Foster+Questioning+A+Text

MEMO: QUESTIONING A TEXT

Ellen Foster **The Mangle of Practice** - Andrew Pickering


 * What is the text “about” -- empirically and conceptually?**
 * What modes of inquiry were used to produce it?**
 * How is the text structured and performed?**
 * How can it circulate?**


 * What is the text about – empirically?**

//What phenomenon is drawn out in the text? A social process; a cultural and political economic shift; a cultural “infrastructure;” an emergent assemblage of science-culture technology- economics?// Pickering draws out a transition from a representational idiom to a performative idiom within Science and Technology Studies, specifically when considering scientific practices – this is a turn away from the humanist, modernist theoretical framework where there is human agency and non-human materials do not have agency. This new phenomenon, which Pickering calls “The Mangle” often, entails social processes, but also disciplinary, cultural, conceptual aspects.

//Where is this phenomenon located – in a neighborhood, in a country, in “Western Culture,” in a globalizing economy?// Pickering definitely seems to focus on “Western Culture” and the “Western” scientific world with his approach. The case studies are based in laboratories and industrial factories within the Western world. Yet, Pickering emphasizes detached disciplines from particular sites, particularly when tackling issues of conceptual practice. So he lays the groundwork for The Mangle to exist in many different types of locales not grounded in a particular place, but more in scientific culture and practice.

//What historical trajectory is the phenomenon situated within? What, in the chronology provided or implied, is emphasized -- the role of political or economic forces, the role of certain individuals or social groups? What does the chronology leave out or discount?// The phenomenon is situated as a transition from modernist, humanist thought. Thus it is couched in the post-humanist, post-modern workings of actor-network theory (ANT) and a trajectory away from human vs. anti-human agency to a framework that emphases human and material agency in the form of intertwining and parallel connections between human and non-human actors. Within Pickering’s argument there are certain individuals, or scientific research groups, that are exemplary of his idea of “The Mangle,” so these are emphasized within the trajectory. Pickering considers “The Mangle” a general framework for scientific practice, though, so in a sense it could be applied to a variety of examples and is meant to explain general scientific inquiry and practice. The chronology does not fully set up an historical context and works mainly from a modernist point in time, focusing on post-WWII scientific research. Yet, Pickering is not focusing in an overall history. He is more concerned with the present and the future of how scientific practice is enacted and transformed.

//What scale(s) are focused on -- nano (i.e. the level of language), micro, meso, macro? What empirical material is developed at each scale?// Pickering focuses on the micro with case studies of specific individuals and groups. He then uses these case studies to move on to the macro and make claims regarding practice at a larger (or aggregate) social level of science.

//Who are the players in the text and what are their relations? Does the text trace how these relations have changed across time – because of new technologies, for example?// Many of the players within this text are scientists, mathematicians and engineers at work in the scientific world. In the last study that Pickering examines, laborers within an industrial factory and the management with which they interface were also key players. The cases and players do not necessarily relate to one another directly, but more implicitly with their scientific, analytical practices, and their exemplification of “The Mangle” as practice. Another factor to take into account is that Pickering emphasizes the importance of nonhuman actors. Thus, the bubble chamber itself becomes an important player, as does the conceptual framework of mathematics within which Hamilton worked. Specifically the individual people and the research groups associated with Donald, Morpurgo, and Hamilton. Their relation is that each demonstrates a different aspect of the Mangle: Material agency, creation of facts, disciplinary agency and conceptual agency.

//What is the temporal frame in which players play? In the wake of a particular policy, disaster or other significant “event?” In the general climate of the Reagan era, or of “after-the-Wall” globalization?// Pickering focuses on scientific inquiry conducted after the industrial revolution, and also makes the claim that the Industrial Revolution is to STS what the Scientific Revolution is traditionally considered to the History of Science. Temporally, Pickering is looking at scientific inquiry and technology that is making its impact after the industrial revolution, although when considering conceptual issues he looks further back to Hamilton. Although he examines historical cases, Pickering’s implication is that The Mangle is a (post)-modern scientific framework and analysis for looking at current scientific inquiry, possibly even into the future.

