Selective flows of knowledge in technoscientific interaction: information control in genome research
Item Type
Author
Language
English
Abstract
In recent years, the selective flow of knowledge has emerged as an important topic in historical and social studies of science. Related questions about the production of ignorance have also captured attention under the rubric of agnotology. This paper focuses on information control in interaction, examining how actors seek to control the flow of scientific knowledge as they interact with others, either in face-to-face encounters or in modes of communication involving circulating documents, data, materials and other entities containing knowledge. The analysis uses an ethnographic approach to study how actors work to control which knowledge becomes available to whom, when, under what terms and conditions, and with what residual encumbrances. Secrecy, for example, is not framed as an isolated, sui generis phenomenon, nor as one side of a secrecy/openness dichotomy, nor even as a pole on a secrecy/openness continuum. Instead, the analysis explores how actors manage a dialectic of revelation and concealment through which knowledge is selectively made available and unavailable to others, often in the same act. The emphasis on selective revelation highlights partial transfers of knowledge, targeted distribution, matters of timing, and the rights and encumbrances that attach to knowledge at different points in its transit. Examples are drawn from genome research, a field marked by ongoing disputes about modes of information control.
Subject
Ignorance
Knowledge
Social sciences
Politics
Social aspects
Genomics
Technology
Secrecy
Security
Research
Culture
Celera Corp.
Confidential communications
DNA
Information resources management
Information sharing
Scientific knowledge
Technology & society
Theory of knowledge
Authenticity
Access control
Actors
Artifacts
Audiences
Authoring
Biology
Business law
Capillary electrophoresis
Circulation
Clothing
Communication
Communities
Computer security
Consciousness
Consortia
Contemporary problems
Crews
Deoxyribonucleic acid--DNA
Dialectics
Disputes
DNA sequencing
Enclosures
Fieldwork
Gel electrophoresis
Gene mapping
Genetics
Genomes
Human Genome Project
Information control
Intellectual property
Laboratories
Messages
Molecular biology
Nucleotide sequence
Openness
Physics
Privacy
Protective clothing
Public access
Research projects
Sciences: Comprehensive Works
Social organization
Social studies
Sociology
Speech
Stability
Strategic management
Timing
Transformation
Voice communication
Workplace control
Writers
Publication Title
Publication Year
2012
Publication Date
2012
Publisher
Source
ProQuest
License
Rights
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2012
ISSN
0007-0874
Physical Description
vol. 45, n. 2, pp. 267-280
Publication Place
Cambridge
Short Title
Selective flows of knowledge in technoscientific interaction