Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
ideological preconceptions' (Sokal, 1996b: 32). The matter became
known as the 'Sokal Affair'. Subsequently, supporters of Sokal and of
Social Text
traded blows and defended their respective ideas in print
and at conferences. Once the dust had settled somewhat, attempts were
made to identify, in a relatively balanced way, some of the 'take home
lessons' from the science wars (see, for example,
After the science wars
(Ashman and Baringer, 2001)). In all this, SSK people have been insis-
tent that they are not 'anti-science', let alone 'anti-realists'. What's clear
from the science wars is that the right to define and demarcate what
'science' is - and have one's claims in this regard seen as legitimate -
remains as important as it is contested. What's also clear, as Gieryn said,
is that 'science is a kind of
“marker” for cognitive authority, empty
until
its insides get filled and its borders drawn amidst context-bound
negotiations over who and what is “science” ' (Gieryn, 1995: 405).
...
CIRCULATING AND MUTATING REFERENCE
In this section of the chapter, I want to conclude my discussion of epistemic
communities and their representations of nature by considering how the lat-
ter 'travel'. To explain why, I need to recap some points already made. Early
in
Chapter 2
, I mentioned briefly the material infrastructures that allow all
epistemic communities to undertake their work and to distribute their vari-
ous creations to diverse users, patrons, consumers, clients and audiences. In
the previous sub-section of this chapter, I discussed how epistemic commu-
nities socialise their members and, if need be, defend their 'turf '. In both
cases, I risk giving readers the false impression that epistemic communi-
ties, once established, are able to function
sui generis
andtocontrolwhere
their representations appear and how. In actuality, things are far more com-
plicated and messy than this: there's a lot of borrowing, translation and
re-representation going on. There's also a lot of mutual dependency and
learning, much of it profound. In short, epistemic communities routinely
import, repackage and repurpose epistemic content hailing from other com-
munities and genres (located near and far). Christopher Prendergast calls
this 'the mutually constituting circularity of representations and [associated]
practices' (2000: 56), though we might want to add that the metaphorical
circle can not only change size as it rolls forward, but also have its circumfer-
ence perforated in places. Much of the time, therefore, we're the recipients
of experience, knowledge, discourses and representations that are not so
much 'second hand' (a term I used earlier) as metaphorically 'third', 'fourth'
or 'fifth hand'. This is, I think, true in two senses - one general, the other
far more literal and concrete.