//What cultures and social structures are in play in the text//? The culture of the scientific community appears to be Pickering’s main concern within this text, particularly in the fields of mathematics and the physical sciences. He also works outside of this social realm to consider social structures in the industrial factory workplace.

//What kinds of practices are described in the text? Are players shown to be embedded in structural contradictions or double-binds?// Practices of scientific inquiry are described in the text. Structural contradictions might be considered something that happens in the dance of agency wherein agential action is passed between human and non-human actors. I cannot readily identify double-binds, but there might still be some within the text.

//How are science and technology implicated in the phenomenon described?// Science is implicated as quite central in the phenomenon of the Mangle, as is technology. The Mangle itself is a descriptive and explorative way of considering scientific practice. A large part of the “Mangle” phenomenon is the interplay, parallels and intertwining between human and non-human actors, of which technology is a large part.

//What structural conditions– technological, legal and legislative, political, cultural – are highlighted, and how are they shown to have shaped the phenomenon described in this text?// Scientific and technological structural conditions are at play within the text. In a sense, the phenomenon of the “Mangle” helps to shape and is also shaped by these structures – it internally looks at issues of practice within the scientific and technical. Likewise, since it is situated within these structures, Pickering describes and demonstrates how the “Mangle” works within them and is transformed by the human actors and material actors associated therein.

//How – at different scales, in different ways – is power shown to operate? Is there evidence of power operating through language, “discipline,” social hierarchies, bureaucratic function, economics, etc?// Pickering demonstrates the way both human and non-human actors have agency or power within scientific practice through the “Mangle.” He also implicates the power relations of “small” versus “big” science when talking about the bubble chamber experimentations and the military-industrial complex in play after WWII.

//Does the text provide comparative or systems level perspectives? In other words, is the particular phenomenon described in this text situated in relation to similar phenomenon in other settings? Is this particular phenomena situated within global structures and processes?// Yes, Pickering explicitly states that he can see the “Mangle” extending to other practices than scientific and on a much larger scale than the micro. Thus the phenomenon of the “Mangle” can make its way into many other settings.


 * What is the text about – conceptually?**

//Is the goal to verify, challenge or extend prior theoretical claims?// The goal is to verify certain aspects of ANT while also challenging some others. Mainly, Pickering seeks to establish a performativity idiom (which focuses on the doings of science) for critiques of science rather than a representational idiom. By working through ANT and the concepts of human and non-human actors, Pickering expounds upon the intertwined nature of human agency and material agency. Pickering challenges the ANT concept that there is a perfect symmetry between human and non-human actors, but he does work to support that there is an intertwining and parallels drawn between the two. Pickering also sets the stage to argue specifically against non-emergent interests or constraints as well as the traditional humanist rules of reason that are part of traditional SSK narratives.

//What is the main conceptual argument or theoretical claim of the text? Is it performed, rendered explicit or both?// Pickering’s main conceptual argument is that Science Studies needs to address the performative idiom of science rather than the representative idiom of science and consider the interlocking nature of non-humans and humans within scientific practice. In a sense it is performed, but also rendered explicit through Pickering’s analysis of specific scientific research and endeavors. Out of this argument, Pickering comes upon the “Mangle” as a practical, goal-oriented and goal revising dialectic of resistance and accommodation within scientific practice, focused on the doings of science. It also involves a “dance of agency” between human and non-human actors wherein roles of activity and passivity will be switched back and forth between the actors. This works through a push and pull of accommodation and resistance.

//What ancillary concepts are developed to articulate the conceptual argument?// There are a plethora of ancillary concepts that Pickering uses to articulate his main argument. He explores the difference in the conceptual ideas of “practice” or “practices” in terms of scientific thought. He also deals with the concepts of a representational idiom in contrast to a performative idiom when considering scientific practice. Another important concept that Pickering develops is that of “tuning,” which involves the unknown testing and use of a scientific instrument or process as well as an iterative process of change between human and non-human actors. Pickering discusses “intentionality” which is oriented around goals (humans have it, machines do not), “material agency,” “disciplinary agency,” “conceptual agency” and “human agency.” He also highlights the “process of modeling,” which, in the Kuhnian sense, is the development of an exemplar. Modeling is considered an open-ended process with no set destination. “Temporal emergence” is a very important concept in relation to non-human actors, and puts forth that there is no predetermined idea of what will constitute a working machine or its exact powers. In this sense, things just happen and it is tied to chance.

