Undone Science: Charting Social Movement and Civil Society Challenges to Research Agenda Setting

TitleUndone Science: Charting Social Movement and Civil Society Challenges to Research Agenda Setting
Publication TypeJournal Article
AuthorsFrickel, Scott, Sahra Gibbon, Jeff Howard, Joanna Kempner, Gwen Ottinger, and David J. Hess
JournalScience, Technology & Human Values
Volume35
Issue4
Pagination444
ISSN01622439
Call Number52543923
Abstract

''Undone science'' refers to areas of research that are left unfunded, incomplete, or generally ignored but that social movements or civil society organizations often identify as worthy of more research. This study mobilizes four recent studies to further elaborate the concept of undone science as it relates to the political construction of research agendas. Using these cases, we develop the argument that undone science is part of a broader politics of knowledge, wherein multiple and competing groups struggle over the construction and implementation of alternative research agendas. Overall, the study demonstrates the analytic potential of the concept of undone science to deepen understanding of the systematic nonproduction of knowledge in the institutional matrix of state, industry, and social movements that is characteristic of recent calls for a ''new political sociology of science.''

Short TitleUndone Science
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