Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life
Steve Woolgar
Science and Technology Studies
Saïd Business School
University of Oxford
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20 th November 2011

Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life

Laboratory Life

Shifting provocations in STS
 Mundane governance

The values of STS

Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20 th November 2011

Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life

Laboratory Life

Shifting provocations in STS
 Mundane governance

The values of STS

Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20 th November 2011

• STS in the time of Kuhn:
Structure of Scientific
Revolutions
– The problem of retrospective history
• Origin stories: a health warning
• 1976 San Francisco meeting
Use of
Quantitative Indicators in History of Science
• 1976 First 4S meeting (Cornell)
• A visit to the laboratory (Salk Institute)

• Science as it happens
– in situ
– contemporary ( pace Kuhn)
• Bloor/Laudan disputes: objectivist philosophers as targets of provocation
• Mertonian sociologists as targets of provocation
• Access negotiations for lab studies involve philosopher stereotypes
• Retrospective history again: Multiple discovery of lab studies?
– Latour and Woolgar, Lynch, Knorr-Cetina, Traweek
(Pasadena 4S 2006?)

Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life

Laboratory Life

Shifting provocations in STS
 Mundane governance

The values of STS

Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20 th November 2011

Shifting provocations on science
Epistemology
Scientific knowledge
Social scientific knowledge
Symmetry Character of study
Realist Realist Mertonian sociology
Relativist? Realist
Science as a social institution
Paradigm Kuhn
Relativist Realist
Relativist Realist
Relativist Relativist
True/false
Human/nonhuman
Strong programme
(Edinburgh)
Actor network theory
Ethnography
Analyst/subject Reflexivity
Technography

essentialism
Shifting provocations in STS
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
It could be otherwise
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
T is congealed social relations
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
It could be otherwise
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
T is congealed social relations
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
It could be otherwise
T is action at a distance
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
T is congealed social relations
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
It could be otherwise
T is action at a
T is politics distance
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) by other means post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
T is congealed social relations
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
It could be otherwise
T is action at a
T is society made durable
T is politics distance
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) by other means post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
T is congealed
T is society social relations
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
T is politics
It could be otherwise Reception and use are
T is action socially at a distributed distance
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

• Constructivism usefully opens up technical phenomena, but
– Restricted use of “it could be otherwise”
– Assumes interpretive flexibility ends at moment of consensus
– Collusion with definitive readings of technical capacity
• Less dependence on standard social/political variables, motives, interests, technical capacity, context, identity etc
• Greater emphasis on process, fluidity, performativity, messiness
• Technology is achieved, rendered, constituted as an unavoidable feature of the constant reproduction of social order
• Technologies are recursive, tentative, messy, indeterminate, contingent and multiple
• Technology as situated action

• Imagine that technology is a constitutive social phenomenon.
• Treat questions about the definition and use of technology , and the deployment of terms such as ‘ technical
’ and ‘ technical capacity
’, as situated social actions.
• Examine how technical capacity is conferred, maintained, broken down, in specific social and institutional circumstances.

• Imagine that objects are a constitutive social phenomenon.
• Treat questions about the definition and use of objects , and the deployment of terms such as the ‘ character
’ and ‘ nature of objects
’, as situated social actions.
• Examine how the nature of an object is conferred, maintained, broken down, in specific social and institutional circumstances.

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
T is congealed
T is society social relations
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
T is politics
It could be otherwise Reception and use are
T is action socially at a distributed distance
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
T is congealed
T is society social relations
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
T is politics
It could be otherwise Reception and use are
T is action socially at a distributed distance
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means
T is situated social action post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

• Need to adopt strong not weak perspective on governance
– Governance in practice; not mere descriptions of reporting structures (corporate governance)
– Governance of ontologies not just of people
– Governance based on recursive ontological accomplishment
• Is-ought connections are built into ontological constitution
– Appropriate “solutions” are made preferentially available through performance of accountability relations
– What- the-object-is performs appropriate responses to it
• The achieved ontological status of objects is key to “behaviour”, not the “mentality” of the individuated human subject
• Ontology is situated, recursive
– Between representational epistemology and idealised ontology
– Making the object seem what it is

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
T is congealed
T is society social relations
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
T is politics
It could be otherwise Reception and use are
T is action socially at a distributed distance
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means
T is situated social action post essentialism Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral

Shifting provocations in STS essentialism
Technological determinism
Technology as neutral
T is congealed
T is society social relations
Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction
T is politics
It could be otherwise Reception and use are
T is action socially at a distributed distance
Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other post essentialism means
T is situated social action
Making T seem
Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral what it is