//How is empirical material used to support or build the conceptual argument?// Pickering examines case studies within scientific thought, and even one in mathematics and one in industry/technology, to demonstrate “The Mangle” framework that he is trying to demonstrate conceptually. Particularly, Pickering follows the evolution of the bubble chamber as a tool for elementary-particle physics, the production of scientific facts surrounding the study of quarks, a case study within conceptual mathematic frameworks and the introduction of numerically controlled machine tools into a factory. The first case study focuses on Donald Glaser’s work with the Bubble Chamber and emphases material agency through some of Pickering’s key concepts: resistance and accommodation. He also explores the goal-oriented aspects, or intentionality, of Glaser’s work. With this example, Pickering argues that the bubble chamber is temporally emergent in a real-time dialectic. This first case study also focuses on Glaser’s human agency and his intentionality in relation to modeling—wherein his intentions, like the technologies, are emergent and mangled. Pickering also uses this particular example to demonstrate the “tuning” process and a dance of agency between human and non-human actor. Pickering then studies the problematic of knowledge and production of scientific “facts” through the case study of Morpungo and his quark research. He also explores the mangling of materiality and conceptual knowledge in this example. Again the dance of agency is identified, and he focuses on how this example demonstrates the heterogeneity and multiplicity of scientific culture. The case study of Hamilton’s mathematics is Pickering’s work toward relating how material agency can arise from concepts and conceptual practices. Specifically he demonstrates that “cultural practices are disciplined and machinelike, that practice, as cultural extension, is centrally a process of open-ended modeling, and that modeling takes place in a field of cultural multiplicity.” This case study also demonstrates the decentering of the human subject, as Hamilton runs up against disciplinary agency and takes part in the dance of agency as these structures shape his practice. The last example is intended to demonstrate that “The Mangle” and its core concepts can work outside the realm of science studies toward the broader realm of STS by looking at technology in the industrial workplace. Specifically, it focuses on a mangling of the social as well as discipline and the “Mangle” when considering labor practices. This mangling of the social within industrial-technical practices cannot be purely built on humanly social terms, and demonstrates the intersection of human and material agency. Through these case studies, Pickering is basically confronting the traditional understandings of practice and working to demonstrate how the “Mangle” is prevalent within scientific practice. This is viewed through the intertwined agential interplay between human and non-human actors which includes materials, concepts, disciplines, and the social.

//How robust is the main conceptual argument of the text? On what grounds could it be challenged?// The main conceptual argument of the text is quite robust, although it would have been nice to see Pickering extend The “Mangle” to the life or biological sciences in this text. The main argument could be challenged by modern, humanist theorizing which does not consider non-human actors to have agency. It may also even be challenged by ANT theorists in that Pickering does not see a straight symmetry between human and non-human actors, more of a parallel in their agency, emergence and mangling together.

//How could the empirical material provided support conceptual arguments **other than those** built in the text?// Historically, a scholar of the traditional SSK School might use the case studies that Pickering focuses on to emphasize human agency and the social within science. These particular case studies could also work to support a myriad of other theoretical or conceptual claims. Possibly, the last case study which looks at labor in an industrial workplace could support conceptual arguments for workers to have more agency and work to support particular labor and economic frameworks or concepts.


 * Modes of inquiry?**

//What theoretical edifice provides the (perhaps haunting – i.e. non-explicit) backdrop to the text?// Pickering delineates his theoretical edifice in the preface to the book as he gives a biographical account that led him to writing “The Mangle of Practice.” Here, he explains that he was an elementary particle theorist before moving on to the field of Science and Technology Studies, where he was in tune with the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) model within critiques of science. After inquiry into the study of quarks and a subsequent challenge to his writing as trying to create a grand generalization of how science works, Pickering became interested in heterogeneity within scientific studies and practice. This led him to appreciate assemblages and the Actor Network Theory of Michel Callon, John Law and Bruno Latour. His foundation is further expounded upon in Chapter one as Pickering further delineates where the text and his theory will be going. He demonstrates a move away from the modernist, humanist viewpoint of SSK toward a more post-humanst framework based on assemblages and material agency as well as human agency.

