Search

Transitions to sustainability require not only structural policy reforms, but a rethinking of how policy-relevant expertise is produced. Scholars of Science and Technology Studies have used the concept of boundary work to examine how governments mobilize experts to establish epistemic and political authority for public policies. Less attention has been paid to the ways in which boundary work affects the scope of policy options to advance sustainability transitions, notably in the context of sociotechnical lock-in of dominant technologies. This article analyzes French pesticide regulation on alternatives to glyphosate in agriculture to reveal the governance implications of the construction of expertise. It examines how state actors and scientific experts performed cognitive and sociopolitical boundary work to affect both the framing of government-commissioned scientific reports and the institutions and policy instruments through which the government addressed the glyphosate problem. The article analyzes the factors that shaped the development of a novel regulatory instrument which restricts the use of glyphosate based on the availability and costs of alternatives, rather than on health or environmental risks alone. This process limited the framing of glyphosate alternatives to practices considered economically and practically feasible by selected experts and excluded more systemic alternatives from policy debate and instrumentation. The adoption of this regulatory instrument reflects specific institutional contexts, power differentials between governmental ministries, and the hidden political influence of a powerful agricultural sector and agrochemical industry. This article shows how expertise design plays a key role in defining the scope of policy options and determining allocations of political power. • The construction of expertise is critical in shaping governance outcomes. • France's new glyphosate policies reflect a depoliticized, farm-level framing. • A technical framing of glyphosate closes down policy options for transformation. • Government-mandated expertise could guide knowledge production for transitions. • Mobilization of expertise for transitions must consider power dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital platforms are arguably instrumental for the Circular Economy (CE), yet they frequently fail to deliver. An increasingly popular strategy for developing digital platforms is corporate incubation, where corporations invest in startups. Prior research has nonetheless paid scant attention to the role of corporate incubation in the evolution of digital platforms over time. To shed light on this, we conducted a qualitative case study of a digital platform incubated by one of the largest construction firms in Europe in the context of corporate incubation. Building on prior research suggesting that platform growth and platform scaling are distinct but often conflated phenomena, our analysis reveals four mechanisms through which corporate incubation enables platform growth and (ii) unpacks its role in transitioning to platform scaling. Drawing on boundary work theory, we offer a model explaining how the boundary work frames of organizational actors involved in corporate incubation influence the evolution of digital platforms over time. Our study contributes to the literature on digital platforms for CE by establishing corporate incubation as a promising yet challenging strategy for achieving platform growth, by deciphering the relational and temporal dynamics that condition platform scaling, and by conceptualizing digital platforms as entities performing boundary work. • Corporate incubation can be a fruitful strategy for achieving circular economy goals through digital platforms. • We distinguish between digital platform growth and scaling. • Platform growth and scaling via corporate incubation depend on boundary work frame alignment. • We uncover distinct relational mechanisms fostering platform growth and impeding platform scaling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predator restoration is ecologically important but politically controversial. Red wolf (Canis rufus) reintroduction is challenged by public criticism and scientific uncertainty. Red wolf taxonomy is a core issue, as researchers debate wolves' identity and political stakeholders work to interpret technical issues and promote their favored political storylines. Red wolf reintroduction critics form a politically important discursive community. We analyzed these critics' discourse, identifying storylines characterizing science, scientists, and red wolf identity. Our corpus was an influential internet thread, active since 2013. We found that red wolf restoration opponents accepted the authority of science, and felt that science supported their perspective. They believed peer reviewed science to be more legitimate than applied or management science, that science supported their belief that red wolves were not a real species, and that red wolves' status as a species was an anti-scientific conspiracy. Red wolf restoration advocates on the thread countered these arguments while similarly believing in scientific authority. Restoration opponents constantly sought to promote their storylines in policy-making venues, and found the red wolf restoration program to be corrupt and the reintroduced canids themselves to be impure. These storylines parallel similar findings elsewhere, highlighting the political challenges faced by predator restoration science and policy, the issues of purity complicating many levels of the discourse, and the role of online venues as effective spaces to create and promote discursive communities and their storylines • An online venue fostered discursive storylines debating red wolf taxonomy. • Commenters accepted science's authority and felt that science was on their side. • Red wolf skeptics believed science sayid red wolves aren not real animals. • Red wolf reintroduction was seen as scientific corruption and conspiracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital twins have emerged as novel technology in the wind energy sector that enables the design, monitoring and prediction of wind turbine performance. Despite growing attention on their potential, little is known about how digital twins are designed, by whom and how their design choices affect multiple aspects of decision making in the development of wind energy. Using a framework of co-production, this paper examines digital twins as boundary objects and the role of twinning as boundary work that involves an active process of design and affects multiple aspects of decision making in the development of wind energy. Our results demonstrate how the design of digital twins evolves throughout the twinning process, affected by regulation, choices of expert twinners on data and models, and what constitutes a matter of concern. We shed light on the role of these twinners in influencing which actors and their matters of concern are included and excluded during the twinning process. Our understanding of twinning as an active process of governance by design more clearly reveals how digital twins are not objective representations of reality, but a function of boundary work. We conclude that more transparency is needed over how digital twins are designed to enhance their role as technologies that foster a transition towards more sustainable energy systems and decision-making over wind energy technologies and their integration in landscapes. • There is limited understanding of how digital twins are designed • We focus on wind energy and 'twinning' as an act of governance • We unpack twinning as boundary work and digital twins as boundary objects • Twinning involves choices about data, models, concerns and regulation • Priorities and focus in twinning may steer wind energy transitions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have often applied the concept of boundary work and its conceptual progeny to explain how science, policy, and practice collaborate to introduce change into agrifood systems. However, previous studies focused primarily on specific boundary elements (i.e., boundary spanners, boundary organizations, and boundary objects) or particular innovation processes (in terms of scope or timescale) within broad transformative change. This study aims to deepen the understanding of long-term transformative processes in agri-food systems by looking at how boundary infrastructures influenced the evolution of the Brazilian pig production system from a setting in which it mainly produced pork lard for a domestic market to a setting of being integrated in global supply chains and following international standards. Mainly, we add to the extant literature by highlighting that boundary infrastructures influenced the longterm transformative process experienced by BPPS by establishing a space where science-policy-practice interactions legitimized particular visions and values and instilled responsibility and accountability to spur various joint actions in support of innovation. We also contribute to the extant literature by showing that boundary infrastructures evolution in BPPS was incremental, long-term, multi-site, and with intertwined leverage. Boundary infrastructures provide structuration to system transformation and are also (re)structured while transitions unfold. Since boundary infrastructures have a certain directionality and may become hegemonic and exclusionary, this requires sensitiveness to the need to reorient a hegemonic boundary infrastructure or create a parallel one. Our study deepens the understanding