David J Hess
Biographic Data
| ID | 5750520 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David J Hess |
| GIVEN NAMES | David J |
| FAMILY NAME | Hess |
| SIGNATURE | HESS D J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 171 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Will power be local? The role of local power organizations in energy transition acceleration
A salient problem faced by governments and industry alike is how to accelerate energy transitions to enhance affordability, accessibility, and greenhouse-gas reduction. Bringing together acceleration processes and spatial scale dynamics, this study highlights the potential for electricity distribution to play a keystone role in the energy transition. We present and examine survey data of electricity distribution utilities in a region of the U.S. …
Environmental movements and scientific, technological, and industrial change
Environmental movements have a diverse set of goals and can have a wide range of outcomes, among which are changes in industry, technology, and science. These changes can involve the sunsetting of industrial sites, technologies, practices, or even entire industries; the redesign of infrastructures, products, and technological systems; and changes in scientific research agendas, methods, and problem areas in response to movement goals. Although st…
Science Studies: An Advanced Introduction
Thrust into the public eye by the contentious "Science Wars"--played out most recently by physicist Alan Sokal's hoax--the nascent field of science studies takes on the political, historical, and cultural dimensions of technology and the sciences. Science Studies is the first comprehensive survey of the field, combining a concise overview of key concepts with an original and integrated framework. In the process of bringing disparate fields togeth…
Incumbent-led transitions and civil society: Autonomous vehicle policy and consumer organizations in the United States
The transition to connected and autonomous (or automated) vehicles (CAVs) in the United States is used to explore the role of civil society in the acceleration and deceleration of sociotechnical transitions. This is an “incumbent-led transition,” which occurs when large industrial corporations in one or more industries lead a systemic technological change. This type of transition may generate public concerns about risk and uncertainty, which can …
Can Bacteria Cause Cancer: Alternative Medicine Confronts Big Science
Growing numbers of cancer patients are exploring diet, food supplements, herbs, and nontoxic immunotherapies like bacterial vaccines as a means of therapy. Yet most cancer research organizations refuse to even evaluate these alternatives. Can Bacteria Cause Cancer? argues convincingly that unless this neglected world of alternative therapies is properly scrutinized, the medical Vietnam of the twentieth century may well affect one in two people by…
Undone Science: Social Movements, Mobilized Publics, and Industrial Transitions
This book examines research at the intersection of two literatures—social movement studies and science and technology studies—and it argues that it is now possible to develop a theoretical synthesis of core concepts. The diversification of social movement studies toward non-state targets and institutionalized repertoires of action coincides with the development of science and technology studies toward expertise and publics. As the two fields have…
Undone science and social movements
As modern societies have become increasingly technological, science has become both more important and more politicized. Funding shifts into new research fields and out of old ones, and the changes in priorities among research fields also reorder the contours of what is known and unknown. Scientists sometimes join social movements or provide research support for movements that have identified environmental, health, and other risks but have not be…
Political Ideology and the Green-Energy Transition in the United States
Sustainability transitions: A political coalition perspective
In the case of technology transitions to low-carbon sources of energy, there is growing evidence that even in countries with a strong political consensus in favor of a transition, the pace has been slow in comparison with the need to reduce greenhouse gases. One factor that affects the slowness of the transition is political resistance from the incumbent industrial regime. Using data on the mobilization of resistance from the fossil-fuel industry…
Smart meters and public acceptance: Comparative analysis and governance implications
Although smart meters for electricity have received widespread acclaim as a means to achieve more resilient and sustainable electricity consumption, public opposition has emerged in several countries. In this article, I examine the reasons for public opposition in North America and the role of concern with health risks. The article provides an analysis of reasons given for opposing smart meters by 75 US and Canadian organisations listed in the 20…
Fields of Knowledge: Science, Politics and Publics in the Neoliberal Age
Wireless smart meters and public acceptance: The environment, limited choices, and precautionary politics
Wireless smart meters (WSMs) promise numerous environmental benefits, but they have been installed without full consideration of public acceptance issues. Although societal-implications research and regulatory policy have focused on privacy, security, and accuracy issues, our research indicates that health concerns have played an important role in the public policy debates that have emerged in California. Regulatory bodies do not recognize non-th…
Introduction: Fields of Knowledge and Theory Traditions in the Sociology of Science