//What assumptions appear to have shaped the inquiry? Does the author assume that individuals are rational actors, for example, or assume that the unconscious is a force to be dealt with? Does the author assume that the “goal” of society is (functional) stability?// Pickering assumes that scientists and human actors have an intentionality or end-goal in site in regards to scientific practice. In this sense he does make a broader assumption that individuals have intentionality and are not fully wild or unknown. He does seem to assume that the “goal” of society is some kind of stability, particularly when working with instrumentation and tuning of instrumentation and non-human actors to achieve that stability of results. He works within this assumption, though by an admission that regardless of goal or intentionality, the end result can never be known and that it is instead and emergent phenomenon greatly influenced by non-human and human actors alike.

//Does the author assume that what is most interesting occurs with regularity, or is she interested in the incidental and deviant?// Pickering is certainly interested in the regularity with which The “Mangle” and its conceptual framework might be applied to scientific practice at large. In fact, he ends with a post-script towards a Mangle TOE, or Theory of Everything. He has ideas of a grand generalization or application of The Mangle as a framework to emergent scientific thought and practice.

//What kinds of data (ethnographic, experimental, statistical, etc.) are used in the text, and how were they obtained?// Pickering focuses on case studies of scientific practice and experimentation – particularly with those that utilize instrumentation. He also looks at two case studies that are beyond scientific inquiry – one regarding mathematics and another regarding technology in the industrial workplace. The case studies are historical and the accounts are obtained from other historians of science, specifically Peter Galison for the bubble chamber case study and from David Noble regarding the industrial workplace, and otherwise. Other data and historical information were obtained through his own research into particular phenomenon, specifically his study of quarks.

//If interviews were conducted, what kinds of questions were asked? What does the author seem to have learned from the interviews?// There are no interviews performed in this text, Pickering uses a historiographical and sociological analysis.

//How was the data analyzed? If this is not explicit, what can be inferred?// The case studies are analyzed conceptually and theoretically. They are also looked at historically and in a Sociological tradition.

//How are people, objects or ideas aggregated into groups or categories?// Pickering categorizes scientists into a very specific group. He also categorizes humanist sociologists as doing very specific work with their analyses, particularly in the SSK tradition. Instrumentation, Conceptual practice, Technology and Discipline are all categorized as non-human actors.

//What additional data would strengthen the text?// As previously stated (and this is something Pickering himself relates) it would have been nice to see The “Mangle” address the biological sciences. It might even be interesting for Pickering to go beyond science itself and look for The “Mangle” applied in everyday practices or in areas such as design, although maybe this would not work.


 * Structure and performance?**

//What is in the introduction? Does the introduction turn around unanswered questions -- in other words, are we told how this text embodies a **research** project?// The introduction, or preface, is more of a biographical sketch telling us how Pickering has come upon the issues at hand within this book. He does delineate his questions surrounding the acquisition of knowledge specifically within scientific inquiry. One could also take the first chapter to be the introduction, wherein Pickering certainly outlines the purpose and reasons for research within the book, and puts forth his theoretical and conceptual framework and how he will work to support his own arguments and claims for a theory of scientific practice that is emergent, non-constrained or limited (open-ended) and based on the interplay of human and non-human actors.

//Where is theory in the text? Is the theoretical backdrop to the text explained, or assumed to be understood?// The theory in the text is explained quite thoroughly in the preface and the first chapter. It is also quite prevalent throughout his analysis of the case studies, and expounded upon in footnotes. There are still certain terms and conceptual frameworks that are taken to be understood, or that might be difficult to come upon if one knew nothing of science and technology studies or SSK. Still, Pickering does a good job to explain SSK as a discipline, the traditional humanist outlook and the post-humanist ANT system put forth by Law, Callon and Latour as a foil to the previous thought. He also gives a good description of ANT, how it relates to his work and where to look for further explanation of the theory and several other theoretical matters.

