Memo+5+–+Questioning+a+Text+–+LM+Bachinger

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?
 * __ What is the text about – empirically? __**

The differentiation of dynamic and static objectivity and its connection to aggression&hatret/love&erotic and how this in turn allows reflection on an ideology predominant in science (hatret and agreession à static objectivity) and structures style, relation to object, methodology and theory (and how this should be counteracted by a turn to love)

Where is this phenomenon located – in a neighborhood, in a country, in “Western Culture,” in a globalizing economy? “Western” “modern” science in particular, scientific work throughout its history, but at least since renaissance alchemistry,

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?

Trajectory of dominant aggressive ideology in science, underlined with examples from social psychology and psychiatry; implied is a historicized model of development of science along “Enlightment” and “ages”; it does not focus in other forms of knowledge production, be it in ancient cultures or non-western cultures, and how we could learn from that – it is very much locked in within “western modern science” – yet this might be a rhetoric, argumentative strategy.

What scale(s) are focused on -- nano (i.e. the level of language), micro, meso, macro? What empirical material is developed at each scale?

A mixture of all of the above: It draws on language, but also on how this plays out in the micro-practices of scientific work (relating to the object), as well as (in touching upon it) the institutional meso level of organization of science and recruitment of new members, to finally touch upon the macro level of canonized knowledge

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?

Hating and loving scientists, “knowledge producers” and the relation to their objects; a male/female connotation is prevailing, as it points to prevailing stereotypes and how they are enforced in their materialization; Shifts are traced in the analysis of science in general (the discourse between instrumentalism, realism, positivism) and in social psychology and inferences made on the historic development of science and its mode of knowledge production in rough sketches

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?

Modern western science (“they have been part of the tradition of modern science from the Renaissance alchemists on” [the loving voices], p. 125) In its argument for taking action it is “today”

What cultures and social structures are in play in the text?

Not quite sure in what direction this question wants me to go. The scientific culture of aggression (and its connection to gender) is one element. The ideological alienation another. The selective consequences of these ideologies are particularly important, as well as the implications for possible knowledge claims.

What kinds of practices are described in the text? Are players shown to be embedded in structural contradictions or double-binds?

Autonomy – subject – object in context of pathology and psychiatry; the double blind of knowing, emotion, object-subject-relationships; the ideological lock-in of the “cold” and “hatred” and the seemingly mutually exclusive categories of “love” and “knowing”

How are science and technology implicated in the phenomenon described?

Phu, hard question to be answered quickly. I touched upon a lot. The relationship between possible knowledge claims and the predominating ideology results in a double-blind for science (and technology) and an alienated relationship between the “object” of research and the “subject” “acting upon it”

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?

It is an interesting shift in providing an answer to this very question that is provided in the text. Less relevant, initially, are these very dimensions. Rather it is a matter of style and attitude (static vs dynamic, cold vs warm, hating vs loving, etc.) that only further on is reflected in the structural conditions (access, recruitment, relation to the scientific inquiry, theoretical formulation, and so on). Yet, it would be interesting how this plays out in the structural conditions (in their more narrow sense) of science: how are training, teaching, laboratory set-up, scientific institutional norms, etc. played out in this regard? Author touches briefly on the selection of the “best” amongst the “good practice” examples, but without any in-depth argumentation.

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?

It is interesting how power-relationships re-produce themselves in favoring attitudes and styles over others, thus acting in excluding ways: through language, practice, and so on. A strong notion is placed on psychological effect (mostly due to the used examples that must be seen more as “metaphorical”), I wonder how this is played out in other chapters of the book.

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?

I find this text very limited in this regard, although the counter-example of “loving” accounts is touched upon (but that’s not the sort of comparison searched for here). In general it is a rather generalizing, essentialist account.

Is the goal to verify, challenge or extend prior theoretical claims?
 * __ What is the text about – conceptually? __**

It calls a) sheds new light on the conceptualization of “objectivity”, b) gives a new perspective on understanding the structural re-production of knowing infrastructures and knowledge production and c) articulates a need for a shift in style and attitude that perpetuates in method, theory, and so on

What is the main conceptual argument or theoretical claim of the text? Is it performed, rendered explicit or both?

It is performed and rendered explicit. Rather the latter, but there is an emotional appeal inscribed in the writing, as well as it is performed in the intro. The main claim was outlined repeatedly here (love vs aggression, static vs dynamic objectivity, etc.). It is further “performativly explicated” in the sections about social psychology (the aggressive, quasi-problematic subtext of this section (the criticized appears psychologically ill as performative act)

What ancillary concepts are developed to articulate the conceptual argument? How is empirical material used to support or build the conceptual argument?

Concepts from social psychology, but also epistemological philosophers (in similar terminology). Particularly the concepts of psychopathology are utilized as quasi-empirical metaphor to advance the argument, and then translated back into scientific context by the use of vignettes, more then concrete empirical examples.

How robust is the main conceptual argument of the text? On what grounds could it be challenged?

It is difficult to be challenged due to the abstraction from empirical material – and their lack of. More concrete explication of the argument along empirical “show”-cases are lacking, basing the key argument on a “sense that the author must be right”. As a reader I got the feeling that a lot of this is true, given my own experience of and with science, but it remains a tacit understanding that cannot be explicitly criticized along empirical lings. Through that the main strategy to argue against the text must follow the logic of thought experiments and conceptual or logical errors.

How could the empirical material provided support conceptual arguments //other than those// built in the text?