• STS as a set of provocations
– Perspectives and approaches which include eg actor networks, certainty trough, it could be otherwise
• STS as a fund of examples, stories, case studies, research reports which can organise and/or stimulate thinking
– Cf relation between management consultants/gurus and managers
• STS as a set of sensibilities
– A propensity to cause trouble, provoke, be awkward
– A preference to work through difficult conceptual (theoretical) issues using specific detailed empirical cases
– An inclination to deflate grandiose concepts and claims
– An emphasis on the local, specific and contingent
– Caution about the unreflexive adoption and use of standard social science lexicons (eg power, culture, meaning, value)
– Reflexive attention to (frequently unexplicated) notions of audiences, value and utility
• STS scepticism:
It could be otherwise

• Convert revered and standard ideas and concepts into objects of analysis
• 1. Emphasise historical contingency : revert to a time when the concept was not established or taken for granted
• 2. Emphasise the concept’s cultural specificity : identify a different cultural context in which the concept is not the same as in our own situation
• “Ethnographise” the target concept: add “-ography”
– Epistemology – epistemography
– Scale – scalography
– Ontology - ontography
• 3. Emphasise complex processes and practices
• “Gerundise” the target concept: add – “ing”
– Governance – governancing
– Futures – futuring
– Ethics – ethicising
– Evidence - evidencing

Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life

Laboratory Life

Shifting provocations in STS
 Mundane governance

The values of STS

Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20 th November 2011

Mundane Governance
• Steve Woolgar and Dan Neyland: Mundane
Governance (OUP, forthcoming)
• Increasing regulation and control in relation to everyday objects and ordinary technologies
– Recycling and waste
–
Traffic (speed cameras, parking, traffic lights)
– Passenger movement and security in airports

• Main focus on human, social and organisational relations
– Procedures, structures, committee composition, frequency of meetings, reporting protocols, retirement age
• Neo Foucauldian perspective: governance is idealised compliance through subject positions
“To govern without governing society, that is to say, to govern through the regulated and accountable choices of autonomous agents – citizens, consumers, parents, employees, investors” (Rose, 1993: 298)
– Little evidence of widespread internalisation
– No acknowledgement that governance is uncertain, disconnected and messy
– Does not explain resistance, disruption, ambivalence
• Weak perspective:
– Neglect of material things, objects, devices, technologies, instruments
– Ontological indifference: existence and status of entities taken for granted

• Governance through accountability relations
• The importance of the mundane
– More pervasive and consequential
• Two senses of “mundane”
– Routine, everyday, taken for granted
– Of the world, just the way things actually are (Latin: mundus)
• Accountability relations enact entities (objects, things, others/audiences) and vice versa
• Accountability is performative rather than an intrinsic property of actors or objects

• Recent marked changes in governance and accountability regimes
• Accountability good and bad
• Public consternation, outrage, indignation
• Excessive government interference, nanny state, over zealous policing
• Especially in relation to “ordinary” objects and practices
• Nature and extent of governance and accountability appears to centre upon common place things

• Fines for putting “inappropriate” materials in a recycling container
• Newly issued wheelie bins are discovered to contain microchips
• Speed cameras generate excessive income for the police
• Courses for re-educating speeding drivers
• Schadenfreude with failures of traffic control systems
(break down of traffic lights, suspension of parking improves traffic flow)
• Proposals to introduce ID cards with biometric data
• Extraordinary airport security measures in response to threat of terrorists attacks; liquid rules

Passage through the airport of objects and their persons
Passenger management and security: monitoring and assessing the objectperson relation
Mundane terror : ordinary objects possess potentially extraordinary properties
Ordinary objects acquire an insecure ontology; they are not what they seem

August 2006: EU wide change in security rules about carry on liquids

Who is going to read and learn these detailed instructions?
Typology of liquids enacts the “responsible traveller”
Compliance with the typology enacts the “person with nothing to hide” (cf ID cards)

• Research principle: it could be otherwise
• Examine social and material practices whereby entities acquire mundane status
• Mundanising and de-mundanising
• Not just objects but ontologies
• Specify ontological politics
• The processes and practices whereby entities emerge from an ontological soup
• “Politics” to denote the contingency of processes and practices

• Ontography
• Document how the existence, nature and capacity
(indeed, all attributes) of these entities come into being
– The nature of entities is not pre determined ie not just
“labelling” of known entities
– The nature of relations between them is not predetermined
• Interrogate the relational basis for agency
• Invert (subvert) accepted definitions, understandings and agential relations
– Eg Mundane governance: objects and their persons