//What is the structure of the discourse in the text? What binaries recur in the text, or are conspicuously avoided?// Structurally, Pickering explains his theoretical background and basis, current framework and possible futures. He then goes on to support his arguments and theoretical conceptual claims through four case studies, all of which do different work to support his theory. Pickering then expounds on the further philosophical, social theoretical, and practical implications of his theoretical framework, looking at what it means for realism and objectivity. Pickering explores the practice of science studies in terms of his theoretical framework and how one might work from the micro to the macro within it. He expounds upon the possibility of the “Mangle” as a TOE (Theory of Everything). There are a few binaries within the text, which include nature and science, as well as the known and the unknown within this inquiry. Most importantly, Pickering does work on the binary of humans and non-humans, and it is a central part of the text. Of course, Pickering often does work to demonstrate the deep parallels and intertwining factors that connect both humans and non-humans. He also examines the dialectic of resistance and accommodation.

//How is the historical trajectory delineated? Is there explicit chronological development?// Pickering goes into the historical trajectory within Science and Technology Studies itself and is trying to support a historical shift toward a performative analysis and a focus on emergent phenomenon. He also delineates the move from a representational idiom to a performative idiom within scientific research as machines and technology further mediate and become part of scientific practice (for example, comparing naked-eye astronomy observations versus machine driven observations). Pickering uses historiography as his main mode of analysis for the case studies, so there certainly is a temporal specificity and historical aspect to Pickering’s work.

//How is the temporal context provided or evoked in the text?// Pickering explicitly states that he is interested in the current status of science and how science is made in the present. Yet, his examples do provide some kind of historical framework. He typically works in the temporal framework of the post-industrial age, mostly at examples occurring after WWII. Here, he also exemplifies the historical turn and gives context to the bubble chamber example by considering issues between “small science” and “big science,” which he notes emerges from post-WWII military weapons funding. These particular case studies provide a temporal bridging of sorts between the modernist, humanist viewpoint born out of the scientific revolution and the post-humanist, post-modern view associated with ANT. Pickering also looks at the temporal emergence of human and material agency.

//How does the text specify the cultures and social structures in play in the text?// Pickering explicitly talks about the culture surrounding science. In the first case study regarding bubble chambers developed by Glaser, Pickering leaves an analysis of the social until the end of the chapter. Here he considers the social dimensions of human performance within science, mainly regarding transformations in scale and social relations to human agency. Specifically he explores the circulation of the bubble chamber and its products through the particle physics community. Pickering also demonstrates how Glaser’s convictions play-out within the social organization of research. In this sense, Glaser was modeling research on the small-scale exemplars of science that he was accustomed to. Pickering cites this social practice and modeling as open-ended much like the technical practice of the “Mangle.” Pickering argues that the social dimension of scientific culture should also be within the plane of practice and therein subject to mangling as well as the material and conceptual dimensions. In the second case study, which focuses on the genesis of scientific knowledge, Pickering addresses scientific culture as heterogeneous, disunified and multiple and expounds upon these issues.

//How are informant perspectives dealt with and integrated?// Within this text, scientists are the informants on some level. Although Pickering is not doing interviews or fieldwork so he has to work from historical accounts and documentation and extrapolate the informants’ perspectives without explicitly interviewing them. They are integrated when considering intentionality and goals they have set for their own scientific endeavors and research.

//How does the text draw out the implications of science and technology? At what level of detail are scientific and technological practices described?// The text draws out the implications of science and technology through the lens of the “Mangle” and by exploring scientific practice within specific case studies. Pickering is very detailed in his descriptions of the practices to help support his claims and shows experimental schematics while also explaining some intense theoretical, analytical and experimental work within the particular practices.

//How does the text provide in-depth detail – hopefully without losing readers?// Pickering writes in fairly plain English and tries to explain concepts and particular theoretical phenomenon when possible. He also includes very detailed footnotes that point the reader in the direction of further explanation or other literatures to explore to fully understand certain issues. There are definitely some moments where I could see readers being a bit lost or foundering through the deep theoretical and analytical discussions. By focusing on just four case studies, Pickering is able to go into a fair amount of historical, theoretical and analytical depth.