of how coordination unfolds in long-term transformative processes, a topic deemed of interest given current debates on promoting agri-food systems transformation. We argue that better awareness of boundary infrastructures in which science-policy-practice interactions occur can help guide the direction of innovation to support sustainability transitions in agri-food systems. • An expanded boundary work view is applied to analyze changes in an agri-food system. • Boundary elements in an infrastructure are highly intertwined and complementary. • Interactions between boundary infrastructure elements play a role in long-term changes. • Boundary infrastructure evolves through a 'mutual structuration process'. • Boundary infrastructure sheds light on political dynamics and inclusion and exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the boundaries of the UK's Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (A(SP)A) are constituted, as illustrative of the rising importance of legal procedures around animal research and how these are continuously being challenged and questioned. Drawing on empirical work in animal research communities, we consider how it is decided whether activities are undertaken for an "experimental or other scientific purpose". We do this by focusing on "edge cases", where debates occur about whether to include an activity within A(SP)A's remit. We demonstrate that the boundaries of animal research regulation in the UK are products of past and present decisions, dependencies, and social relationships. Boundaries are therefore not clear-cut and fixed, but rather flexible and changing borderlands. We particularly highlight the roles of: historical precedent; the management of risk, workload, and cost; institutional and professional identities; and research design in constituting A(SP)A's edges. In doing so, we demonstrate the importance of paying attention to how, in practice, animal law requires a careful balance between adhering to legal paragraphs and allowing for discretion. This in turn has real-world implications for what and how science is done, who does it, and how animals are used in its service. • UK animal research law covers activities done for "an experimental or other scientific purpose". • Whether this criterion is met is debated at "edge cases". • Examples: medicine production, wildlife tracking, fisheries and veterinary clinical research. • Legal boundaries flexible, shaped by past/present decisions and social relationships. • Key factors: precedent, risk/workload/cost management, identity, study design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) is one method where scientific and societal actors, each with various backgrounds, collaborate to address complex problems through knowledge co-creation. Despite its widespread use, TDR still lacks a common definition and methodology which makes it challenging to define clear mechanisms for knowledge co-creation that facilitate impact. Many authors across complementary bodies of literature provide lists of principles, best practices and approaches for TDR, but in practice these are rarely applied consistently. In this conceptual paper, we fill this gap and increase methodological coherence for sustainability TDR by consolidating these bodies of literature into a list of suggested activities for scientists and practitioners across contexts to apply to enhance the impact of their work. We consolidate primary and secondary literature from the fields of TDR, sustainability, research impact, stakeholder engagement, project management, boundary work and knowledge systems with our own practical experience in sustainability TDR projects. This synthesis leads to our conceptual and analytical framework of twelve boundary work activities that enhance credible, salient and legitimate (CSL) knowledge. Our assumption is that if boundary work activities are successfully implemented across the phases of a TDR project and enhance CSL knowledge, then there will be cascading effects that support a higher likelihood of knowledge use and outcomes that lead to impactful sustainability transformations. • Boundary work activities can enhance credible, salient and legitimate knowledge. • Credible, salient and legitimate knowledge leads to impact. • Boundary work activities should be explicitly applied and funded. • Twelve boundary work activities are identified across project phases. • Applying boundary work activities has cascading effects that lead to impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We compare configurations of boundary work with actor's way of life in three case studies of innovation processes. • We find that innovation processes with egalitarians has a high level of knowledge integration. • There is a greater need for dedicated boundary workers in processes with individualist users • Our analysis suggest how we can overcome challenges for coproduction associated with certain ways of life. • The framework can inform the design and implementation of deliberate coproduction of knowledge for transformation. Although it is increasingly recognized that scientific knowledge about climate change needs to be framed and conveyed in ways that resonate with people's livelihoods to motivate societal change, these insights are often neglected in discussions about science-policy interactions. Drawing on empirical studies from Norwegian renewable primary industries, this paper presents a novel conceptual framework for culturally sensitive boundary work for climate change transformation. Our framework combines boundary work theory with cultural theory and examine the production of and engagement with knowledge in innovation and development processes in agriculture, aquaculture and fisheries from three case studies in Norway. The innovation processes are analyzed across four dimensions: degrees of knowledge integration, degrees of participation, learning and negotiation over boundaries. By combining this with an analysis of the actors' way of life according to cultural theory, we are able to compare different configurations of boundary work with ways of life. We find that in innovation processes with egalitarian users there is a high level of knowledge integration, learning and participation, while there is a greater need for dedicated boundary workers in processes with individualist users. We argue that the framework can inform the design and implementation of deliberate coproduction of knowledge for transformation among actors that adheres to different ways of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversified domains, such as workplaces, are suitable social fields for the study of ethnic identities, because identities are constructed through comparison and negation, that is, by identifying what or who the "other" is. In the present study I explore the talk of hands-on nursing care work, a stigmatized occupational field, to illuminate ethnic identities and the strategic boundary work that care workers conduct. The study is based on 14 months of field work and 51 interviews and observations at two Israeli geriatric wards with highly diverse staff. I show that actors negotiate their care worker identity by the opposite strategies of making and unmaking ethno-national boundaries. The first strategy denies and erases ethno-national boundaries by stressing universal professional values and individual virtues; the second one demarcates boundaries between ethno-national groups, using perceived cultural differences. The discussion addresses these antithetical evaluation frameworks in relation to theories of boundary making and unmaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on community-supported agriculture (CSA) has highlighted the coexistence of different models and types of CSA initiatives. However, no study has explored how diverse models and definitions of CSA are collectively established, maintained, and enforced vis-à-vis changing political, economic, social, and cultural contexts. This article addresses this gap by drawing on the concept of boundary work, developed in social movement theory, which describes the process through which a social movement defines and situates itself in time and space in relation to its context. We investigate the boundary work of CSA at the level of the national network organisations in Germany and Italy, which provide a space where boundary work occurs, that is, where protagonists and antagonists are framed and a common understanding of CSA and who should join the network is constantly negotiated. By reconstructing the narratives and key topics of boundary work in both CSA networks, we showcase how the CSA model is delineated and a collective 'we' is constructed differently across countries in relation or opposition to pre-existing movements as well as the international CSA movement. Through the lens of boundary work, we highlight the internal contestations within the networks, which are often hidden by the seeming unity depicted in social mobilisations and the networks' official communication. Moreover, this study identifies different mechanisms of boundary work, which can be grouped into three types: creating, institutionalising, and enforcing the boundary. We find that the networks are engaged, to different extents and in different forms, in these types of boundary works. Based on the two case studies, we discuss potential misalignments, the implications of choosing a narrow or broad definition for the membership, and the challenge of addressing the internal heterogeneity within CSA networks. • National CSA networks provide spaces for collectively defining the CSA