This Introduction gives a historical and theoretical overview of this volume on Fields of Knowledge: Science, Politics and Publics in the Neoliberal Age, which showcases original research in political sociology of science targeting the changes in scientific and technological policy and practice associated with the rise of neoliberal thought and policies since the 1970s. We argue that an existing family of field theoretic frameworks and empirical …
Local and Not-So-Local Exchanges: Alternative Economies, Ethnography, and Social Science
To tell the truth: On scientific counterpublics
Research in the public understanding of science for and against the public deficit model often is based on assumptions of individualism and lay knowledge. That approach to the public is contrasted with a second and third concept of the public. Subordinate networks in diverse social fields can form counterpublics when they claim to represent the general public benefit better than the official constructions of the public and public interest that ar…
Electricity Transformed: Neoliberalism and Local Energy in the United States
The concept of neoliberalism is explored with respect to the history of the electricity industry and policy in the USA. Rather than view “neoliberalism” as an all-encompassing form of governmentality or a hegemonic regime, it is instead situated in a political field of competing ideologies, policies, practices, and agents that includes social liberalism, socialism, and cooperativism, with hegemonic and redistributive forms of both social liberali…
Bourdieu and Science Studies: Toward a Reflexive Sociology
Localist Movements in a Global Economy: Sustainability, Justice, and Urban Development in the United States
An overview of the localist movement in the United States, from “buy local” campaigns to urban agriculture, and its potential for addressing global problems of sustainability and justice. The internationalization of economies and other changes that accompany globalization have brought about a paradoxical reemergence of the local. A significant but largely unstudied aspect of new local-global relationships is the growth of “localist movements,” ef…
The Potentials and Limitations of Civil Society Research: Getting Undone Science Done
The term 'undone science' refers to absences of scientific research that social movement and other civil society organizations find when attempting to make epistemic claims in the political field. The existing literature has identified various pathways for addressing the knowledge needs of civil society organizations, including asking elected and appointed political leaders to shift funding priorities and directly seeking support and partnerships…
Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation, and the Environment in an Era of Globalizaztion
In Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry, David Hess examines how social movements and other forms of activism affect innovation in science, technology, and industry. Synthesizing and extending work in social studies of science and technology, social movements, and globalization, Hess explores the interaction of grassroots environmental action and mainstream industry and offers a conceptual framework for understanding it. Hess proposes a t…
Crosscurrents: Social Movements and the Anthropology of Science and Technology
Along with growth and acceptance of the anthropology of science and technology has come a narrowing of focus both topically and methodologically. An alternative topic of inquiry (social movements) and an alternative method (a limited return to nomothetic inquiry) offer potential for research that is relevant to both social change actors and social scientists such as sociologists and political scientists. A comparative analysis of existing anthrop…
Complementary or Alternative? Stronger vs Weaker Integration Policies
Scientific research is particularly important as a guide to health care policy regarding the “integration” of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) into conventional medical practices. A spectrum of possibilities has emerged around the question of balancing integration toward complementary vs alternative usages. Although scientific research can guide policies and practices, it has become subject to greater scrutiny and linked to difference…
The Raw and the Organic: Politics of Therapeutic Cancer Diets in the United States
There is a voluminous literature on the historical conflicts between advocates and critics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for cancer. Although the older literature documents the suppression of CAM therapies and advocates, since the 1990s, the politics of CAM have become more complex and subtle. For example, suppression has tended to shift to a politics of integration, that is, of selective uptake of CAM therapies when used as adj…
Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence
Diana E. Forsythe was a leading anthropologist of science, technology, and work, and especially of the field of artificial intelligence. This volume collects her best-known essays, along with other major works that remained unpublished upon her death in 1997. The essays proceed as a series of developing variations on the key questions that still confront science and technology studies today. What assumptions do expert systems designers make about…
Science Studies: An Advanced Introduction
The Potentials and Limitations of Civil Society Research: Getting Undone Science Done
The term 'undone science' refers to absences of scientific research that social movement and other civil society organizations find when attempting to make epistemic claims in the political field. The existing literature has identified various pathways for addressing the knowledge needs of civil society organizations, including asking elected and appointed political leaders to shift funding priorities and directly seeking support and partnerships…
Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation, and the Environment in an Era of Globalizaztion
In Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry, David Hess examines how social movements and other forms of activism affect innovation in science, technology, and industry. Synthesizing and extending work in social studies of science and technology, social movements, and globalization, Hess explores the interaction of grassroots environmental action and mainstream industry and offers a conceptual framework for understanding it. Hess proposes a t…
Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence
Diana E. Forsythe was a leading anthropologist of science, technology, and work, and especially of the field of artificial intelligence. This volume collects her best-known essays, along with other major works that remained unpublished upon her death in 1997. The essays proceed as a series of developing variations on the key questions that still confront science and technology studies today. What assumptions do expert systems designers make about…
Crosscurrents: Social Movements and the Anthropology of Science and Technology
Along with growth and acceptance of the anthropology of science and technology has come a narrowing of focus both topically and methodologically. An alternative topic of inquiry (social movements) and an alternative method (a limited return to nomothetic inquiry) offer potential for research that is relevant to both social change actors and social scientists such as sociologists and political scientists. A comparative analysis of existing anthrop…
Bourdieu and Science Studies: Toward a Reflexive Sociology
Electricity Transformed: Neoliberalism and Local Energy in the United States
The concept of neoliberalism is explored with respect to the history of the electricity industry and policy in the USA. Rather than view “neoliberalism” as an all-encompassing form of governmentality or a hegemonic regime, it is instead situated in a political field of competing ideologies, policies, practices, and agents that includes social liberalism, socialism, and cooperativism, with hegemonic and redistributive forms of both social liberali…
The Raw and the Organic: Politics of Therapeutic Cancer Diets in the United States
There is a voluminous literature on the historical conflicts between advocates and critics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for cancer. Although the older literature documents the suppression of CAM therapies and advocates, since the 1990s, the politics of CAM have become more complex and subtle. For example, suppression has tended to shift to a politics of integration, that is, of selective uptake of CAM therapies when used as adj…
Complementary or Alternative? Stronger vs Weaker Integration Policies
Scientific research is particularly important as a guide to health care policy regarding the “integration” of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) into conventional medical practices. A spectrum of possibilities has emerged around the question of balancing integration toward complementary vs alternative usages. Although scientific research can guide policies and practices, it has become subject to greater scrutiny and linked to difference…
Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism, and Brazilian Culture
The Channeling Zone: American Spirituality in an Anxious Age
The Channeling Zone: American Spirituality in an Anxious Age. Michael F. Brown. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. 236 pp
Parallel Universes: Anthropology in the World of Technoscience
H. G. Andrade, ingenieur bresilien, a etabli un modele du corps humain extradimensionnel afin d'expliquer de maniere scientifique le spiritisme, le champ magnetique invisible directement car existant dans un univers parallele. Selon lui le corps spirituel est divise en 2 parties, le « cupola », structure en 4 dimensions qui se projette dans l'espace tri-dimendionnel comme le corps astral, et le modele d'organisation biologique qui gouverne la cro…
Teaching Ethnographic Writing: A Review Essay
Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730‐1830
Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the. ngolan Slave Trade, 1730‐1830. Joseph C. Miller. Madison, Wl: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. 796 pp., illustrations $35.00 (cloth). ISBN 0‐299‐11560‐7
Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830:Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the A ngolan Slave Trade, 1730-1830
Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism, and Brazilian Culture
Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism, and Brazilian Culture
Science in the New Age: The paranormal, its defenders and debunkers, and American culture
Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism, and Brazilian Culture
Comments on Emily Martin's “The Ethnography of Natural Selection in the 1990s”
Parallel Universes: Anthropology in the World of Technoscience
H. G. Andrade, ingenieur bresilien, a etabli un modele du corps humain extradimensionnel afin d'expliquer de maniere scientifique le spiritisme, le champ magnetique invisible directement car existant dans un univers parallele. Selon lui le corps spirituel est divise en 2 parties, le « cupola », structure en 4 dimensions qui se projette dans l'espace tri-dimendionnel comme le corps astral, et le modele d'organisation biologique qui gouverne la cro…
Science and Technology in a Multicultural World: The Cultural Politics of Facts and Artifacts
Looks at what researchers of science and technology, principally anthropologists, historians, philosophers, political scientists, and sociologists have to say about ethical dilemmas, political conflicts, and economic impacts associated with innovations.
