Diario de una investigación

Martes, 09 de agosto de 2005

Actor Network Theory as method to analyze the new mode of production of knowledge: Regulatory Science (Jassanoff) and Post-normal Science (Funtowitz y Ravetz)

Research Framework:
Mode 2 (Gibbons), Regulatory Science (Jassanoff), Post-normal Science (Funtowitz y Ravetz), Actor Network Theory (Latour-Callon)
Profile: Epistemological and normative

Context: The science and technology become more and more social, but also, there is a new mode of production of scientific knowledge. The scientific activity is practice in heterogeneous, provisional, sometimes informal, and trans-disciplinary contexts, also through networks by the information and communication technologies, of which goal is the innovation, and its products are not always scientific papers or efficient technologies. This new context often can be result of the necessity to confront cases of Post-normal science, where there are epistemological, technical and ethic uncertainty. ANT, as a flexible method for analysing networks of “actants” could be appropriate tool also for studying these new processes of production of scientific knowledge.

General aim: Define ANT, in the light of the new production of knowledge, as appropriate method of analyse.

Specific aims:
- To make a descriptive analyze of one case of Regulatory Science through ANT.
- To explore the normative dimension of ANT.

Methodology:

Part 1: To define the ANT compared to the others classical and modern theories and methodologies, like a Logical Positivism, Sociology of Science, Sociology of scientific knowledge, others naturalist and constructivist studies of science, STS Studies, etc. through the classical epistemological and methodological questions and the their reciprocal critics.
- The Model of diffusion / The Model of translation
- Reference / Translation
- Asymmetry / Symmetry
- Objectivism / Relativism
- Determinism / Constructivism
- Etc.

Part 2: To analyze one case of Regulatory Science about one post-normal question.

Importance of this subject:
Epistemologically it would be possible to describe how the new positive knowledge is generated, but also, the uncertainty. And, these cases, what the expertise is.
Normatively, how we are attending to the process, we can see how the decisions are adopted, which it would be the way for the participation of the traditionally excluded social actors, etc.

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