Paper short abstract:

In this presentation I will explore how ‘the turn to normativity’ might provide a vocabulary to develop more symmetry between STS and the knowledge practices of our colleagues, by arguing that how normativity of STS is not pre-given, but develops in the course of doing fieldwork and collaborative research.

Paper long abstract:

In STS study of knowledge practices, a strict separation between facts and values is not tenable. Knowledge has been described as being produced through the use of particular 'scripted' research techniques (Akrich 1992), by aligning particular kinds of audience with particular kinds of promises and modes of production (Brown 2003), and so on. This is an important lesson from early science studies: studying an object is simultaneously shaping it through material research practices and through concepts and methodologies. Interestingly, however, STS scholars analyzed how their scientific colleagues produced facts, but fell silent (or chickened out) when the facts were established, or when it came to their own ways of producing knowledge. In this presentation I will explore how 'the turn to normativity' might provide a vocabulary to develop more symmetry between STS and the knowledge practices of our colleagues, by arguing how normativity of STS is not pre-given, but develops in the course of doing fieldwork and collaborative research (Marcus 2013). To make the argument I will talk through an ethnographic case study of ALS patients anticipating living with a feeding tube, in relation to evaluations made of the tube in medical research.