//What is the layout of the text? How does it move, from first page to last? Does it ask for other ways of reading? Does the layout perform an argument?// Pickering first explains his theoretical and philosophical foundations, which gives him the possibility to expound upon his argument and the reasoning behind it. He also gives an overview of where the text will lead. Pickering then gives the empirical, case study evidence to support his argument from the first chapter. In the second part of the book, he touches upon further implications of the “Mangle,” and grapples with issues of realism and objectivity. He has post-scripts to address some out-lying issues and possibilities for the future.

//What kinds of visuals are used, and to what effect?// The only visuals used in Pickering’s work are historical images in regards to the case studies and schematics for the experiments or the machines used within the frameworks. He also includes mathematical graphs to demonstrate the conceptual ideas within the 3rd chapter. The effect of these is to help the reader understand the scientific information he relates.

//What kind of material and analysis are in the footnotes?// Pickering is quite heavy on the footnotes within his text. Here, he gives further explanations of intense theory such as ANT and SSK. He also responds to specific arguments against particulars of his claims and fleshes out historical information even more than in the text. Pickering also references works that expound upon a topic further and may help the reader to better understand his arguments. In some of the case study chapters, Pickering uses footnotes to explicitly explain the intricacies of the theory and science behind particular research.

//How is the criticism of the text performed? If through overt argumentation, who is the “opposition”?// Pickering’s main criticism is in relation to the traditional SSK humanist outlook of human agency and the idea that scientific practice is non-emergent. Pickering sees ANT as a response to the SSK traditional viewpoint that there can only be humanist and anti-humanist (scientific/objective) arguments, not both at the same time. While Pickering may not see the modernist, humanists as an exact “opposition,” he definitely has contentions with their reasonings and works to prove them wrong by demonstrating a system that has both human and materialist agency within its analysis of scientific practice and inquiry.

//How does the text situate itself? In other words, how is reflexivity addressed, or not?// Pickering situates the text as a step forward in supporting scientific practice as emergent and squarely places his work within the realm of science studies. He expounds upon this, though, and hopes that the “Mangle” can create further inter-disciplinary connections between cultural studies and Science studies.


 * Circulation?**

//Who is the text written for? How are arguments and evidence in the text shaped to address particular audiences?// Although this text seems that it might be written for some lay-people since Pickering does a good job to thoroughly explain his concepts and theoretical framework, I get the sense it is more directly intended for scholars within the STS discipline, as well as those more traditionally related to SSK and the History of Science, possibly also the Philosophy of Science. The arguments seemed shaped to address both historians and sociologists of science, particularly in his analyses of the case studies. The theoretical underpinnings seem to appeal most to the Science Studies crowd, particularly the post-modern and post-humanist thinkers.

//What all audiences can you imagine for the text, given its empirical and conceptual scope?// As previously described, I can imagine audiences from STS, History of Science, Sociology of Science, Philosophy of Science, but I also could possibly see some scientists interested in this literature. I may be sorely mistaken, though.

//What new knowledge does this text put into circulation? What does this text have to say that otherwise is **not** obvious?// Pickering creates a new theoretical framework and argument regarding scientific practice (and possibly practice in general) by introducing the “Mangle.” He also does good work to look at non-human agency and its particular possibilities of interplay with human agency.

//How generalizable is the main argument? How does this text lay the groundwork for further research?// As related in Pickering’s post-script toward a “Mangle” TOE, I think it is quite generalizable. Pickering explicitly states that through studying micro instances, he is hoping to create a macro-scale theoretical framework for looking at practices on a larger scale. He lays the groundwork for further research by suggesting that the Mangle can be applied to biology, chemistry, cosmology, even non-scientific practices, and that it would be pertinent to do these case studies, but they are something he does not formally do.

//What kind of “action” is suggested by the main argument of the text?// A theoretical movement within science studies to support a performative idiom when considering scientific practice. Pickering is also arguing for a complete turn away from the representational idiom when explaining science. He argues for the realization of importance of non-human, material agency within scientific practice. He further calls people to action in this regard by asking for researchers and like-minded individuals to extend the “Mangle” metaphor and framework to other scientific and non-scientific practices.