Samba in the Night: Spiritism in Brazil
An absorbing account of an anthropologist's fieldwork and explorations into alternative religions in Brazil, Samba in the Night invites the reader into the mysterious world of spirit mediums, poltergeists, psychic surgery, exorcism and spiritual healing. The author focuses on spiritism, a vital religious movement with millions of followers. He provides descriptions of rituals and at the same time weaves in a detective story about the complex rela…
Science in the New Age: The Paranormal, Its Defenders and Debunkers, and American Culture
Journal Article Science in the New Age: The Paranormal, lts Defenders and Dehunkers, and American Culture. By David J. Hess. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. xii, 243 pp. Cloth, $42.50, ISBN 0-299-13820-8. Paper, $17.95, ISBN 0-299-13824-0.) Get access Bret E. Carroll Bret E. Carroll University of Texas, Arlington, Texas Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 81, …
Samba in the Night: Spiritism in Brazil
Science in the New Age: The Paranormal, Its Defenders and Debunkers and American Culture
The Channeling Zone: American Spirituality in an Anxious Age
The Channeling Zone: American Spirituality in an Anxious Age. Michael F. Brown. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. 236 pp
Science Studies: An Advanced Introduction
Complementary or Alternative? Stronger vs Weaker Integration Policies
Scientific research is particularly important as a guide to health care policy regarding the “integration” of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) into conventional medical practices. A spectrum of possibilities has emerged around the question of balancing integration toward complementary vs alternative usages. Although scientific research can guide policies and practices, it has become subject to greater scrutiny and linked to difference…
The Raw and the Organic: Politics of Therapeutic Cancer Diets in the United States
There is a voluminous literature on the historical conflicts between advocates and critics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for cancer. Although the older literature documents the suppression of CAM therapies and advocates, since the 1990s, the politics of CAM have become more complex and subtle. For example, suppression has tended to shift to a politics of integration, that is, of selective uptake of CAM therapies when used as adj…
Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence
Diana E. Forsythe was a leading anthropologist of science, technology, and work, and especially of the field of artificial intelligence. This volume collects her best-known essays, along with other major works that remained unpublished upon her death in 1997. The essays proceed as a series of developing variations on the key questions that still confront science and technology studies today. What assumptions do expert systems designers make about…
Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation, and the Environment in an Era of Globalizaztion
In Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry, David Hess examines how social movements and other forms of activism affect innovation in science, technology, and industry. Synthesizing and extending work in social studies of science and technology, social movements, and globalization, Hess explores the interaction of grassroots environmental action and mainstream industry and offers a conceptual framework for understanding it. Hess proposes a t…
Crosscurrents: Social Movements and the Anthropology of Science and Technology
Along with growth and acceptance of the anthropology of science and technology has come a narrowing of focus both topically and methodologically. An alternative topic of inquiry (social movements) and an alternative method (a limited return to nomothetic inquiry) offer potential for research that is relevant to both social change actors and social scientists such as sociologists and political scientists. A comparative analysis of existing anthrop…
Localist Movements in a Global Economy: Sustainability, Justice, and Urban Development in the United States
An overview of the localist movement in the United States, from “buy local” campaigns to urban agriculture, and its potential for addressing global problems of sustainability and justice. The internationalization of economies and other changes that accompany globalization have brought about a paradoxical reemergence of the local. A significant but largely unstudied aspect of new local-global relationships is the growth of “localist movements,” ef…
The Potentials and Limitations of Civil Society Research: Getting Undone Science Done
The term 'undone science' refers to absences of scientific research that social movement and other civil society organizations find when attempting to make epistemic claims in the political field. The existing literature has identified various pathways for addressing the knowledge needs of civil society organizations, including asking elected and appointed political leaders to shift funding priorities and directly seeking support and partnerships…
To tell the truth: On scientific counterpublics
Research in the public understanding of science for and against the public deficit model often is based on assumptions of individualism and lay knowledge. That approach to the public is contrasted with a second and third concept of the public. Subordinate networks in diverse social fields can form counterpublics when they claim to represent the general public benefit better than the official constructions of the public and public interest that ar…
Electricity Transformed: Neoliberalism and Local Energy in the United States
The concept of neoliberalism is explored with respect to the history of the electricity industry and policy in the USA. Rather than view “neoliberalism” as an all-encompassing form of governmentality or a hegemonic regime, it is instead situated in a political field of competing ideologies, policies, practices, and agents that includes social liberalism, socialism, and cooperativism, with hegemonic and redistributive forms of both social liberali…
Political science (27 works) · Politics (21 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Law (20 works) · Social science (14 works) · Economics (11 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works)