The Value of Strident Agnosticism: Dorothy Pawluch and the Endurance of Ontological Gerrymandering

Steve Woolgar

doi:10.1007/s12108-021-09524-x

Steve Woolgar

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-021-09524-x

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Abstract

This paper reflects on the origins and subsequent reception of the paper “Ontological Gerrymandering: The anatomy of social problems explanations”, published in 1985. It describes the circumstances of my turning up at McGill University as a Visiting Professor in Sociology and meeting Dorothy, then a graduate student and the TA assigned to an undergraduate course on Social Problems which I was asked to teach. The paper reflects on the twin benefits: of an interloper, from Europe and from Science and Technology Studies (STS), entering the exotic and heady fray of North American social problems; and of Dorothy’s steady and resolute guidance in introducing me to a new field. The paper suggests some reasons for the endurance of the paper’s arguments, more than 35 years after its publication, drawing on some parallel developments in Social Problems and STS. It asks why has there been rather little mutual interaction between these disciplines, given their common concern with questions, among others, about values, effects and interventions in academic scholarship. The paper concludes that many more of us might have done well to pursue the path of strident agnosticism.

Highlights

I am delighted to be invited to contribute to this special issue/festschrift for Dorothy Pawluch
In retrospect it is clear that social constructivism was very important in opening up scientific knowledge and technological capacity to sociological scrutiny
In the light of this trajectory of different STS perspectives and approaches we can see the importance of constructivism was not so much in its “explanation” of the ways in which a social problem is defined as in the provocation provided by the initial assertion of contingency

Summary

Introduction

I am delighted to be invited to contribute to this special issue/festschrift for Dorothy Pawluch. I was surprised to discover recently that the paper “Ontological Gerrymandering: the anatomy of social problems explanations” (Woolgar & Pawluch, 1985a) has had such an impact. With all due caution in using quantitative indicators, I note that the paper has received fully 935 citations to date The aim of this short piece is to reflect on the endurance of ontological gerrymandering. The paper begins by describing the circumstances which gave rise to the publication of ontological gerrymandering, romanticising in particular the significance of my own arrival on the distant shores of North America This is the basis for discussing, in the second section, some key similarities and differences between notions of social construction worked out in Social Problems and in Science and Technology Studies. As we shall see in more detail, to take on the task of analysing others’ (usually scientists’) knowledge practices affords the possibility of drawing on resonances with one’s own knowledge practice

British Invader

Beyond Construction

Conclusion