Materiality

Juggling Sameness and Difference

Bibliographic Data

ID3263228
AuthorsAnni Dugdale (corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume47
Issue1_suppl
Pages113-135
Publication date1999-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-954x.1999.tb03485.x
OpenAlexW2076480667
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited18

Many studies of controversy tell stories of convergence, of movement from difference to sameness, of a narrowing from many competing versions to a single stabilised 'reality'. This paper explores a case of science policymaking about IUDs in Australia. What begins in controversy ends with a single view of the IUD-a view presented in a consumer information leaflet. But surprisingly, what is found is that this stabilisation of a singularity depends on multiplicity. The negotiation of a compromise involves the making of a centred knowing position, an object-the IUD, and a consumer choice. But this is only made possible by the proliferation of difference: the decentring of the knowing subject, the 'doing' of many different IUDs, and the dispersion of choice from the head of the consumer across time and space. Closure then becomes a very different story, a story of oscillation between sameness and difference, of doing singularity and multiplicity together

Aesthetics · Compromise · Epistemology · Materiality (auditing) · Negotiation · Phenomenon · Social science · Sociology · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Philosophy · Reproductive Health and Technologies

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