model. • Pre-existing movements fundamentally shape the boundaries of CSA in a given context. • A processual perspective on boundary work reveals internal contestations within networks. • Boundary work mechanisms include creation, institutionalisation and enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global health policies direct health services to improve access and health outcomes of people who are 'hardly reached' by services. The institutionalised nature of health services with associated professional and organisational boundaries create ongoing challenges to achieving this policy aim. We present an approach to this challenge by exploring how health services can tap into the existing boundary spanning activities of community members we term as 'community connectors' who undertake valuable boundary work within the community to include people who are hardly reached. We address the research questions: what are the behaviours and characteristics of community connectors?; to what extent are they motivated to help out with health?; and how can health service personnel identify community connectors? We conducted an instrumental case study during 2017 in Victoria, Australia in the catchment area of a rural health service. Interviews with 17 key informants and eight staff members led to a further 15 interviews with community connectors. We identified the three key roles of 'noticer and responder', 'connector' and 'provider' that make connectors a valuable asset for health services. Community connectors seek opportunities to negotiate new boundaries with health services that support their boundary spanning with people hardly reached and also enable health services to transgress their own boundaries and access people who are hardly reached. We conclude that by paying attention to their own production, maintenance and transgression of boundaries, health services can apply this approach, noting that the local and iterative nature of identifying community connectors means that each cohort of community connectors will be unique as determined by local boundaries and relationships. • Community-connectors span socio-cultural boundaries in the community. • Their boundary spanning engages people hardly reached by health services. • Community connectors are a willing resource aligned with health services. • We outline how health services can identify and work with community connectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Poverty has many faces and poverty reduction many pathways in different contexts. Lack of food and income interact with lack of access to water, energy, protection from floods, voice, rights and recognition. Among the pathways by which agricultural research can increase rural prosperity, integrated natural resource management deals with a complex nexus of issues, with tradeoffs among issues that are in various stages of denial, recognition, analysis, innovation, scenario synthesis and creation of platforms for (policy) change. Rather than on a portfolio of externally developed 'solutions' ready for adoption and use, the concept of sustainable development may primarily hinge on the strengths and weaknesses of local communities to observe, analyse, innovate, connect, organize collective action and become part of wider coalitions. 'Boundary work' supporting such efforts can help resolve issues in a polycentric governance context, especially where incomplete understanding and knowledge prevent potential win-win alternatives to current lose-lose conflicts to emerge. Integrated research-development approaches deal with context ('theory of place') and options ('theory of change') in multiple ways that vary from selecting sites for studying pre-defined issues to starting from whatever issue deserves prominence in a given location of interest. A knowledge-to-action linkage typology recognizes three situations of increasing complexity. In Type I more knowledge can directly lead to action by a single decision maker; in Type II more knowledge can inform tradeoff decisions, while in Type III negotiation support of multiple knowledge + multiple decision maker settings deals with a higher level of complexity. Current impact quantification can deal with the first, is challenged in the second and inadequate in the third case, dealing with complex social-ecological systems. Impact-oriented funding may focus on Type I and miss the opportunities for the larger ultimate impact of Type II and III involvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers the first critical review of focused ethnography, an increasingly popular research method across health disciplines. Focused ethnographers, we argue, exemplify the practice of methodological boundary work, defining their method in contrast to the 'traditional' ethnographic approach of anthropology and sociology. To examine this boundary work, we collected two samples of health research articles published over the last decade and compared how focused ethnographers and medical anthropologists described, justified, and practised ethnography. We found that the core characteristics most often asserted to differentiate focused ethnography from conventional ethnography were: a more limited study timeframe and scope; a limited subpopulation sample; more concentrated research questions; the inclusion of insider researchers; and more orientation towards applied results. We show, however, that these are imagined binaries that fail to map onto actual differences of practice in the two samples and which obscure many similarities between them. By contrast, we identified four alternative differences between the two methods of ethnography. These centre on understandings of 'research time'; the very meaning of ethnography; the relationship of researchers to 'data'; and the presumed best method of social intervention. We therefore define focused ethnography as a versatile method of ethnography that attends to specific epistemological expectations within the health sciences regarding valid proof and empirical description, the boundaries of research, the nature of research relationships, and the duty to improve biomedicine. Ultimately, our study highlights that methodological boundary-work matters, because assumed differences and unexpressed misunderstandings can prevent productive dialogue and fruitful collaboration between disciplines to address pressing health problems. • Focused ethnography is an increasingly popular method in health research. • Focused ethnographers contrast their method with "traditional" ethnography. • This perpetuates imagined methodological binaries that do not reflect practice. • Unacknowledged differences do exist, reflecting deeper epistemic contrasts. • Imagined binaries prevent interdisciplinary collaborations in health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how people negotiate borders and boundaries within the home, in the context of health and the introduction of new technologies. We draw on an ethnographic study involving a socially diverse group of people, which included people with experience of telecare or smart home energy systems. Participants engaged in various strategies to regulate the borders of their home, even though new technologies have begun to change the nature of these borders. Participants managed health conditions but also their use of technology through boundary work that permitted devices to be more or less visible and integrated within the home. Findings highlight that if smart healthcare technologies are to be accepted in the home then there is a need for mechanisms that allow people to control the interpretation of data and flow of information generated about them and their households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cannabis is an increasingly sought-after remedy for US children with intractable (biomedically uncontrollable) epilepsy. However, like other complementary-alternative medicine (CAM) modalities, and particularly as a federally illegal, stigmatized substance, it is unsanctioned by mainstream medicine. Parents are largely on their own when it comes to learning about, procuring, dispensing, and monitoring treatments. Exploring how they manage is crucial to better assist them. Moreover, it can illuminate how ‘research’ done on the ground by laypeople variously disrupts and reinforces lay–expert and science–non-science divides. To those ends, in 2016, 25 Southern California parents who used, had used, or sought to use cannabis pediatrically for epilepsy/seizures were interviewed regarding their evidentiary standards, research methods, and aims when trying the drug. Parents generally described their work as experimentation; they saw their efforts as adhering to authorized scientific practices and standards, and as contributing to the authorized medical cannabis knowledge base. Findings subverted assumptions, based on an outdated stereotype of CAM, that cannabis - using parents do not believe in biomedicine. Indeed, parents' desire for their children's biomedical demarginalization, combined with biomedical dependency and a high caregiver burden, fueled a collaborative stance. Implications for understanding the boundaries of science are explored, as are norms for parent agency as ill children's care managers, radicalization among people affected by contested illnesses, and the future of ‘medical marijuana.