinary Collaboration.” Social Studies of Science 32, no. 5–6 (December 2002): 933–38.

Michael Gorman discusses the utility of the concepts "boundary objects" and "trading zones" in the study of collaborations across differing levels of expertise.Read more

Leigh Star, Susan. “This Is Not a Boundary Object: Reflections on the Origin of a Concept.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 35, no. 5 (September 2010): 601–17.

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

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