See the above: there is a certain interpretative flexibility in the text that appears problematic, as entertaining I found this paper: I think this piece is motivating and inspiring for new experimentation, and invites this, and my reading of the text is in this way. As such, counter-arguments could still follow the lines of positivist reasoning that renders exactly the line of argumentation presented in the paper as “too emotional” and thus “conflicted”, especially as the text itself presents a political agenda.


 * __ Modes of inquiry? __**

What theoretical edifice provides the (perhaps haunting – i.e. non-explicit) backdrop to the text?

“ Moderate Constructivism”

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? Does the author assume that what is most interesting occurs with regularity, or is she interested in the incidental and deviant?

Conception of Subjectivity and Objectivity, although in moderate forms; The existence of emotions and their shared understanding, a certain conception of modern western science and its social organization, two conflicting ideals of scientific inquiry, the functional relationships of emotion and relating, the positive character of love, and negative (dysfunctional) character of aggression and hate

What kinds of data (ethnographic, experimental, statistical, etc.) are used in the text, and how were they obtained?

Metaphorical anecdotes plus psychological studies

If interviews were conducted, what kinds of questions were asked? What does the author seem to have learned from the interviews? -

How was the data analyzed? If this is not explicit, what can be inferred? How are people, objects or ideas aggregated into groups or categories? What additional data would strengthen the text?

This is very inexplicit, as already outlined. Ethnographic field work, good old laboratory studies, organizational case study, language analysis, etc. could be applied, for example


 * __ 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?

No. But it opens up the question of objectivity, and how this text will deal with it. The introductory quote is also a performative act to drive home the key argument. It also clearly establishes the juxtaposition of arguments (“Oh no,” retorted another student, a young woman. …”)

Where is theory in the text? Is the theoretical backdrop to the text explained, or assumed to be understood?

The explicit theory is articulated in the conclusions, drawing the ties from the intro and the exemplary semi-theoretical discussions of the middle-parts together and elevating it into explicit theoretical epistemological politics

What is the structure of the discourse in the text? What binaries recur in the text, or are conspicuously avoided?

Love-agression, dual understandings of objectivity, tacitly: male – female (suspicious), mental constitution, logic-realism, subjective forces-interpretation, connection-disconnection

How is the historical trajectory delineated? Is there explicit chronological development? How is the temporal context provided or evoked in the text?

Temporality is present only implicitly, and substituted with a progress narrative of old “traditional” science, and new “progressive” loving science

How does the text specify the cultures and social structures in play in the text?

How are informant perspectives dealt with and integrated?

Along the said binaries and its problematic connotation of old and traditional vs. new and marginalized, implicitly playing towards a gendered perspective

How does the text draw out the implications of science and technology? At what level of detail are scientific and technological practices described?

General metaphors that indicate detailed problematics, yet are not made explicit

How does the text provide in-depth detail – hopefully without losing readers?

The discussion of psychology and psychiatry are (more or less) detailed and problematically so, as at least I tended to skip as soon as I (at least assumed) got the argument standing behind this discussion

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?

First and last page take up the same narrative/style, two sections in-between on different exemplary “excurses” that are use to establish and support the claims made on the first page and are substantiated on the last. The Quote in the beginning is used to introduce via vignette to set the mood. Presentation (layout) follows traditional formats and has an touch of being “old”. The examples in the middle have multiple readings with a variety of potential interferences from mere metaphor for the general argument, to the explicit literal reading that opens up potentials for criticism that would fall in line with the central claim made by the pape and thus serve a performative function.

What kinds of visuals are used, and to what effect? What kind of material and analysis are in the footnotes?

Three foodnotes, one to specify, two to provide further examples. No visuals

How is the criticism of the text performed? If through overt argumentation, who is the “opposition”?

Juxtaposition of positions in performative ways as well as mockery of the “old” stand-point (positivism in one sense, antagonizing brutalism in attitude on the other, stereotypical male (maybe?)).

How does the text situate itself? In other words, how is reflexivity addressed, or not?

Its form plays along the line of argumentation and thus could introduce a pervormative reflexivity that plays out only in the replay to criticisms that are based on a too literal reading. It does not situated itself beyond that, at least as far as I can see, but I could miss something (although there are some minor relativizations in the text, and it is pointed out twice (or so) that we are dealing with generalizations).

Who is the text written for? How are arguments and evidence in the text shaped to address particular audiences?
 * __ Circulation? __**

Practitioners of science in general, STS, gender in particular (given the title of the book)

What all audiences can you imagine for the text, given its empirical and conceptual scope?

Different practitioners of science, science communicators, lecturers, students, science administrators, “marketing” of “schools”, STS (and related) scholarship

What new knowledge does this text put into circulation? What does this text have to say that otherwise is //not obvious//?

The connection of emotion and social organization of science is quite interesting and new – particularly in connection with conceptualizations of “objectivity”, also in relation to “the subject”

How generalizable is the main argument? How does this text lay the groundwork for further research?

It is quite generalized already. It immediately gave me quite some ideas on how to apply this in multiple contexts, on the one hand in immediate studies of science, its organization and in its practice. On the other hand transferred to a multiple of domains (technology development to farming to …). I think one generalization can regard the connections between emotion, social organization and its reproduction – something that can be extended and generalized quite far beyond science; another generalization is the iteration of understandings of objectivity – that can also be re-specified and introduced to other context of knowledge production, to other cultures and to other logics of collaboration and knowledge procution

What kind of “action” is suggested by the main argument of the text?

Literally, the turn from aggression to love (in terms of relating to the “thing” one studies); more abstract, a attention to the culture of institutions and its reproduction, as well as the shift in attention to emotional aspects of knowledge procution and its explanation/analysis