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boundary work, defined as effort to mediate between knowledge and action, is a promising approach for facilitating knowledge co-production for sustainable development. Here, we investigate a case study of knowledge co-production, to assess the applicability of boundary work as a conceptual framework to support implementing adaptive management in the water sector. We refer to a boundary work classification recently proposed by Clark et al., (2016), based on three types of knowledge uses, i.e. enlightenment, decision-, and negotiation-support, and three types of sources, i.e. personal expertise, single, and multiple communities of expertise. Our empirical results confirm boundary work has been crucial for the three types of knowledge use. For enlightenment and decision-support, effective interaction among knowledge producers and users was achieved through diverse boundary work practices, including joint agenda setting, and sharing of data and expertise. This initial boundary work eased subsequent knowledge co-production for decision-support and negotiations, in combination with stepping up of cooperation between relevant actors, suitable legislation and pressure for problem solving. Our analysis highlighted the temporal dimension matters - building trust around enlightenment first, and then using this as a basis for managing knowledge co-production for decision-, and negotiation support. We reconfirmed that boundary work is not a single time achievement, rather is a dynamic process, and we emphasized the importance of key actors driving the process, such as water utilities. Our results provide a rich case study of how strategic boundary work can facilitate knowledge co-production for adaptive management in the water sector. The boundary work practices employed here could also be transferred to other cases. Water utilities, as intermediaries between providers and beneficiaries of the important water-related ecosystem service of clean water provision, can indeed serve as key actors for initiating such boundary work practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the organisational dynamics that arise in health promotion aimed at reducing health inequalities. The paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork among public health officers in Danish municipalities and qualitative interviews from an evaluation of health promotion programmes targeting homeless and other marginalised citizens. Analytically, we focus on ‘boundary work’, i.e. the ways in which social and symbolic boundaries are established, maintained, transgressed and negotiated, both at the administrative level and among frontline professionals. The paper discusses three types of boundary work: (i) demarcating professional domains; (ii) setting the boundaries of the task itself; and (iii) managing administrative boundaries. The main argument is that the production, maintenance and transgression of these three types of boundaries constitute central and time-consuming aspects of the practices of public health professionals, and that boundary work constitutes an important element in professional practices seeking to ‘tame a wicked problem’, such as social inequalities in health. A cross-cutting feature of the three types of boundary work is the management of the divide between health and social issues, which the professionals seemingly seek to uphold and transgress at the same time. The paper thus contributes to ongoing discussions of intersectoral action to address health inequalities. Furthermore, it extends the scope and application of the concept of boundary work in the sociology of public health by suggesting that the focus in previous research on professional demarcation be broadened in order to capture other types of boundaries that shape, and are shaped by, professional practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expression “spiritual, but not religious” (SBNR) has gained considerable traction among sociologists of religion and culture, media outlets, and the broader public in recent years. Though the expression itself has achieved wide appeal, few studies have explored what SBNRs believe about God, religion, or spirituality. This paper uses survey data from Wave IV of the Baylor Religion Survey (2014) and draws from the theory of “cultural omnivorousness” to show that SBNRs have significant sociotheological differences when compared to those who are both religious and spiritual (RAS). The expression “spiritual, but not religious” is more than a manifestation of religious deinstitutionalization or “believing without belonging.” Rather, being “spiritual, but not religious” involves sociotheological boundary work that distinguishes SBNRs from traditional monotheists. When compared to RAS respondents, SBNRs are more likely to view God as a higher power or cosmic force instead of a personal being and are more likely to adopt an individualistic ethic as opposed to finding moral authority in God or Scripture. By examining the historical context and sociotheological characteristics of SBNRs, this paper locates a boundary between SBNRs and RAS monotheists and offers theoretical reasons why SBNRs engage in sociotheological boundary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the processes of boundary work, in relation to the introduction of new technology, unfolding during the emergence of new medical practices. Inspired by Gieryn's fluid and practical view of boundaries and boundary work, and by Actor-Network Theory's description of scripting processes, we study the processes of negotiating and (re-)constructing boundaries in order to reveal both the interactions between different kinds of boundary work and their situatedness in the context of the emerging practice. We conducted a longitudinal and qualitative study of a generic Hybrid Operating Room at a Swedish university hospital, where sophisticated imaging devices are combined with open surgery procedures in a single room; consequently, medical requirements regarding radiology, surgery and anesthesia, as well as the specificities of the new technology, all need to be met at the same time. The study shows how the visibility of boundaries is a result of as well as a condition for boundary work, how boundary work is a dynamic and iterative process, and how it unfolds in a recursive relationship between practice and boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Founded in 2012, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is one of the most ambitious attempts to date to bridge the divide between scientific knowledge and indigenous and local knowledge. Doing so requires overcoming participatory, epistemological and ontological challenges, including different communicative forms, diverging criteria for knowledge validation, and conflicting views of nature. Central IPBES documents are analyzed to see how the platform deals with these challenges. While IPBES constitutes an unprecedented, innovative and ambitious institutional design for the cross-fertilization of knowledge, the results show that IPBES (i) struggles to reconcile an open, collaborative atmosphere with the demands for structure set by the scientific format, (ii) tends to shy away from potentially conflict-laden issues and disagreements, (iii) often treats scientific knowledge and indigenous or local knowledge as easily distinguishable entities, and (iv) has yet to solve the epistemological challenges of knowledge generation and validation when working across knowledge-systems. Taken together, these features seem to hinder the cross-fertilization of knowledge. The case of IPBES thus holds important lessons for future efforts to transform both knowledge production and the overall framing of challenges within global environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Watershed investments, whose main aim is to secure water for cities, represent a promising opportunity for large-scale sustainability transitions in the near future. If properly designed, they promote activities in the watershed that enhance ecosystem services while protecting nature and biodiversity, as well as achieving other societal goals. In this paper, we build on the concepts of ecosystem services and boundary work, to develop and test an operative approach for designing and assessing the impact of watershed investments. The approach is structured to facilitate negotiations among stakeholders. Its strategic component includes setting the agenda; defining investment scenarios; and assessing the performance of watershed investments as well as planning for a follow-up. Its technical component concerns data processing; tailoring spatially explicit ecosystem service models; hence their application to design a set of “investment portfolios”, generate future land use scenarios, and model impacts on selected ecosystem services. A case study illustrates how the technical component can be developed in a data scarce context in sub-Saharan Africa in a way that is functional to support the steps of the strategic component. The case study addresses soil erosion and water scarcity-related challenges affecting Asmara, a medium-sized city in Eritrea, and considers urban water security and rural poverty alleviation as two illustrative objectives, within a ten-year planning horizon. The case study results consist in spatially explicit data (investment portfolio, land use scenario, impact on ecosystem services), which were aggregated to quantitatively assess the performance of different watershed investments scenarios, in terms of changes in soil erosion control. By addressing stakeholders' concerns of credibility, saliency, and legitimacy, the approach is expected to facilitate negotiation of objectives, definition of scenarios, and assessment of alternative watershed investments, ultimately, to contribute to implementing an adaptive watershed