The labor of knowledge in the making of the social sciences (review essay)

Simbürger, Elisabeth

Keywords: Science and technology studies (STS), sociological theory, sociology of knowledge, sociology of the social sciences

Abstract

The two books reviewed in this essay mark a milestone in the turn to taking the social sciences as an object of research, compiling research about the production and use of knowledge in the social sciences, and setting an agenda to research the social. Both of them frame social knowledge in much broader terms, looking beyond the mere production of social scientific knowledge in the academic world and including social knowledge produced in think tanks and by knowledge professionals. However important the ‘turn to practice’ is to study the production of the social sciences, it seems to systematically leave aside one dimension that is crucial in the shaping of practices both in the social sciences and in the sciences: the labor relations of academic knowledge production.

Más información

Volumen: 29
Número: 2
Fecha de publicación: 2014
Página de inicio: 89
Página final: 97
Idioma: English