Sociology in a Transdisciplinary Context

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Sociology in a Transdisciplinary Context

• Harald Rohracher
• Inter-University Research Centre for Technology,
  Work and Culture (IFZ), Graz

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Summary of the argument

• Current situation
• Our societies are currently in a process of
  transformation
• New challenges for science and its role in
  society (problem-orientation, transdisciplinarity)
  
• What is the possible role of social sciences in
  this new context?
• Hypothesis
• Sociology could play an increasing role as a
  meta-disciplinary research field contributing to
  reflexivity and communicative rationality in
  other research areas

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Socio-economic transformations

• We are currently facing profound changes in our
  societies
• Broader socio-economic transformations
  globalisation, individualisation, neo-liberalism
  risk society (Beck 1986), network society
  (Castells 1996), flexible capitalism (Sennett
  1998), knowledge society
• Changing role of the nation state (politics and
  power Baumann) role of large corporations
• Intensification of individualisation, the
  transformation of gender roles, the breakdown of
  the full employment society and the perception of
  a global ecological crisis (Beck et al. 2003)
• New themes
• globalisation, governance, civil society,
  non-governmental organisations, networking,
  knowledge-driven economy, environmental change,
  temporality and spatiality

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Increasing complexity and interdependence

• Blurring boundaries of formerly separated
  functional sub-systems of society
  economy-society, science-society,
  politics-economy
• Increasing societal complexity and uncertainty
  requires new ways of thinking as well as new
  types of governance
• Science plays an integral role in identifying and
  dealing with these new problems and challenges
  (risks, climate change etc.)
• Science-society Collective experiments (Latour)
• BSE with farmers, consumers etc. as
  co-researchers laboratory extended to whole
  planet
• Patient organisations ecological activism
• Hybrid Forums (representing things of nature as
  well as people in society)
• Culture of research which is more populist,
  pluralistic and open (Latour)

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Break-down of disciplinary problem solving

• Science and society have become transgressive
  arenas, co-mingling and subject to the same
  co-evolutionary trends (Nowotny)
• Mode 2 research
• Knowledge produced in context of application
• Transdisciplinarity
• Heterogeneity and organisational diversity
  (sites)
• Social accountability and reflexivity
• Problem solving requires negotiation, involvement
  of stakeholders etc.
• Mode 2 society either as knowledge society
  (modes of production) or as risk society (those
  who are affected)

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Transdisciplinarity

• Focuses on complex problems which can be
  approached in terms of categories of more
  disciplines
• Awareness of ontological as well as epistemic
  limits of disciplines
• Tackles complexity in science and challenges
  knowledge fragmentation
• Problems defined from complex and heterogeneous
  domains
• Hybrid nature, non-linear, reflexive
• Accepts local contexts and uncertainty
• Implies intercommunicative action
• Often action-oriented

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Sociology as a meta-discipline

• Sociology has more than other disciplines always
  reflected on the shakiness of its disciplinary
  basis (no clear relationship to a profession, no
  constitutive abstraction to rely on)
• Offers an institutional location for the
  reflection on questions that otherwise might not
  find a place in the competition of disciplines
• Sociology has always partly been an effort to
  overcome intellectual fragmentation
• Joas dialogical turn
• Presence of a plurality of orientations and
  approaches as an opportunity for productive
  intellectual dialogue
• Levine Intellectual debates of present take
  place in subdisciplinary specialties,
  transdisciplinary forays, and supradisciplinary
  syntheses

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Dual role of sociology

• Sociology could play a crucial role in this new
  context of problem-oriented science, broader
  involvement of stakeholders and the public,
  transdisciplinarity
• On the one hand disciplinary core still
  important methods, history, epistemology,
  paradigmatic issues
• Beyond this core discipline broad field of
  interdisciplinary engagement with other research
  fields
• European Research Advisory Board
• strategic importance of integrating
  socio-economic dimension into thematic programmes
  of EU research
• Workshop Bridges between Social Sciences and
  other Thematic Priorities The challenge of
  interdisciplinarity
• Similar intentions and experiences in national
  programmes, e.g. Austrian RTD programmes on
  Sustainable development, Biotechnology

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STS as part of RTD programmes

• Inseparability of the social and the
  technical facilitates integration of
  sociological investigations (for example into
  user attitudes or institutional barriers to the
  adoption of certain technologies) with
  technological development and design tasks
• STS may directly contribute to technological
  design (e.g. user attitudes organisation of
  participative processes)
• Instrumental, procedural
• STS may help embed technological projects into
  wider transition strategies (focusing on
  socio-technical regimes, governance issues,
  embedding in wider social context e.g. social
  exclusion)
• Contextual
• STS may thus lead to a more reflexive approach of
  programme participants with respect to
  technological change and the basis of their
  actions and strategies
• Reflexive

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Sociology as part of thematic programmes

• Potential problems
• Reference to socio-economic dimension often in
  rather symbolic terms (as often in former EU FPs)
• Often very instrumental view of sociological
  contributions (e.g. measuring acceptance social
  planning approach)
• Social sciences still have to find their place
  within this new trans-/interdisciplinary context
• Conceptual work needed about integration of
  social sciences into thematic, problem-oriented
  research
• More lobbying-work within science policy and
  research administration