management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically reflects on a trial process for building the capacity of researchers to influence policy-makers in the urban water sector in Australia. Framed as an action research inquiry, this study brought together multidisciplinary teams of researchers to make policy pitches to simulated panels of current and former politicians, senior bureaucrats and industry representatives. The simulations were analysed with respect to tactics for pitching, methods of communication, use of evidence and participants’ reflections on the experience. Participants effectively used scientific research evidence to support a broad vision of water sensitive cities, but were less effective in articulating risk analyses, assessing economic impacts, and proposing appropriate policy instruments to enable their proposed visions to be operationalised. Dramaturgical analysis highlighted the implications of positioning scientists versus policy-makers, which ‘typecast’ participants in roles that restricted scientists’ ability to credibly argue policy ideas. It is proposed that teams of scientists and policy-makers ‘rehearse’ together to manage expectations, develop arguments that will cut through in policy contexts, and produce ideas that shape and are shaped and improved by the policy context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governing urban green infrastructure is challenging due to the various institutions, interests and values involved in municipal planning, decision-making and management processes. Indicators of urban ecosystem services and green infrastructure may support the development of mutual understanding among municipal authorities and the creation of usable information. In this study, the application of ecosystem services (ES) indicators is approached through knowledge-brokering and boundary work theories. We apply a set of GIS-based ES indicators in a medium-sized Finnish city in a collaborative process with local civil servants in order to provide overarching information on the green infrastructure and to enhance dialogue among civil servants. We present the three phases of the indicator application process (conceptual, instrumental and reflection phases) describe the indicator-based boundary work, and identify factors affecting the process. The results highlight the importance of collaboration and active knowledge brokering in indicator applications, involving a combination of conceptual and methodological expertise on the ES approach with knowledge on local environment and relevant policy and planning issues, as well as iterative reflection throughout the indicator application process. Finally, some critical characteristics of boundary work in applying the ES indicators are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses three empirical cases of boundary organisations, within the context of the Wadden Sea: the Wadden Academy, IMSA Amsterdam and the NCEA. The research aims to provide further insights into how boundary organisations work in practice. The research shows that the role of a boundary organisation can be fulfilled by different types of organisations (not solely scientific). Depending on the science–policy interaction problem they face, a boundary organisation can have different goals and use different strategies. Furthermore, the strategic use of media outputs, and the degree of actuality and public debate can have a substantial influence on the practices of boundary organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how a requirement for regional government to coordinate adaptation planning has been interpreted and implemented. Using the theory of boundary organization applied to a multi-level context, and using four counties in Western Norway as a case, the paper develops a framework for assessing how regional level governance actors can support local level implementation of climate change adaptation through boundary work. Even though adaptation is not treated as a salient issue in most of the municipalities studied, regional level coordination efforts are creating a hybrid management space that aids mediation between local knowledge and expert adaptation knowledge. They thus hold the potential for better local level adaptation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• As rhetoricians, we are interested in the potential implications of the FDA's decision for both patient treatment and the category of "serious games," and whether this approval has been accomplished through re-classification of the game as something else (in this case, "digital therapeutics"), as well as the material-discursive processes that allow for this category creation. • Through aligning with other powerful processes and interests, "serious" games may cease to be part of the "gaming" industry at all. Given the slipperiness of language demonstrated even between "therapy" and "treatment" in documents associated with the FDA—let alone in marketing language—a habituation by association with language may already be taking place. • As we analyze the processes that make a game more than serious, we want to offer a new way to think about the material-discursive realities of games: rather than asking these games to be "serious," we ask whether we can think of these games as "caring": games as care, and games that habituate care. For some time, rhetorical games studies have been interested in the potential for serious games to materially affect and embody change in users, in social systems, and in the gaming industry itself. In this study, we use the occasion of the first videogame cleared for marketing as a medical device by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration— EndeavorRx— to examine material-discursive processes that transform a game into medicine, and that produce our ideas of "medicine," "gaming," and "seriousness." Allowing scholarship from rhetorical games studies and from the rhetoric of health and medicine to inform one another, and analyzing textual evidence from materials that produced EndeavorRx 's identity as "medicine," we argue this more-than-serious transformation habituates the public to a new market, affecting patients, institutions, and disciplinary boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boundary work has been proven effective in bridging research communities and the gap between action and policy-making in sustainable development. Applying this boundary-work framework, the manuscript examines the process of knowledge co-production and evaluates its effectiveness in supporting the negotiation process of four cases of payment for watershed services (PWS) in Indonesia. Our case studies reveal that local communities and policy-makers have a diverse range of knowledge regarding watershed functions and services. Recognizing this knowledge diversity, and combining it with scientific information, leads to (i) enlightenment, by engaging local stakeholders in more active roles for knowledge co-production thus setting realistic targets for ecosystem services’ interventions in the design of PWS schemes; (ii) decision-making support for stakeholders, by providing opportunities for collaborative learning; and (iii) effective negotiations, by providing salient and credible information. We recognize 10 different prototypes that lead to a better understanding of how payments can be channeled to enhance, or at least maintain, underlying hydrological functions. The case studies, in different landscape configurations and associated PWS prototype settings, show that knowledge interfacing and sharing towards co-producing collaborative products helps to clarify the performance-based indicators for effective PWS negotiation between potential sellers and buyers of ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability partnerships have the potential to function as boundary organizations that intertwine stakeholders from different domains of society to jointly produce knowledge linked to action. However, little is known about the practice of knowledge production in such arrangements. In this paper we develop an analytical framework, based on attributes of the nature of knowledge, the process of knowledge production, and the organization of that process, to analyze the extent to which knowledge processes in partnerships can be understood as joint knowledge production (JKP). The application of the framework to the exemplary case of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) shows that science and scientific knowledge do not necessarily play a dominant role in such a boundary organization. The analysis also shows that an abstract concept like JKP can be operationalized and used to assess characteristic of knowledge production in partnerships. This may provide leverage points to the actors involved to improve their boundary work. The framework can also be used as a dialogue instrument to open-up discussions about, and to reflect upon JKP in boundary organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A plethora of institutional forms has emerged whose remit is to link climate change science to policy-making. These can be understood as boundary arrangements where science and politics meet and intertwine; when formalized these may be referred to as boundary organizations. This article examines boundary organizations and their role in climate change governance in three EU member states: Germany (FRG), United Kingdom (UK) and the Netherlands (NL). A multi-level conceptual framework and tentative causal model steer the comparison. It demonstrates how context at the political-cultural and problem governance levels is