Search

Summary

This chapter examines “opportunistic” uses of “natural” objects and structures in data-rich science and explores what these imply for scientists’ trust in the work of other researchers. It argues that a discipline’s objects of inquiry are not only topics of research but may also function as resources for its conduct. These objects and their relations can be resources for intersubjective coordination that become available through their mediation and materialization. Drawing on two cases from astronomy, this chapter demonstrates how researchers resort to what sociologist Melvin Pollner called “mundane reasoning”: practices for resolving disjunctive experiences that assume a shared public and objective world. Recognized for their task-specific affordances, disciplinary objects become resources for data analyses. There is a trade-off between epistemic uses of stable material objects and the placement of trust. In astronomical research, the sky is not only an ordering device for assessing and using data of various origin – it is also a resource for the partial relief from trust in data makers.

Search Results

Refine search

Refine search

Actions for selected content:

1 results

Chapter 5 - World

Summary

Search Results

Refine search

Refine search

Actions for selected content:

Save Search

1 results

Chapter 5 - World

Summary