Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
open new ways of understanding the role of scientists in society. Latour
and other STS scholars insist that science must be studied in action, as a
variable, contingent, creative, and at times controversial cultural prac-
tice, not as plodding conformity to a static, trite formula to accumulate
increasingly larger data collections. From an STS perspective, science is
not so much the pursuit of “truth-to-be-revealed” as a social project
weaving together knowledge work, organisms, technologies, theoretical
arguments, and public representation. Latour insists that to truly under-
stand science one has to follow scientists through society and observe
them as (social)
actors
, in
action
, and this topic derives its title from his
work. He developed a methodological approach that analyzes scientists'
engagement with the social world, not only discrete activities in a clois-
tered laboratory.
44
STS investigates how actors use science knowledge to form networks
and persuade other people, organisms, and technologies to collaborate.
45
Networks emerge as actors recognize that they are better able to feed and
grow by associating with others, human and nonhuman, through a
process Latour describes as “enrolling.” Knowledge, therefore, serves as
an incentive, piquing the interest of the scientist and others with the pos-
sibility of rewards. Latour refined his theory of hybrid social/scientific
networks in
Pandora's Hope
, proposing a “circulatory system of
science” (figure 1.5). According to Latour, “there are five types of activ-
ities that science studies needs to describe first if it seeks to understand
in any sort of realistic way what a given scientific discipline is up to:
instruments, colleagues, allies, public, and finally, what I will call
links
or
knots
so as to avoid the historical baggage that comes with the phrase
'conceptual content.'”
46
For Latour, scientific knowledge is more powerful and more persuasive
as it flows through society. He rejects the portrayal of science as an activ-
ity that is more real because it is “pure,” isolated from contaminating
social interests; instead, he proposes science as a beating heart at the cen-
ter of a circulatory system of arteries and veins, pumping knowledge as
though it were oxygen through tissue. Latour proposed this model as a
tool to understand science generally, but I prefer its adaptation by
Margaret FitzSimmons for understanding the circulation of ecology in
society.
47
After introducing the dynamics of the five loops, I will deploy
Latour's interpretive tool to analyze the controversies surrounding the
work of Rachel Carson.
