Social Constructionismin Scienceand Technology Studies

Sal RestivoJennifer Croissant

In this chapter, we use certain momentsand tensions in science and technologystudies to explore constructionism in this

interdisciplinary field. I Our starting point isthe publication of Laboratory Life (1979) byBruno Latour and Steve Woolgar. They sub-titled this seminal monograph in the ethnog-raphy of science The Social Construction ofSci-entific Facts. They removed the word socialfrom the subtitle for the 1986 edition. Welook at this decision in the light ofcertain de-velopments sometimes referred to as "thedeath of the social" and of a historical An-glo-American resistance to a robust under-standing and application of the concept so-cial.

A second moment occurs with the 1999debate between David Bloor and Latourabout the strong program and its critics.2

From a wider perspective, one of the most

significant moments in the discussions anddebates over social constructionism is theemergence of the "science wars" in the mid-1990s.3 There are other moments thatground this story, but we do not addressthem all to the same extent. These momentsinclude Harry Collins's (2006) defense of aweak sociology of science, the Sokal affair,and the science wars (e.g., Segestrale,2000a), Langdon Winner's (1996) views onsocial construction and the politics of tech-nology, and debates over actor-network the-ory (e.g., Law & Hassard, 1999). Our objec-tives are (1) to demonstrate the centrality ofsocial constructionism to any serious under-standing of what is behind the classical slo-gans in science and technology studies(STS)-science is social relations, and arti-facts have politics; (2) to underscore the factthat social constructionism is a key factor in

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explanatory social theory; and (3) that socialconstructionism is not a philosophy or aphilosophical idea but a core concept insociological theory and reasoning. 4 Socialconstructionism is compatible with socio-logically sophisticated notions of reality, ob-jectivity, and truth. We endorse DorothySmith's (1999) notion that postmodernismhas not undermined our capacities to tell thetruth but rather enhanced them even whilecomplicating them.

Social Constructionas a Fundamental Theorem

Human beings socially construct their lives,their thoughts, their cultures. There is oneand only one way that we can come to be, toknow things, and to build cultures, and thatis through our interactions with others. Thisis the great discovery of the 19th-century so-cial theorists, iconographically representedby Durkheim and Marx above all, and in-cluding prominently Weber, Nietzsche, andSimmel, among others. Durkheim (1912/1995; see especially his remarks on logic,p. 440) already gives us a sociology (andtherefore a social constructionism) of re-ligion and logic. It is the realization ofDurkheim's agenda in the application of so-ciological reasoning to scientific knowledgethat we locate the origins of the contempo-rary sociology of science.

The key feature of the post-Mertonian so-ciology of science, associated with socialstudies ofscience and technology, or scienceand technology studies, is that scientificknowledge itself becomes an object of socialanalysis. The Mertonians5 studied the socialsystem ofscience but not the products ofsci-entific practice. The products of sciencewere considered to be outside ofsociety, cul-ture, and history. Mannheim (1936, p. 79)had asserted this in pioneering the sociologyof knowledge; there cannot be, he wrote, asociology of 2 + 2 = 4. Spengler (1926/1991,pp. 41-69), by contrast, was already makingthe case for a comprehensive culturological

analysis of mathematics in his The Decline ofthe West. The key moment for sociologists ofscience during this period was Fleck's(1935/1979) Genesis and Development ofa Sci-entific Fact. Fleck's work fueled Kuhn's(1962) musings on "scientific revolutions,""paradigms," and "exemplars."

Kuhn and Merton aside, the early eth-nographies of science helped give substanceand visibility to the "social construction ofscience" and, in due course, the "social con-struction of technology." Along with increas-ing visibility came increasing confusion, crit-icism, and intellectual warfare. We considersocial constructionism and the science warsin due course. For now, let us see what thepost-Mertonian sociologists of science them-selves had to say about the social construc-tion of science.

