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Boundary-work that does not work : social inequalities and the non-performativity of scientific boundary-work
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Pereira, Maria do Mar (2019) Boundary-work that does not work : social inequalities and the non-performativity of scientific boundary-work. Science, Technology & Human Values, 44 (2). pp. 338-365. doi:10.1177/0162243918795043 ISSN 0162-2439.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243918795043
Abstract
Although the STS literature on boundary-work recognizes that such work unfolds within a “terrain of uneven advantage” vis-à-vis gender, race, and other inequalities, reflection about that uneven advantage has been strikingly underdeveloped. This article calls for a retheorizing of boundary-work that engages more actively with feminist, critical race, and postcolonial scholarship and examines more systematically the relation between scientific boundary-work, broader structures of sociopolitical inequality, and boundary-workers’ (embodied) positionality. To demonstrate the need for this retheorization, I analyze ethnographic and interview data on scientific boundary-work in the natural and social sciences in Portugal, showing that scholars’ gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and nationality affect the success of their boundary-work. I suggest, therefore, that in unequal societies where credibility is unevenly distributed, the conditions are not in place for some scholars’ boundary-work to work. I draw on Sara Ahmed (and J. L. Austin) to argue that we must conceptualize scientific boundary-work as always potentially performative, but not always successfully so, and explicitly interrogate the actual conditions of performativity. Recognizing the links between inequality, embodiment, and non-performativity in scientific boundary-work will enable STS to better understand, and hopefully transform, the relations between contingent struggles over scientificity and entrenched structures of power.
Item Type: | Journal Article | |||||||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman Q Science > Q Science (General) T Technology > T Technology (General) |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology > Centre for the Study of Women and Gender |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Science -- Social aspects, Technology -- Social aspects, Society, Performative (Philosophy), Feminism, Race, Postcolonialism, Ethnology -- Methodology | |||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Science, Technology & Human Values | |||||||||
Publisher: | Sage Publications Ltd. | |||||||||
ISSN: | 0162-2439 | |||||||||
Official Date: | 1 March 2019 | |||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 44 | |||||||||
Number: | 2 | |||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 338-365 | |||||||||
DOI: | 10.1177/0162243918795043 | |||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | |||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | |||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | Pereira, Maria do Mar (2018) Boundary-work that does not work : social inequalities and the non-performativity of scientific boundary-work. Science, Technology & Human Values . doi:10.1177/0162243918795043. Copyright © 2018. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. | |||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | |||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 10 October 2018 | |||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 11 October 2018 | |||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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