crucial to understanding the operation and impact of boundary organizations. We find that the climate change policy issue is generally treated as a moderately structured problem with goal agreement. However, given this problem structure, ‘climate change’ is framed differently: as primarily economic (UK) or environmental (FRG) or in between (NL), and as primarily mitigation (UK, FRG) or adaptation (NL). In all countries, but in FRG and the NL more than in UK, climate change issue politics is split in two sub-arenas: one ‘environmental’ (to do with adaptation), the other ‘economic’ (to do with mitigation and/or energy transition). National boundary arrangements are more (FRG, NL) or less (UK) stable over time, between bureaucratic-cum-advocacy and technocracy-cum-learning in all three countries, depending on policy domain, policy stage and political context at the time. They in turn sit within national political-cultural spheres that we characterize as, for this policy issue, primarily corporatist (NL), personalized and meritocratic (UK), and corporatist veering towards consensual (FRG). The multilevel conceptual framework for mapping boundary arrangements and detecting causal patterns therefore serves to satisfactorily describe, compare and explain national differences in expert advice on climate change policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A theological notion of affect operates as a cultural boundary tool. • Pastoral authority is rooted in the pastors' capabilities as aesthetic workers. • The atmosphere in the Night Church is designed as a boundary quasi-object. This paper examines how a Copenhagen Night Church worked to affirm and bridge cultural boundaries by relating worship services to an incomprehensible corpo-affective experience and construing the atmosphere as a type of boundary object; an object that provides an interpretational flexibility while conserving an underlying common identity. It starts by exploring a public trial concerning the use of music in the Night Church. The trial forced the clergy to engage in boundary work in order to establish the Night Church events as worship services and not concerts. Most importantly, this included relating worship services and religion to an incomprehensible corpo-affective experience unmediated by meaning-making. This helped protect and transform pastoral authority as pastors emerged as theologically minded aesthetic workers just as it created a sense of coherence with an imagined religious past. However, if it helped establish a cultural border, it also afforded a crossing of cultural boundaries outside the context of the trial. Drawing on data generated from fieldwork in the Night Church, we explore how it helped position the Night Church atmosphere as a boundary quasi-object intended to connect a younger, more secular generation to religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to refine literature on boundary work by exploring how stakeholders in the Coral Triangle Initiative, an international agreement between six countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, are forging relations across various domains and governance levels, and the outcomes of this process. We do this in an effort to increase its relevance to multi-level environmental governance, and understand the challenges that face such governance. We are also interested in the pathways leading to policy outcomes that are perceived as salient, credible, and legitimate to all stakeholders involved in governance. The study shows that boundary work is challenged by resource inequalities resulting in limited knowledge diversity, blurred boundaries between science and politics, and misaligned scales. We conclude that boundary work has an important temporal dimension that has often been neglected, and that literature on boundary work must provide a conceptual guide to understand tradeoffs arising as a result of stakeholders’ various strategies to engage in boundary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflict in creative work is sometimes thought to emanate from the contentious personalities of creative workers. Drawing on several months of ethnographic field work at an advertising agency and semi-structured interviews with advertising professionals, I propose an alternate explanation for this antagonism, grounded in creative workers’ and their market-oriented colleagues’ competing definitions of good work. As an illustration of this larger struggle, I focus on the tension that arises during creative assessment. I find that while creative workers designate ideas as “creative” based on novelty and relevance, not all sources of novelty and relevance are considered legitimate. Sources that originate from outside their professional domain are dismissed as not novel (e.g., “overused”) or irrelevant (e.g., “constraints”). Consequently, I suggest that creative assessment can be understood as a form of professional boundary work, a conceptualization with implications for our understanding of conflict in the creative workplace and the evaluation of creativity more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Boundary work refers to the strategies deployed by professionals in the arenas of the public, the law and the workplace to define and defend jurisdictional authority. Little attention has been directed to the role of documents in negotiating professional claims. While boundary work over induced abortion has been extensively documented, few studies have examined jurisdictional disputes over the treatment of abortion complications, or post-abortion care (PAC). This study explores how medical providers deploy medical records in boundary work over the treatment of complications of spontaneous and induced abortion in Senegal, where induced abortion is prohibited under any circumstance. Findings are based on an institutional ethnography of Senegal's national PAC program over a period of 13 months between 2010 and 2011. Data collection methods included in-depth interviews with 36 health care professionals, observation of PAC services at three hospitals, a review of abortion records at each hospital, and a case review of illegal abortions prosecuted by the state. Findings show that health providers produce a particular account of the type of abortion treated through a series of practices such as the patient interview and the clinical exam. Providers obscure induced abortion in medical documents in three ways: the use of terminology that does not differentiate between induced and spontaneous abortion in PAC registers, the omission of data on the type of abortion altogether in PAC registers, and reporting the total number but not the type of abortions treated in hospital data transmitted to state health authorities. The obscuration of suspected induced abortion in the record permits providers to circumvent police inquiry at the hospital. PAC has been implemented in approximately 50 countries worldwide. This study demonstrates the need for additional research on how medical professionals negotiate conflicting medical and legal obligations in the daily practice of treating abortion complications. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] This paper uses the framework of the co-production of knowledge and social order to examine how knowledge–action systems work in the context of urban sustainable governance. [•] The paper presents and applies the knowledge–action systems analysis (KASA) approach to operationalize dynamics of co-production. [•] Existing institutional configurations and dynamics shape how knowledge is produced and used in policy-making. [•] Sustainability involves managing networks, politics of knowledge, and diverse social visions. [•] KASA can be used as a foundation to design new knowledge systems or joint-knowledge production efforts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Egg and sperm donation can create distinct issues for designating family boundaries. These issues come to the forefront as relations between donors, recipients, and donor-conceived children have been shifting from anonymous to more open arrangements in the US and other western countries. In this study, I address US organizational practices and family boundary construction. Fertility clinics, egg donation agencies, and sperm banks are central providers of US gamete donation services. Given the disruptive potential of gamete donation, how do they manage relationships between parties? Through a content analysis of materials from twenty fertility clinics, twenty egg donation agencies, and thirty-one sperm banks, I address three major strategies of organizational boundary work: 1) creating identity categories, 2) managing information, and 3) managing interaction. I ultimately argue that even as many organizations offer opportunities for connections between parties, they exercise social control over donation arrangements through bounded relationships. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There is currently a strong belief in accountability as a policy of action and standardized testing has been implemented in several countries. This article examines tensions that occur in meetings when primary school teachers in Norway discuss national testing, and how these are handled. In particular, tensions revolve around what is seen as internal (teachers' everyday work) and external (policies and practices outside the main frame of teaching). Even though national testing is mainly seen as external to teachers' work, teachers involve in boundary work and reshape professional discourse in order to create relevance and maintain legitimacy following new expectations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: With independence in 1991, Uzbekistan, as most of Central Asia, entered into a phase of socio-economic transformation. In agriculture, this state-driven restructuring of the former system has concentrated on the ‘formal’ sphere of land and water governance. This paper assesses water management in Khorezm, Uzbekistan, taking a social constructivist and boundary work-inspired perspective. Several limitations to effective water management in Khorezm exist. We argue that three types of practices are widely employed to manage these and assure water access: formal, strategic, and discursive practices. The discrepancy between the formal water management institutions, manifested and regulated through formal practices and the informal, widely pursued through strategic practices and acts of deviation, is overcome through discursive practices. Verbal references to formal institutions therefore hamper the formalizing of informal practices. The institutionalized employment of all three types of practices fosters the production and reproduction of boundaries demarcating two, largely separate, spheres of reality in Khorezm’s water management. Consequently, a high degree of resistance to the integration of informal water management realities into the formal regulatory environment prevails, preventing mutual learning and thus the locally informed restructuring towards more efficient and sustainable water management in Khorezm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Scholars stress the need to bring science and policy together for effective policy making. This paper highlights an interesting site of co-production: the second Dutch Delta Committee. Consisting of representatives of science, politics, policy and industry, this state committee advised the Dutch government on adapting to climate change in 2008. Although the committee went beyond common climate projections and advocated non-incremental policy recommendations, its report provoked little opposition. Subsequently, its recommendations shaped institutional reform and policy development in Dutch adaptive governance. Using the concept of boundary organisations, this paper opens up the black box of the advisory process to explain the Delta Committee''s functioning. We conclude that the current understanding of the effectiveness of boundary organisations tends to focus on their internal organisation. The internal processing, shaped by the deliberate composition and organisation of the committee, was indeed important for the production of useful knowledge and management of multiple boundaries. However, this was paralleled by external practices of continued interaction with a range of political, departmental, scientific and public actors in which the Committee positioned the advise. While the former mainly enabled the production of a high quality advice, the latter quested for its acceptation and legitimacy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We combine frame analysis and transition theory into a thinking tool in sustainability science and analyse three serious and persistent problems in global health subject to sustainability impasses: HIV/AIDS, malaria, and indoor air pollution. Frame analysis identifies how problems are encased by scientific understandings and captured by transition barriers: policy cooptation, techno-institutional lock-in, and knowledge trap. Transition theory locates the transition barriers on a temporal scale and a conceptual level: landscape, regime, and niches. Frame analysis reveals how problems are embedded in particular narratives while reframing stimulates alternative understandings and problem solutions. Boundary work facilitates knowledge integration across units and transition management promotes actor oriented problem resolution. The thinking tool unites critical with problem solving research and ties reframing to analytical and temporal understandings of social change. The aim is dual: to advance methodology while stimulating critical problem solving in the quest for environmental innovations, social justice and sustainability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Genomics researchers and policy makers have accused nutrigenetic testing companies—which provide DNA-based nutritional advice online—of misleading the public. The UK and USA regulation of the tests has hinged on whether they are classed as “medical” devices, and alternative regulatory categories for “lifestyle” and less-serious genetic tests have been proposed. This article presents the findings of a qualitative thematic analysis of the webpages of nine nutrigenetic testing companies. We argue that the companies, mirroring and negotiating the regulatory debates, were creating a new social space for products between medicine and consumer culture. This space was articulated through three themes: (i) how “genes” and tests were framed, (ii) how the individual was imagined vis a vis health information, and (iii) the advice and treatments offered. The themes mapped onto four frames or models for genetic testing: (i) clinical genetics, (ii) medicine, (iii) intermediate, and (iv) lifestyle. We suggest that the genomics researchers and policy makers appeared to perform what Gieryn (Gieryn, T.F. (1983). Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review, 48, 781–795.) has termed “boundary work”, i.e., to delegitimize the tests as outside proper medicine and science. Yet, they legitimated them, though in a different way, by defining them as lifestyle, and we contend that the transformation of the boundaries of science into a creation of such hybrid or compromise categories is symptomatic of current historical times. Social scientists studying medicine have referred to the emergence of “lifestyle” products. This article contributes to this literature by examining the historical, regulatory and marketing processes through which certain goods and services become defined this way. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The relationship between clinical research and clinical care is often perceived as unclear, particularly in highly technological subspecialties. This ambiguity is illustrated in cancer genetics where research protocols are frequently used to provide access to procedures that may be offered as a clinical service in other specialties. The project on which this paper is based investigated lay and expert perceptions of the activities which take place within the cancer genetics clinic. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 individuals who are involved in cancer genetics research in the UK, the majority (18 clinical geneticists, 10 genetic counsellors/nurse specialists) of whom also provide a clinical service. Interviewees emphasised the need to differentiate research from clinical care for service users, and provided regulatory, ethical, economic and translational justifications for distinguishing these activities. A number of strategies for differentiating research from clinical care were described by those who work as healthcare professionals, which involved deliberately displacing these activities in time and space. It is argued that by distinguishing research from clinical care clinical researchers are engaging in a form of boundary work which enables them to manage what they experience as a conflict of interest generated by the different roles they occupy within the cancer genetics clinic. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for the process of informed consent. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Researchers and policymakers advocate the need to establish stronger relations between schools and universities in teacher education, but we know little about micro-level practices that professionals engage in to forge connections between these domains. Analytically foregrounding hybrid educators in Norway, this article goes beyond metaphors of "building bridges" by providing nuanced accounts of how expertise is negotiated through boundary work in higher education. The analyses demonstrate how perceptions of a "hierarchy" dictate whose knowledge matters when and in what ways and show the importance of recognising expertise as differentiated and as mobilised or silenced through participation in specific professional practices. • Hybrid educators are expected to "build bridges" in teacher education. • Extensive observations and interviews conducted at three teacher education institutions in Norway. • Analyses identify negotiations of professional expertise through the lens of boundary work. • Perceptions of a "hierarchy" dictate whose knowledge matters the most. • Findings demonstrate opportunities involved in embracing differences that hybrid positions bring to the fore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Policies and management for the Wadden Sea, like for so many other nature areas, have to find a balance between important natural values on the one hand and economic functions on the other hand. Scientific experts play an important role in these processes. In the case of the Wadden Sea, scientific experts have been involved in the development of trilateral ecological targets for the Wadden Sea as well as in the implementation of these targets in the Netherlands as took place in the controversial decision making processes regarding cockle fisheries and gas mining. Drawing on concepts and insights from policy analysis and science and technology studies, this article analyses the different roles scientific experts play in these policy processes. We show how the role of science shifts from an