Social Constructionismand the Ethnography of Science

Chapter 1 of Latour and Woolgar's Labora-tory Life (1979) begins with an observer'snotes on the comings and goings of peoplein a laboratory:

Every ten minutes or so, there is a telephonecall for one of the staff from a colleague, an ed-itor, or some official. There are conversations,discussions, and arguments at the benches:"Why don't you try that?" Diagrams are scrib-bled on blackboards. Large numbers of com-puters spill out masses of print-out. Lengthydata sheets accumulate on desks next to copiesof articles scribbled on by colleagues. (p. 16)

The authors begin straightaway to alert thereader that an anthropological excursion isunder way-not in order to report on a prim-itive society but rather to study a tribe of sci-entists. They are at pains from the start topoint out that their concern with the "social"is not confined to the sorts ofvariables tradi-tional (read "Mertonian") sociologists of sci-ence paid attention to, such as norms andcompetition. Latour and Woolgar (1979,

p. 32) are concerned with the constructionof "sense" in science, and this leads to thefollowing working definition: "we are con-cerned with the social construction of scien-tific knowledge in so far as this draws atten-tion to the process by which scientists makesense of their observations."

They illustrate this concern by conciselyreviewing the process leading to the discov-ery of pulsars and, in particular, the observa-tions made by research studentJocelyn Bell.Their aim is to demonstrate that technicalevents are not simple or mere psychologicaloperations (Latour & Woolgar, 1979, p. 33):

the very act of perception is constituted byprevalent social forces. Our interest, however,would be in the details of the observation pro-cess.... The processes which inform the initialperception can be dealt with psychologically.However, our interest would be with the use ofsocially available procedures for constructingan ordered account out of the apparent chaosof available perceptions.

Latour and Woolgar (1979, p. 40) thus fo-cus their attention first on how facts are con-structed in a laboratory and how sociologistscan account for this construction. They arealso interested in the differences, if any, be-tween constructing facts and constructingaccounts of what goes on in the laboratory.There is an important reflexive feature intheir work. While the scientists are trying toconstruct order (an ordered account) out ofthe disorder in their observations, data, andinterpretations, Latour and Woolgar are try-ing to construct an ordered account out ofthe chaos of everyday laboratory life.6

The details of this laboratory study neednot concern us here. What is important so-ciologically (and for the "new" or post-Mertonian sociology of science) is the na-ture of this study as a paradigm or exemplar.In the end, we are given an "account of factconstruction in a biology laboratory" thatstands alongside the account produced bythe scientists themselves. The two accountsare equal in their capacity to give us access to

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the realities of the laboratory. Already herewe find the seeds of what will come to beknown as the "science wars" (Latour &Woolgar, 1979, p. 257): "We do not claim toescape from our description of scientific ac-tivity: the construction of order out of disor-der at a cost, and without recourse to anypreexisting order. In a fundamental sense,our own account is no more than fiction."

In order to see to what extent Latour andWoolgar raise the dreaded specter of relativ-ism here, it is worthwhile to follow the super-script that follows the word fiction to thefootnote (Latour & Woolgar, 1979, p. 261):

"Fiction" is to be taken as having a noncommit-tal or "agnostic" meaning that can be appliedto the whole process of fact production but tonone of its stages in particular. The productionof reality is what concerns us here, rather thananyone produced final stage.... Our main in-terest in using the word "fiction" is the conno-tation of literature and writing accounts.

They thus tie their approach to a tradition oflinking science and literature that owesmuch to Michel de Certeau (1986) andMichel Serres (1997). Their use of the wordfiction, however deliberately provocative, isnonetheless rather sophisticated and a farcry from the idea that science is not in somesense "true." If we tie this to their explicitdisavowal of relativism (Latour & Woolgar,1979, pp. 180, 238), it is difficult to see how acareful reading of their text could lead areader to conclude that their work is a con-tribution to relativism in the sociology of sci-ence. They do not deny that facts exist; theydo not deny reality. Their achievement is tocontribute to our understanding of reality asan accomplishment, whatever its intuitedquality of "out-there-ness." The "out-there-ness" of reality is a consequence of scientificwork, both practical and rhetorical, not itscause. Here they are at one with other post-Mertonian science studies pioneers (see,e.g., Barnes & Bloor, 1982, pp. 44-45; Bloor,1976, p. 141; Collins, 1985, pp. 165-167;Knorr-Cetina, 1979, p. 369; Restivo, 1988,

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1994). The charge of relativism is in greatpart a reaction to the provocations