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In this updated version of a contemporary classic of discourse research, Reiner Keller develops the theoretical and methodological foundations of the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD). Translated from the original German into English for the first time, this book brings together two previously unconnected domains of knowledge analysis in social science: the rich traditions of sociology of knowledge and symbolic interactionism on one hand and the works of discourse studies, especially in relation to Michel Foucault, on the other. It presents a critical discussion of key developments in sociology of knowledge, symbolic interactionist, and related interpretive approaches, explains the communicational turn of recent work in the field, and examines how traditions within sociology of knowledge shifted focus or converged over time. Following this, the book discusses the development of discourse theory and discourse analysis since the 1960s, including critical discourse analysis, hegemony analysis, or cultural studies approaches. Embarking from a profound reconstruction of Michel Foucault's work, the book then sets its own distinctive course by integrating major elements of Foucault's perspective with the sociology of knowledge. Along this path, Reiner Keller establishes the heuristics and methodology for a sociology of knowledge approach to discourse, providing a comprehensive research programme for the study of social relations of knowledge and politics of knowledge. Since its first publication in 2005, SKAD has informed a multitude of studies worldwide and across several academic disciplines. Today it can be considered as one of the major perspectives in discourse research in social science and beyond.

Die zentrale These des Buches lautet, dass nicht Natur, Unfälle, Gewalt, Katastrophen, Macht usw., sondern Wissen mehr denn je die Grundlage und Richtschnur menschlichen Handelns in allen Bereichen unserer Gesellschaft ist. Diese Untersuchung über Wissensgesellschaften ist daher als Antwort auf die grundlegende Beobachtung geschrieben, dass die moderne Wissenschaft keineswegs nur, wie heute noch oft angenommen wird, der Schlüssel und Zugang zu den Geheimnissen der Natur und des menschlichen Verhaltens ist, sondern vor allem das Werden einer Welt: Wissen als Motor und nicht nur als Kamera. Diese beispiellose Bedeutung des wissenschaftlichen Wissens bedeutet jedoch nicht, dass es ihm gelingen wird, traditionelle Lebensweisen und Einstellungen einfach zu überrollen, wie immer wieder erhofft oder ernsthaft befürchtet. Gleichzeitig sind Wissensgesellschaften keine soziale Formation im Stillstand. Die Dynamik des Wirtschaftssystems von Wissensgesellschaften, die Hand in Hand mit der Verrechtlichung von Wissen als der wichtigsten Ressource von Wissensgesellschaften geht, führt unmittelbar zur Transformation der Wissensgesellschaft in einen Wissenskapitalismus.'Nico Stehrs Moderne Wissensgesellschaften verstehen ist die Art von Buch über die Wissenssoziologie, die Max Weber hätte schreiben können, wenn er noch hundert Jahre gelebt hätte. Stehr spiegelt und aktualisiert Webers Fähigkeit, die relevante Literatur in den Bereichen Recht, Politik und Wirtschaft - sowie Soziologie - zusammenzuführen, um ein übergeordnetes sozialwissenschaftliches Verständnis der Natur des Wissens zu erreichen. Sowohl Theoretiker als auch politische Entscheidungsträger werden hier viel Stoff zum Nachdenken finden, da Stehr seine größeren und abstrakteren Behauptungen geschickt mit pointierten Illustrationen aus Berichten über aktuelle Ereignisse durchsetzt.'Steve Fuller, Auguste Comte Lehrstuhl für soziale Erkenntnistheorie, Universität Warwick, UK'In seinem neuen Buch geht der bekannte Soziologe Nico Stehr auf der Grundlage jahrzehntelanger Forschung der These nach, dass wir in einer Wissensgesellschaft leben. Eine der vielen interessanten Fragen, die er erörtert, ist, ob die Wissensgesellschaft sich in einen Wissenskapitalismus verwandeln wird und was das bedeutet.'Richard Swedberg, Professor em. Cornell Universität, USA'Die enormen Veränderungen der Wissensproduktion und -verbreitung im letzten halben Jahrhundert, die extreme Komplexität und die Gefahren der sozialen und biophysikalischen Probleme, die sich aus ihrer Anwendung ergeben haben, und die daraus resultierende Notwendigkeit, große politische Veränderungen zu planen, machen dies zu einem besonders wichtigen Zeitpunkt, um das Verhältnis von Wissen und Gesellschaft neu zu überdenken. Nico Stehrs prägnante und doch umfassende Analyse der modernen Wissensgesellschaften im intellektuellen, sozio-historischen und politisch-ökonomischen Kontext bietet eine prägnante, ganzheitliche Darstellung der wichtigsten Fragen, um die es geht. Sein Buch Gesellschaft und Wissen verstehen wird einem breiten Spektrum von Lesern, die sich für die grundlegenden Veränderungen des gesellschaftlichen Wissens interessieren, die sich auf unser Leben und unsere Welt auswirken, zugänglich sein und zum kritischen Nachdenken anregen.'Robert J. Antonio, Chancellor's Club Teaching Professor, Universität von Kansas, USA'Nico Stehrs neues Buch erörtert die grundlegende Frage nach dem Verhältnis von Wissen und Kapitalismus. Diese Frage wird eingehend erörtert. Stehr geht auf eine Vielzahl damit verbundener Themen ein, wie z.B. das Wesen der postindustriellen Gesellschaften und des Spätkapitalismus; Wissen als soziales Verhältnis, als Ware und als Produktivkraft; der Schutz von Wissen durch Patente und andere rechtliche Schutzinstrumente. Stehr geht dann auf die Anstrengungen ein, die unternommen wurden, um zusätzliches oder inkrementelles Wi