accommodating role in policy development to a role as advocacy in controversial policy implementation processes. The article concludes with some implications for organising effective science–policy interactions in the field of nature conservation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In 2005 the European Commission launched a Thematic Strategy on air pollution for the European Union. We use an analytical framework that relates credibility, legitimacy and relevance of assessments to “boundary work” between science and policy to address the following questions: (1) how did experts, stakeholders and policy makers in the process distribute roles and tasks between them and how did they work together and (2) to what extent and in what way did this constitute credibility, legitimacy and relevance of the assessment? We conclude that the European Commission took great effort to organise a transparent assessment process based on scientific knowledge and with extensive involvement of stakeholders and Member States. Bilateral consultations, review of integrated assessment models, and transparency and documentation of integrated assessment work played an important role in enhancing credibility, legitimacy and relevance for the Member States. On the other hand, some industry groups were not satisfied with their role as stakeholders instead of experts. However the assessment established a sufficient degree of credibility, legitimacy and relevance with the majority of the actors involved to have an impact on the actual policy process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: In this paper we discuss the issues of caring and culture in practice settings and how they affect student nurses in their endeavours to learn how to be a ‘real nurse’. Drawing upon differing conceptions of ‘caring’ we discuss the notion as a pivotal factor in becoming a nurse. We examine the degree to which boundaries are changing, not least those in which students seem currently to define the bedrock of physical and emotional care as belonging to health care support workers whom they will merely supervise. Complicating this picture are developments in medical and nursing boundaries which may, or may not help to ‘professionalise’ nursing. We conclude by arguing that complex cultural norms and the negotiated order of health care need to be properly recognised by curriculum developers if, within contemporary higher education nurses are to be fit for purpose and practice. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This article approaches the concept of ecological indicators from a social science perspective. By applying theoretical concepts from policy analysis and social studies of science about knowledge utilization, problem structuring and the boundaries between science and policy to the issue of ecological indicators, we aim to contribute to our understanding not only of the development but more importantly of the actual use of ecological indicators in policy processes and the importance of political context. Our interest is in those ecological indicators that attempt to measure the ecological quality of ecosystems and that can be or are specifically developed to be used as instruments to evaluate the effects of policies on nature. We claim that these indicators, although they are highly dependent on scientific knowledge, cannot be solely science-based, due to the complexity of ecosystems and the normative aspects involved in assessing ecosystem quality. As a result, we situate ecological indicators in a fuzzy area between science and policy and between the production and the use of scientific knowledge. We will argue that ecological indicators can be expected to be used or rejected strategically, dependent on policy context. Furthermore we will argue that ecological indicators cannot be evaluated with traditional scientific quality criteria alone. The article concludes with some lessons for future indicator development one of them being the inclusion of stakeholder perspectives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This article focuses on the science–policy interaction in international negotiations in the context of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe''s Convention for Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP). It addresses the question how participants in the assessment process divide and co-ordinate work between science and policy and how this enhances credibility, legitimacy and relevance with multiple audiences. For this purpose the article combines an analytical framework to approach effectiveness of scientific assessment in policy making, with the notion of boundary work and co-production of science and policy. The article argues that knowledge produced within the CLRTAP process and the institutional setting in which this knowledge production takes place cannot be separated from each other. Furthermore credibility, legitimacy and relevance are to a large extent determined by boundary work in an early stage of the process. At the same time boundary work has to take place continuously in order keep the assessment process credible, legitimate and relevant for new audiences. The application of a combined framework for analysing credibility, legitimacy and relevance and for analysing boundary work turns out to be helpful in describing in detail what happens in practice at the science–policy interface. In particular it helps to address the question of the way participants in the assessment process divide and co-ordinate work, how this shapes design elements and how this enhances credibility legitimacy and relevance of an assessment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: LAT-relationships (from Living Apart Together), in which partners retain their own homes although they have a long-term intimate relationship, represent an increasingly acceptable choice among elderly in Sweden. LAT-relationships, unlike marriage or cohabitation, create special conditions that enable an intimate relationship to be combined with autonomy. However, this does not mean that the way in which the balance between autonomy and intimacy is achieved is given. This study examines the home as a resource for women''s boundary making, i.e. the process in which boundaries are established around their homes in order to influence their interaction with partners, friends and kin. The study is based on questionnaires to elderly Swedish men and women living in LAT-relationships (n=116) and on qualitative interviews. There is a broad variety of ways of establishing boundaries in time and space, ranging from having direct control over who has access to one''s home to more subtle time-zoning strategies, but all the women studied seem to prioritize the possibility of keeping their various social relations separate from one another. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In modern society, science is considered to have a pivotal role in defining environmental risks and problems as well as proposing relevant solutions to them. However, even political action is needed, which is not the least apparent when it comes to transboundary environmental problems. Today, there is an urgent need to create ways for science and policy to co-operate to find acceptable international solutions to transboundary environmental problems.This article focuses on the relationship between science and policy within the convention on long-range transboundary air pollution (CLRTAP). The LRTAP convention is seen as one of the most science-based regimes that exist, and is considered by researchers as well as politicians an exemplary form of co-operation between science and policy. Within this convention the concept of critical loads (CL) of ecosystem and the interactive computer model of the regional acidification information system (RAINS) have served as important tools for connecting scientific knowledge to policy-making. Through an empirical investigation, the article shows that CL and RAINS have different meanings for the involved actors, which include heterogeneous views on the boundary between science and policy. However, this has not constrained but rather enabled co-operation. Through a flexible understanding of CL and RAINS, actors from different fields have been able to find and agree upon successful solutions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Several European Commission's initiatives have been resorting to ethics in policy discourses as a way to govern and regulate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The proliferation of invocations of 'ethics', especially concerning the recent debate on (the regulation of) Artificial Intelligence (AI), can be referred to as the 'ethification' phenomenon. This article aims to elucidate the benefits and drawbacks of the ethification of ICT governance, and its effects on the articulations of law, technology and politics in democratic constitutional states. First, the article will provide a mapping to locate where the ethics work is being produced in the EU. Second, the authors will distinguish different types of ethics based on the mapping. Third, the ethification phenomenon will be analyzed through the concepts of boundary and convergence work, where we will both see that it plays the role of 'normative glue' between interests of different practices to reach a common goal, but also tracing or obfuscating boundaries to claim autonomy from the law and exclude forms of non-genuine ethics. Fourth, we inquire into the nature of ethics as a practice and the consequences of ethification for the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]