A. McOntology
• Who/what is accountable for obesity caused by fast foods?
– McDonalds’ products make children obese/diabetic (Pelman vs
McDonalds, 2002)
– Media response derides the lawsuit: of course fast foods have propensity for obesity!
– Case succeeds on unreasonable danger and inadequate warning; but fails on causation
• Who/what is accountable for burns caused by hot coffee?
– Woman sues McDonalds for serving hot coffee, which she spilt on her lap (Liebeck vs McDonalds, 2005)
– Another example of an over litigious society where individual refuses to accept responsibility? Coffee is meant to be hot!

• Lawyers argue that the coffee:
– Is hotter than other restaurants
– Caused “the most serious kind” of (third degree) burn
– Is just one of a long series of similar burns
• Award of $2.7 million for “wilful, reckless or malicious conduct”
• Ontological respecification of the coffee performs a redistribution of accountability relations
• The capacities, identities, expectations shift in relation to the shift from “hot” to “recklessly-knowably-in-defianceof-warnings-ably, as just-the-latest-in-a-series-of-similarevents-ably hot”

B. The Wrong Bin
Bag
A tabloid depiction of the moral order of waste disposal (The Sun)

• What are processes of political constitution of entities?
• How does discursive organisation make possible the relations of governance (Smith: “relations of ruling”)?
• Organisation of text provides for moral order: makes available a cast of characters, assigns attributes to each, depicts network of rights and responsibilities
• Not just a story weaved around acceptable/curious behaviours in relation to a given object
• The very character of the object, the ontology of the bin bag, is constituted in and through the organisation of the text
• Can a mere bag disrupt political relations? How can a bag become an event? How can a bin bag be wrong?

• Moral order is portrayed through an additive contrast structure between entities in the story
• The contrast is between evil doers
(barmy council bosses etc) and innocent victims (normal people, unmarried mum of four)
• Barmy/normal turns on apprehension of the object ( a bin bag) and what counts as appropriate behaviour with and towards it
• The mundaneity of the bin bag – what every reasonable person knows about the nature and purpose of bin bags - reinforces the moral contrast between barmies and normals
• What the object (bag) is, what it’s for, what should be in it, what is
(in)appropriate behaviour towards it, are all tied to (and exemplify) the structure of the moral order
Evil doers
Barmy council bosses
Over zealous wardens
Ripped open the bags
Innocent victims
Lynette
Unmarried mum of four
Kids to feed and clothe
Any normal family
Wardens for
Crewe and
Nantwich
Borough council
A woman fined for littering (while feeding …
….Birds

Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life

Laboratory Life

Shifting provocations in STS
 Mundane governance

The values of STS

Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20 th November 2011

• The growing influence of STS:
In the past decade and a half, STS has evolved intellectually, built institutional strength, forged links with other disciplines, new communities and policy relevant areas. STS has begun to make its mark in economic theory, anthropology, music, environmental governance, legal discourse, science education, and science policy; and a broad range of public institutions – from funding agencies to science museums to transnational NGOs are beginning to incorporate STS insights into their thinking (Cornell, 2003)
• The potential utility (use, value) of STS
– For a wide range of disciplines
– For scientists and technologists (a distraction or a help?)
– For business and management
• What happens when STS is appropriated by new institutions eg business schools?
• How much is the radical/critical provocation of STS attenuated?
– Pollner (1991) “Radical reflexivity has settled down and moved out to the suburbs”!
– Consumers “misuse” STS? eg citation of Laboratory Life in US court case
– “Misuse”, or the reader writes the text?
– Has STS now both settled down and got its MBA?!

Where Did All the Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life

Laboratory Life

Shifting provocations in STS
 Mundane governance

The values of STS

Conclusions
STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20 th November 2011

• What is value of STS?
– Capacity to renew and reinvent itself
– Capacity to provoke and challenge assumptions
• Use STS itself to answer this question….
– What is STS’ actor network?
– How can users of STS be configured; how can they be taught what to want?
– What is STS’ certainty trough?
• Is there one thing called STS?
– no! it could be otherwise
– no! there are multiple STSs

• A central enduring provocation of STS:
– “It could be otherwise”
• This cashed out in different dimensions
– Symmetry
– Essentialism
• New audiences for STS
• BUT tendency towards safe explanatory formulae
• Ethnography – technography – ontography
• Science is no longer the hardest possible case eg mundane governance