Knowledge is a result of never-ending processes of circulation. This accessible volume is the first comprehensive multidisciplinary work to explore these processes through the perspective of scholars working outside of Anglo-American paradigms. Through a variety of literature reviews, examples of recent research and in-depth case studies, the chapters demonstrate that the analysis of knowledge circulation requires a series of ontological and epistemic commitments that impact its conceptualisation and methodologies.Bringing diverse viewpoints from across the globe and from a range of disciplines, including anthropology, economics, history, political science, sociology and Science & Technology Studies (STS), this wide-ranging and thought-provoking collection offers a broad and cutting-edge overview of outstanding research on academic knowledge circulation. The book is structured in seven sections: (i) key concepts in studying the circulation of academic knowledge; (ii) spaces and actors of circulation; (iii) academic media and knowledge circulation; (iv) the political economy of academic knowledge circulation; (v) the geographies, geopolitics and historical legacies of the global circulation of academic knowledge; (vi) the relationships between academic and extra-academic knowledges; and (vii) methodological approaches to studying the circulation of academic knowledge.This handbook will be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate researchers in the humanities and social sciences interested in the circulation of knowledge.

Understanding Society and Knowledge proposes that knowledge, rather than nature, violence, or power, provides the basis of and driving force behind human action in modern society. It demonstrates how the legal containment of knowledge enables the transformation of the knowledge society into knowledge capitalism. Providing an overview of the history of knowledge societies, Nico Stehr analyses the concept of knowledge as well as the nature of post-industrial societies. Chapters examine the genealogy of social scientific theories of modern society; the role of knowledge as a capacity to act or as an intersubjective resource; and recent changes in the structure of the material economy. The book concludes by discussing the political challenges of the knowledge society, highlighting the ways in which discoveries in modern knowledge and subsequent political responses continue to generate controversies. This illuminating book will be an essential resource for students and scholars of economics, political science, sociology and sociological theory, as well as science and technology studies.

This book defines the concept of knowledge transformation, describes the historical process of knowledge transformation, and analyses its deep influence on education theory and practice by virtue of multiple discipline resources. The general scope of this book encompasses the philosophy of education, curriculum studies, and education reform research. It enables readers to understand how'hidden'epistemological factors have changed or reshaped the education system throughout history and at present.

This contributed volume provides case studies from around the world that feature a convergence of indigenous and western knowledge in an attempt to understand complex socio-ecological systems. The book provides an understanding of socio-ecological systems in an ethical space using a'Decoloniality'approach (i.e. untangling the production of knowledge from a primarily Eurocentric episteme). The work presented here integrates and merges indigenous knowledge with western science, thereby building on the strengths of each in service of understanding these systems. The editors of this volume approach indigenous communities and scientists as equal knowledge-holders and, in doing so, contributes towards improved understanding of socio-ecological systems and interactions in cross-cultural contexts. This volume will be of interest to scientists, instructors, students and policy makers across disciplines such as environmental sciences, social sciences, interdisciplinary studies, cultural studies, ethnobotany, anthropology and plant genetic resources.

Die Subjektivierungsanalyse verbindet gesellschafts- und sozialtheoretische Reflektionen moderner Selbst- und Weltverhältnisse mit empirischen Analysen zur Wechselwirkung von Subjekten und ihren Subjektivierungsinstanzen. Im Zentrum steht die Frage, wie die von der Gesellschaft hervorgebrachten Subjekte auf das gegenwärtige Subjektivierungsgeschehen einwirken und es bestimmen (können). Der Band führt in theoretische Grundlagen ein, stellt methodische Ansätze vor und diskutiert Potentiale empirisch begründeter Theoriebildung zur Subjektivierung in Gegenwartsgesellschaften. Subjectivation research explores the relationship amongst social theory, reflections of the modern self, and empirical analyses of subject formations. Drawing on these empirical analyses of interactions between subjects and instances of subjectivation, this volume highlights how subjects can ‘talk back'. Readers are introduced to theoretical foundations, methodological approaches as well as empirically based theories on subjectivation in contemporary societies.

The book presents a cross-disciplinary overview of critical issues at the intersections of biology, information, and society. Based on theories of bioinformationalism, viral modernity, the postdigital condition, and others, this book explores two inter-related questions: Which new knowledge ecologies are emerging? Which philosophies and research approaches do they require? The book argues that the 20th century focus on machinery needs to be replaced, at least partially, by a focus on a better understanding of living systems and their interactions with technology at all scales – from viruses, through to human beings, to the Earth's ecosystem. This change of direction cannot be made by a simple relocation of focus and/or funding from one discipline to another. In our age of the Anthropocene, (human and planetary) biology cannot be thought of without (digital) technology and society. Today's curious bioinformational mix of blurred and messy relationships betweenphysics and biology, old and new media, humanism and posthumanism, knowledge capitalism and bio-informational capitalism defines the postdigital condition and creates new knowledge ecologies. The book presents scholarly research defining new knowledge ecologies built upon emerging forms of scientific communication, big data deluge, and opacity of algorithmic operations. Many of these developments can be approached using the concept of viral modernity, which applies to viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education, and emerging knowledge (journal) systems. It is within these overlapping theories and contexts, that this book explores new bioinformational philosophies and postdigital knowledge ecologies.

When the notion of ‘alternative facts'and the alleged dawning of a ‘postfactual'world entered public discourse, social anthropologists found themselves in unexpectedly familiar territory. In theirempirical experience, fact—knowledge accepted as true—derives its salience from social mechanisms of legitimization, thereby demonstrating a deep interconnection with power and authority. In thisperspective, fact is a continually contested and volatile social category.Due to the specific histories of their colonial and post-independence experience, African societies offer a particularly broad array of insights into social processes of juxtaposition, opposition, and even outright competition between different postulated authorities. The contributions to the present volume explore the variety of ways in which authority is contested in Southern and Eastern Africa, investigating localized discourses on which institution, what kind of knowledge, or whose expertise is accepted as authoritative, thus highlighting the specificities and pluralities in ‘modern'societies. This edited volume engages with larger theoretical questions regarding power and authority in the context of (post)colonial states (neo)traditional authority, claiming space, conflict and (in)justice, and contestations of knowledge. It offers in-depth critical analyses of ethnographic data that put contemporary African phenomena on equal footing with current controversies in North America, Europe, and other global settings.

The book focuses on the status and role of the social sciences in the current millennium. Drawing inspiration from a range of theorists, it critically examines the key debates on the social science stream and focuses on its ir/relevance in our times in the background of changing state-market dialectics. It specifically scrutinises knowledge politics of the global times to reveal how the neoliberal project aligns and fuses steep economic ‘conditionalities'with professional cultural parameters of higher academia to constrain autonomy and weaken radical expressions in social science pedagogy and research. Asserting that the humanistic core of social sciences has the potential to resist acts of reducing knowledge to a monochromatic form, the book argues that the social science stream can challenge and resist such hegemonic ambitions. It also identifies and analyses the contradictions, dilemmas, predicaments and false steps of social scientists, and avoids a reductive approach based on the ‘west versus non-west'binary.The volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of the social sciences in general, and of sociology/politics of knowledge, political theory, political sociology and education in particular.

A journey of new routes of healing with/by Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants is shared under the Two Eyed-Seeing Perspective of Elder Albert Marshall. The Universal Human Right of Indigenous self-determination and Relationality are the togetherness presented in a “mangrove tree” that lives between salty and sweet waters emerging as a protective place of rich ecosystems. The relatuhedron (shapes of relationality) a co-construction of a home, a Wigwam, Long House, Maloca, Ue, crystalizes knowledge and practices in the process of individual and community healing and cultural transactions. A set of neologisms such as relatuhedron, pedagomiologies, and social grammars, is proposed to challenge our views of mental health, healing, cultural transactions, stereotypes, recovery, and public policy and include simplicities and complexities required to support Indigenous well-being. It is a “machine of possibilities” for students and professionals working with/by and for Indigenous communities. In this book healing is presented as a process through scholarly practice and reflection. Healing is a process of emergence of meaning by improving relationality with the self, nature and others, in a practical approach to socio-cultural transformations. In sum, healing is based on individual and community processes both honoring and respective Indigenous knowledge and scientific research to create endless opportunities for well-being. This book presents healing as a process of growth, a complex, dynamic and evolutive journey of transforming how we stablish and maintain relationships with the self, nature and others inside of our cultural negotiations.

How the university went global and became the heart of the information ageThe university is experiencing an unprecedented level of success today, as more universities in more countries educate more students in more fields. At the same time, the university has become central to a knowledge society based on the belief that everyone can, through higher education, access universal truths and apply them in the name of progress. This book traces the university's rise over the past hundred years to become the cultural linchpin of contemporary society, revealing how the so-called ivory tower has become profoundly interlinked with almost every area of human endeavor.David John Frank and John Meyer describe how, as the university expanded, student and faculty bodies became larger, more diverse, and more empowered to turn knowledge into action. Their contributions to society underscored the public importance of scholarship, and as the cultural authority of universities grew they increased the scope of their research and teaching interests. As a result, the university has become the bedrock of today's information-based society, an institution that is now implicated in the solution to every conceivable problem.But, as Frank and Meyer also show, the conditions that helped spur the university's recent ascendance are not immutable: eruptions of nationalism, authoritarianism, and illiberalism undercut the university's universalistic and rationalistic premises, and may threaten the centrality of the university itself.

In recent political debates there has been a significant change in the valence of the word “experts” from a superlative to a near pejorative, typically accompanied by a recitation of experts'many failures and misdeeds. In topics as varied as Brexit, climate change, and vaccinations there is a palpable mistrust of experts and a tendency to dismiss their advice. Are we witnessing, therefore, the “death of expertise,” or is the handwringing about an “assault on science” merely the hysterical reaction of threatened elites? In this new book, Gil Eyal argues that what needs to be explained is not a one-sided “mistrust of experts” but the two-headed pushmi-pullyu of unprecedented reliance on science and expertise, on the one hand, coupled with increased skepticism and dismissal of scientific findings and expert opinion, on the other. The current mistrust of experts is best understood as one more spiral in an on-going, recursive crisis of legitimacy. The “scientization of politics,” of which critics warned in the 1960s, has brought about a politicization of science, and the two processes reinforce one another in an unstable, crisis-prone mixture. This timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the social sciences and to anyone concerned about the political uses of, and attacks on, scientific knowledge and expertise.

In the world of Aristotle, the education of individuals might have led to virtuous action. But today, integrity of action also requires the education of institutions. Those very structures designed to enhance the just use of knowledge too often stand instead as barriers to integrity. Bureaucracy shapes our actions in a manner reflective of a Platonic approach to knowledge and the political order—an approach that labels some as'true knowers'and grants them the ultimate power to decide what is to be done. Professionalism, the institution with which we legitimatize and use expertise, imbues our actions with the Aquinian belief that any disobedience of directives from reigning experts risks (unacceptably) the loss of order. In our research system, representing our main collective effort to generate new knowledge, we unwittingly put into practice Hume's conception of knowledge, which takes the outcomes of science to be an accumulation of facts, and John Stuart Mill's political theory, which overlooks the role of community in the lives of individuals. The stakes are high, argues Dr. Kerr. Given these conceptions of knowledge and the political values that are inherent in our primary modes of knowledge utilization—conceptions that we should not embrace—only with fundamental reforms of our institutions can our society hope to gain integrity. Dr. Kerr discusses how bureaucracy, professionalism, and the research system could be altered so that they might structure actions in more defensible and desirable ways.

The thinking of Antoine-Augustin Cournot has inspired a growing literature in economy and epistemology, but as of yet, his sociological thought has not been explicitly discussed and contextualized within the discipline. From the 1850s to the end of the 1870s, Cournot contributed significantly to the history of French sociology, particularly in the development of one essential idea: that forms of knowledge are intimately linked to the progress of reason. Philosophy, therefore, becomes interested in the development of the sciences, evolving as they do from the process of rationalizing human societies. Cournot's comparative-historical sociology, “rediscovered” especially by Gabriel Tarde in the 20th century, seeks to understand how a macro-sociological trend can depend on the aggregation of a host individual decisions and actions, or to discern a certain order out of apparent chaos.

The book is composed of several articles that explore complexity in its most varied aspects. The solution of contemporary problems, whatever they may be, requires a multifaceted vision, far beyond the reductionist perspective. The study of complex systems, however, does not have the capacity to offer ready answers to the challenges of humanity. On the contrary, it points to the increase in uncertainty, the need to control variables, and uncertainty. This does not mean, therefore, that we should simply ignore the social, economic, and political phenomena that are all around us. What this book demonstrates is the importance of knowledge being disseminated, and it is imperative that different sciences exchange ideas, theories, and breakthroughs.

Uniting a team of international and interdisciplinary scholars, this volume considers the views of early twentieth-century European thinkers on the creation, dissemination and management of publicly available information. Interdisciplinary in perspective, the volume reflects the nature of the thinkers discussed, including Otto Neurath, Patrick Geddes, the English Fabians, Paul Otlet, Wilhelm Ostwald and H. G. Wells. The work also charts the interest since the latter part of the nineteenth century in finding new ways to think about and to manage the growing body of available information in order to achieve aims such as the advancement of Western civilization, the alleviation of inequalities across classes and countries, and the promotion of peaceful coexistence between nations. In doing so, the contributors provide a novel historical context for assessing widely-held assumptions about today's globalized,'post modern'information society. This volume will interest all who are curious about the creation of a modern networked information society.

The book presents a broad and multi-dimensional perspective on the topic of knowledge production in and of Africa and seeks changing its post-imperial pattern. This endeavour reflects the concern that in our globalised world, Africa is misrepresented twice: by the ways knowledge about it is selected by gatekeepers of knowledge, and by deliberate suppression of knowledge on Africa. The contributions to this volume address diverse aspects of knowledge production: they examine the existing knowledge-producing frontiers in Africa; they challenge methodological and theoretical universalisms in social science scholarship on the African continent; they look into the interface between the indigenous and modern knowledge systems and the role of African epistemologies and intellectuals in the production of knowledge.

Nothing affects modern society more than the decisions made in the marketplace, especially (but not only) the judgments of consumers. Stehr's designation of a new stage in modern societies with the term'moral markets'signals a further development in the social evolution of markets. Market theories still widely in use today emerged in a society that no longer exists. Consumers were hardly in evidence at all in early theories of the market. Today, growing affluence, greater knowledge, and high-speed communication among consumers builds into the marketplace notions of fairness, solidarity, environment, health, and political considerations imbued with a long-term perspective that can disrupt short-term pursuits of the best buy. Importantly, such social goals, individual apprehensions, and modes of consumer conduct become inscribed today in products and services offered in the marketplace, as well as in the rules and regulations that govern market relations. Stehr uses examples to illustrate these trends and build new theory fitting today's changing consumerism.

As we move through our modern world, the phenomenon we call knowledge is always involved. Whether we talk of know-how, technology, innovation, politics or education, it is the concept of knowledge that ties them all together. But despite its ubiquity as a modern trope we seldom encounter knowledge in itself. How is it produced, where does it reside, and who owns it? Is knowledge always beneficial, will we know all there is to know at some point in the future, and does knowledge really equal power? This book pursues an original approach to this concept that seems to define so many aspects of modern societies. It explores the topic from a distinctly sociological perspective, and traces the many ways that knowledge is woven into the very fabric of modern society.

This book examines the development of opposed Nationalist and Unionists identities as products of different economies, symbolically represented in religious differences, that impelled conflicting cultures and ideals of best interest that were fundamentally incompatible within a single identity.

Heralding a push for higher education to adopt a more global perspective, the term'globalizing knowledge'is today a popular catchphrase among academics and their circles. The complications and consequences of this desire for greater worldliness, however, are rarely considered critically. In this groundbreaking cultural-political sociology of knowledge and change, Michael D. Kennedy rearticulates questions, approaches, and case studies to clarify intellectuals'and institutions'responsibilities in a world defined by transformation and crisis. Globalizing Knowledge introduces the stakes of globalizing knowledge before examining how intellectuals and their institutions and networks shape and are shaped by globalization and world-historical events from 2001 through the uprisings of 2011–13. But Kennedy is not only concerned with elaborating how wisdom is maintained and transmitted, he also asks how we can recognize both interconnectedness and inequalities, and possibilities for more knowledgeable change within and beyond academic circles. Subsequent chapters are devoted to issues of public engagement, the importance of recognizing difference and the local's implication in the global, and the specific ways in which knowledge, images, and symbols are shared globally. Kennedy considers numerous case studies, from historical happenings in Poland, Kosova, Ukraine, and Afghanistan, to today's energy crisis, Pussy Riot, the Occupy Movement, and beyond, to illuminate how knowledge functions and might be used to affect good in the world.

Almost everything we do is based on our knowledge of the world around us: how we dress in the morning, how we go about our work, how we interact with other people – all these things rest on our understanding of how we know life. Knowledge might be seen as the most central as well as the most under-researched trait of social life: we mainly think of knowledge as either technical (scientific knowledge) or formal (as bestowed by academic education). The things that we know are obscured in our everyday routines, not revealing their true status as'known'– until critical moments demand it. This book establishes a fundamentally social understanding of knowledge. Knowledge is re-embedded into the discussion of how we, as individuals and groups, and as a modern society produce and reproduce knowledge as the foundation of our lives. Knowledge is approached as a societal phenomenon, as we uncover the ingredients and settings in which knowledge is produced and put to use.

Konsum beschränkt sich nicht bloß auf den Verbrauch von Gütern, sondern enthält auch eine symbolische Dimension: Die Erwartungen, Bedeutungen und Botschaften, die zwischen den Instanzen der Werbung und des Konsums zirkulieren. Dabei kommt der Werbung keineswegs, wie in älteren Ansätzen, ausschließlich der aktive Part zu. Vielmehr produziert und rezipiert die Werbung gleichermaßen, wie auch die Konsumenten aktiv an der Rezeption und Produktion von Sinn beteiligt sind. So bedient sich die Werbung via Marktforschung gerade jener Sinnpartikel, wie sie von den Konsumenten ständig hergestellt werden, und umgekehrt wird die Sinnproduktion der Konsumenten insbesondere durch Kreativwerbung auf vielfältige Weise angeregt und in Gang gesetzt. Der Band schlägt ein Kreislauf-Modell vor, mit dessen Hilfe die Produktion und Rezeption von Erwartungen, Bedeutungen und Botschaften zwischen allen Instanzen dieses Feldes ohne dominante Zielrichtung beschrieben werden kann. Die einzelnen Beiträge thematisieren jeweils Ausschnitte dieses Kreislaufmodells.

This book considers the nature and possibilities of conceptual change and transformation under conditions of globalization, especially with regard to Chinese social and cultural concepts. It argues that the influence of globalization promotes the spread of West European and American social science concepts and methods at the expense of local concepts and approaches, and at the same time (paradoxically) provides opportunities for the incorporation of local concepts, including Chinese concepts, into Western or mainstream social science.

The Age of Knowledge emphasizes that the ongoing transformations of knowledge, both within universities and for society more generally, must be understood as a reflection of the larger changes in the constitutive social structures within which they are invariably produced, translated and reproduced. As the development of knowledge continues to be implicated in the habitual practices of the human social enterprise, visualizing these alterations requires the consideration of the social and materialistic contexts informing these transformations. This is necessary because the process of globalization has not only created new challenges for societies but has also unleashed a new political economy of knowledge within which different institutions must re-affirm their identity and place.

Higher education can be a vital public good, providing opportunities for students, informed citizens for democracy, and knowledge to improve the human condition. Yet public investment in universities is widely being cut, often because public purposes are neglected while private benefits dominate. In this collection, international scholars confront the realities of higher education and the future of its public and private agenda. Their perspectives illuminate the trajectory of education in the twenty-first century and the continuing importance of the university's public mission. Reporting from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America, these scholars look at the different ways universities struggle to serve public and private agendas. Contributors examine the implications of changes in funding sources as well as amounts, different administrative and policy decisions, and the significance of various approaches to assessment and evaluation. They ask whether wider student access has in fact resulted in social mobility, whether more scientific research can be treated as an open-access resource, how changes in academic publishing change access to knowledge, and whether universities get full value from research sold to private corporations. At the same time, these chapters capture the confusion in the university sector over explaining academic work to a broader public and prioritizing its multiple purposes. Authors examine these practical challenges and the implications of different approaches in different contexts.

The Sociology of Intellectual Life outlines a social theory of knowledge for the 21st century. With characteristic subtlety and verve, Steve Fuller deals directly with a world in which it is no longer taken for granted that universities and academics are the best places and people to embody the life of the mind. While Fuller defends academic privilege, he takes very seriously the historic divergences between academics and intellectuals, attending especially to the different features of knowledge production that they value. The boook′s features include: - an account of the problematic relationship between postmodernism and the university as an institution - the problems facing an academic who wishes also to function as an intellectual - a critical survey of the emerging fields of social epistemology and the sociology of philosophy - a discussion of the ethics and politics of public intellectual life, especially given its largely improvisational (or as Fuller himself terms it, ′bullshit′) character.

It has been clear for some time that research does not automatically translate into knowledge, nor does knowledge necessarily translate into wisdom. Whether the immediate challenge is global warming, epidemic disease, poverty, environmental degradation, or social fragmentation, research efforts are wasted if we cannot devise efficient and understandable processes to create and transfer knowledge to policy makers, interested groups, and communities. How to maximize the impact of scholarly research and combine it with practical knowledge already available in lay communities are key issues in a world threatened with social-ecological disasters. Making and Moving Knowledge focuses directly on how knowledge is created and transferred or is blocked and atrophies. It places knowledge generated by universities and governments beside practical knowledge from coastal aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities and looks at how different kinds of knowledge flow in different directions. Concentrating on intellectually fertile spaces at the edges of disciplines and the rich socio-ecological interfaces where land meets sea, authors demonstrate their commitment to knowledge transfer in their work, showing how knowledge transfer can be considered theoretically, methodologically, and practically.'

A new collection in the IAU Issues in Higher Education Series that deals with the major tensions between education and science. Drawing on experiences from a range of countries and regions, the book demonstrates the need to find new avenues for the management of knowledge production to ensure that it can meet increasingly global goals and demands.

Rethinking Knowledge Management: From Knowledge Objects to Knowledge Processes readdresses fundamental issues in knowledge management, leading to a new area of study: knowledge processes. These integrate research across a variety of fields, thus reasserting the fundamental insights of knowledge management in organizations and societies. Knowledge processes go far beyond traditional information acquisition and processing by stressing the importance and creative potential of human expression, communication, and learning for successful economic planning and meaningful personal and social existence. McInerney's and Day's superb authors from various disciplines offer new and exciting views on knowledge acquisition, generation, sharing and management in a post-industrial environment. Their contributions discuss problems of knowledge acquisition, handling, and learning from a variety of perspectives. Rather than the traditional notion of stores of knowledge that we hold in our mind, the view presented in this book is that of a constantly changing notion of what we know, of feelings related to that knowledge, and of a more holistic understanding of the act of knowing.

This highly original book provides an engaging and critical introduction to the knowledge economy. The knowledge economy is a potent force pervading global and national policy circles. Yet few people outside the field of economics understand its central ideas and practices. This book makes these accessible. But it does much more. It provokes'conversations'between the knowledge economy and those marginalized economies that haunt it: the risk, gift, libidinal and survival economies. These illuminate the knowledge economy's shortcomings and point to alternative possible systems of exchange and sets of values. This multi-disciplinary study takes the knowledge economy out of the hands of the economists and brings it into creative tension with the ideas of key thinkers from sociology, anthropology, philosophy and ecology. Illustrating the benefits of conversing with the ghosts of alternative economies, this provocative book will unsettle the way in which the knowledge economy is understood. Groundbreaking and globally applicable, it has been authored by internationally respected authors and its conceptual breadth pertains to a range of disciplines and gives it its wide appeal.

La société fondée sur les savoirs constitue depuis le milieu des années 1990 le programme mobilisateur de la mondialisation, l'objectif d'un développement désormais global. On dispose aujourd'hui d'une salutaire distance critique pour apprécier la consistance de ce lien entre connaissance et développement. Ces contributions, en français et en anglais, examinent différents aspects de la relation entre les deux termes, entre les concepts qu'ils sous-tendent et les pratiques qui en découlent.

The sociology of knowledge is generally seen as part of the sociology of cultural products. Along with the sociology of science, it explores the social character of science and in particular the social production of scientific knowledge. Knowledge in all its varieties is of crucial importance in social, political, and economic relations in modern society. Yet new realities, the editors argue in their introduction to this second edition, require a new perspective.In the past half century, the social role of knowledge has changed profoundly. The natural attitude toward scientific knowledge in science that assigned a special status to science's knowledge claims has lost its dominance, and the view that all knowledge is socially constructed has gained general acceptance. Science increasingly influences the political agenda in modern societies. Consequently, a new political field has emerged: knowledge politics.These fourteen essays by social scientists, philosophers, and historians cover fundamental issues, theoretical perspectives, knowledge and power, and empirical studies. Eight of the fourteen contributions were part of the first edition of Society and Knowledge, published in 1984, and most of these have been updated and revised for this new edition. Included in this edition are six new contributions by Robert K. Merton, Steve Fuller, Dick Pels, Nico Stehr, Barry Schwartz, and Michael Lynch.This second, revised edition builds on its predecessor in presenting cutting-edge theoretical and empirical efforts to transform the sociology of knowledge. Professionals, policymakers, and graduate students in the fields of sociology, political science, and social science will find this volume of interest and importance.

Social surveillance and regulation of knowledge will be one of the most important issues in the near future, one that will give rise to unending controversy. In The Governance of Knowledge, Nico Stehr predicts that such concerns will create a new political field, namely, knowledge policy, which will entail regulating dissemination of the anticipated results of rapidly increasing knowledge. The number and range of institutionalized standards for monitoring new knowledge has hitherto been relatively small. Only in cases of technological applications has social control, in the form of political regulation, so far intervened. All modern societies today have complex regulations and extensive concerns with the registration, licensing, testing, and monitoring of pharmaceutical products. The increasingly important and extensive area of intellectual property legislation and administration is an example of social control in which certain measures selectively determine the use of scientific finds and technical knowledge. The Governance of Knowledge assembles a range of essays that attempt to explore the new field of knowledge politics for the first time. It is divided into four parts: The Emergence of Knowledge Politics: Origins, Context, and Consequences; Major Social Institutions and Knowledge Politics; Case Studies on the Governance of Knowledge; and Issues in Knowledge Politics as a New Political Field. Individual chapters concern the emergence of knowledge policy, the embeddedness of such regulations in major social institutions, and offer case studies of the governance of knowledge and discuss controversial issues that are bound to accompany efforts to regulate new knowledge. Professionals and graduate students in the fields of scoiology, political science, social science, and law, including policymakers and natural scientists, will find this book extremely informative.

Although much recent social science and humanities work has been a revolt against simplification, this volume explores the contrast between simplicity and complexity to reveal that this dichotomy, itself, is too simplistic. John Law and Annemarie Mol have gathered a distinguished panel of contributors to offer—particularly within the field of science studies—approaches to a theory of complexity, and at the same time a theoretical introduction to the topic. Indeed, they examine not only ways of relating to complexity but complexity in practice.Individual essays study complexity from a variety of perspectives, addressing market behavior, medical interventions, aeronautical design, the governing of supranational states, ecology, roadbuilding, meteorology, the science of complexity itself, and the psychology of childhood trauma. Other topics include complex wholes (holism) in the sciences, moral complexity in seemingly amoral endeavors, and issues relating to the protection of African elephants. With a focus on such concepts as multiplicity, partial connections, and ebbs and flows, the collection includes narratives from Kenya, Great Britain, Papua New Guinea, the Netherlands, France, and the meetings of the European Commission, written by anthropologists, economists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and scholars of science, technology, and society.Contributors. Andrew Barry, Steven D. Brown, Michel Callon, Chunglin Kwa, John Law, Nick Lee, Annemarie Mol, Marilyn Strathern, Laurent Thévenot, Charis Thompson

Re-Thinking Science presents an account of the dynamic relationship between society and science. Despite the mounting evidence of a much closer, interactive relationship between society and science, current debate still seems to turn on the need to maintain a'line'to demarcate them. The view persists that there is a one-way communication flow from science to society - with scant attention given to the ways in which society communicates with science. The authors argue that changes in society now make such communications both more likely and more numerous, and that this is transforming science not only in its research practices and the institutions that support it but also deep in its epistemological core. To explain these changes, Nowotny, Scott and Gibbons have developed an open, dynamic framework for re-thinking science. The authors conclude that the line which formerly demarcated society from science is regularly transgressed and that the resulting closer interaction of science and society signals the emergence of a new kind of science: contextualized or context-sensitive science. The co-evolution between society and science requires a more or less complete re-thinking of the basis on which a new social contract between science and society might be constructed. In their discussion the authors present some of the elements that would comprise this new social contract.

Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) was publicly launched as a think tank in March 2011 and took up the task of following a transdisciplinary approach to the research generated within the organisation. The projects initiated by MISTRA integrate various streams of knowledge and expertise when examining complex issues such as nation formation, economic growth, social equity, adaptable science and technology, and other strategic topics related to South Africa's development as a democracy. Serving in part as an intellectual movement and in part as a research institution, activities are structured around diverse topics that require the opening up of intellectual space for strategic research and reflection specific, but not exclusive, to the African continent. A project was launched: The concept and application of transdisciplinarity in intellectual discourse and research. The intent of the study was two fold: in the first place the need for better theoretical understanding of a transdisciplinarity approach was identified as a necessity; and in the second place MISTRA intended to apply transdisciplinarity towards the opening up of an African approach - guided in part by the Afrikology principles of the late Professor Dani Nabudere. By orientation Transdisciplinarity is an approach that recognises a united and borderless intellectual terrain. It is an attempt to formulate an integrative process of knowledge production and distribution in reaction to the twentieth century narrow discipline focus and hyper-specialisation. It responds to the multi-layered challenges of diffused disciplines, interlinked socio economic problems, the impact of globalisation, the de-terretorialised nation state, technological advancements, environmental concerns, agriculture and food security and health. And it recognises that, in history, some of the most revolutionary breakthroughs in science and technology in fact happened on the margins of narrow disciplines.

The Culture and Power of Knowledg.

This volume serves as both an introduction to the field of the sociology of knowledge and an interpretation of the thought of the major figures associated with its development More than a compendium of ideas, Stark seeks here to put order into what he regarded as a diffuse tradition of diverse bodies of thought, in particular the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between the study of the political element in thought identified here with Karl Mannheim and the investigation of the social element in thinking associated with the work of Max Scheler.The sociology of knowledge is primarily directed toward the study of the precise ways that human experience, through the mediation of knowledge, takes on a conscious and communicable shape. While both schools dealt with by Stark assume that the pursuit of truth is not purposeful apart from socially and historically determined structures of meaning, the tradition extending from Marx to Mannheim seeks to expose hidden factors that turn us away from the truth while that of Weber and Scheler attempts to identify social forces that impart a definite direction to our search for itIn order to reconcile opposing theoretical positions, Stark seeks to lay the foundations for a theory of the social determination of thought by directing his inquiry to the philosophical problem of truth in a manner compatible with cultural sociology. Stark's theoretical legacy to the sociology of knowledge is that social influences operate everywhere through a group's ethos. From this, many systems of ideas and social categories emanate, revealing partial glimpses of a synthetic whole.The outcome of Stark's work is a general theory of social determination remarkably consistent with contemporary interests in the broad range of cultural studies, whose focus is best described as the use of philosophical, literary, and historical approaches to study the social construction of meaning. The Sociology of Knowledge will be of great interest to social scientists, philosophers, and intellectual historians.