Will the Last Person to Leave the Social Studies of Science Please Turn on the Tape-Recorder

Bibliographic Data

ID7100366
AuthorsBruno Latour (0000-0003-4557-174X, Centre de Sociologie de I'Innovation, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines, 62, Boulevard Saint-Michel, 75006 Paris, France., corresponding author)
Year1986
Volume16
Issue3
Pages541-548
Publication date1986-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Studies of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/030631286016003008
OpenAlexW2062796775
LanguageEN
Citations received13

Because of squabbles inside the ethnomethodological school and the carelessness of the publisher, this book arrives six years late, and it looks more like six light-years. This delay makes it impossible to review the book in terms of its findings which is just as well, anyway, since the author does not want to state any 'findings', especially if they are about science. In 1979, a reviewer could have said that this book was the first to show in great detail the situated character of scientific work, the hopelessly local aspect of craftsmanship in laboratories, the opportunistic aspect of disputes and agreements among scientists, the agonistic way in which statements are modalized and demodalized by colleagues, and the paramount importance of instruments and visualization procedures in their daily work. Nowadays, this is common knowledge. It would be grossly unfair to evaluate the book on this basis alone, or to forget that Lynch was indeed the first of us (by a few months!) to enter a scientific lab with a more or less anthropological interest. Today, the originality of this book lies elsewhere, in its daring and in part desperate enterprise to restitute the daily work of some people without adding to it any sociology, psychology or anthropology. Of

Electrical engineering · Physics · Sociology · Tape recorder · Turn (biochemistry · Turn-taking · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Communication · Engineering · Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub