Reflexivity and the Sociology of Science and Technology: The Invention of Eryc the Antibiotic

Until recently, the social-technical process of invention has fallen between sociological investigation of the genesis of a new idea (an ideational phenomenon) and the production of a new technology (a material phenomenon). The advent of post-modernism and post-structuralism offered new avenues for theorising invention, accounting for, on the one hand, its material nature, and, on the other, its ideational nature, through the notion of socio-technical ensembles: phenomena constructed through the co-producing, mutually constitutive action of actants (both human and otherwise). This paper argues that despite its potential, theorising within the sociology of science and technology is hampered by insufficient attention to the role of the researcher and the concept and practice of reflexivity. Reflexive practices within this field of knowledge are explored, and drawing on an empirical case study of an antibiotic preparation, a case is made for the necessity of reflexivity in the production of knowledge about invention

Sociologies of New Zealand

Book review of: Crothers, Charles. 2018. Sociologies of New Zealand. Sociology Transformed Series. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 151 pp.ISBN 978-3-319-73866-6. Price: €53,49 &nbsp

Money and markets in Australia's healthcare system

The provision of social services in Australia has changed dramatically in recent decades. Governments have expanded social provision without expanding the public sector by directly subsidising private provision, by contracting private agencies, both non-profit and for-profit, to deliver services, and through a number of other subsidies and vouchers. Private actors receive public funds to deliver social services to citizens, raising a range of important questions about financial and democratic accountability: 'who benefits', 'who suffers' and 'who decides'. This book explores these developments through rich case studies of a diverse set of social policy domains. The case studies demonstrate a range of effects of marketisation, including the impact on the experience of consumer engagement with social service systems, on the distribution of social advantage and disadvantage, and on the democratic steering of social policy

Negotiating with the North: How Southern-tier intellectual workers deal with the global economy of knowledge

This article examines a group of intellectual workers who occupy a peripheral but not powerless position in the global economy of knowledge. How do they handle relations with the global metropole, especially in new fields of research where established hierarchies are in question? Three new domains of knowledge - climate change, HIV/AIDS and gender studies - are studied through interviews with 70 active researchers in Southern-tier countries Brazil, South Africa and Australia. A pattern of extraversion, involving active adoption of paradigms from the metropole, is widespread and institutionally supported. Major alternative knowledge formations have not emerged in these domains. However contestations of more specific kinds are frequent. Paradigms are adapted, criticism is offered, activism is engaged, capacities are developed and allegiances sometimes changed. The valorization of local knowledge, which goes beyond the abstractions of universalized paradigms, is particularly significant. Not stark subordination, but a complex collective negotiation characterizes the response of intellectual workers in the Southern tier.Australian Research Council, DP13010348

Healthcare in the news media: The privileging of private over public

This article reports on a discourse analysis of the representation of healthcare in the print news media, and the way this representation shapes perspectives of healthcare. We analysed news items from six major Australian newspapers over a three-year time period. We show how various framing devices promote ideas about a crisis in the current public healthcare system, the existence of a precarious balance between the public and private health sectors, and the benefits of private healthcare. We employ Bourdieu’s concepts of field and capital to demonstrate the processes through which these devices are employed to conceal the power relations operating in the healthcare sector, to obscure the identity of those who gain the most from the expansion of private sector medicine, and to indirectly increase health inequalities

Comparative optimism about infection and recovery from COVID‐19; Implications for adherence with lockdown advice

Background Comparative optimism, the belief that negative events are more likely to happen to others rather than to oneself, is well established in health risk research. It is unknown, however, whether comparative optimism also permeates people’s health expectations and potentially behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objectives Data were collected through an international survey (N = 6485) exploring people’s thoughts and psychosocial behaviours relating to COVID‐19. This paper reports UK data on comparative optimism. In particular, we examine the belief that negative events surrounding risk and recovery from COVID-19 are perceived as more likely to happen to others rather than to oneself. Methods Using online snowball sampling through social media, anonymous UK survey data were collected from N = 645 adults during weeks 5-8 of the UK COVID-19 lockdown. The sample was normally distributed in terms of age and reflected the UK ethnic and disability profile. Findings Respondents demonstrated comparative optimism where they believed that as compared to others of the same age and gender, they were unlikely to experience a range of controllable (eg accidentally infect/ be infected) and uncontrollable (eg need hospitalization/ intensive care treatment if infected) COVID-19-related risks in the short term (P < .001). They were comparatively pessimistic (ie thinking they were more at risk than others for developing COVID-19-related infection or symptoms) when thinking about the next year. Discussion This is one of the first ever studies to report compelling comparative biases in UK adults’ thinking about COVID-19

Medical Dominance in the Australian Health System: The Case of the Bionic Ear

The material for this paper is based on approximately 60 face-to-face interviews with specialist doctors, consumers, administrators, policy makers, various officials, researchers and company representatives. It is a case study of the development of the Australian Bionic Ear (or cochlear implant prosthesis) providing an analysis of the key social relationships within medicine - between doctors, scientists, consumers, government officials, industry representatives and others - which shape the development and implementation of new medical technologies

Medical Dominance in the Australian Health System: The Case of the Bionic Ear

The material for this paper is based on approximately 60 face-to-face interviews with specialist doctors, consumers, administrators, policy makers, various officials, researchers and company representatives. It is a case study of the development of the Australian Bionic Ear (or cochlear implant prosthesis) providing an analysis of the key social relationships within medicine - between doctors, scientists, consumers, government officials, industry representatives and others - which shape the development and implementation of new medical technologies

On The Differences Between The Sciences: Comparing Knowledge(s) of Health and Disease in the 19th Century

This paper begins with Max Weber’s proposition that the difference between the ‘sciences’ (defined in the broadest sense) is one of values, context and theoretical orientation rather than subject matter. This proposition arises from Weber’s theories of knowledge and of history, theories which can be usefully applied to the way historians theorise the past and the processes of social change. In this paper I argue that Weber’s insights into the difference between the ‘sciences’, despite being formed nearly a century ago, rest on a theory of knowledge and history of continuing relevance, and which offers a more coherent and compelling form of historiography. The historiography in question concerns the emergence of the biomedical model of health and disease, and of the rise of ‘medicine’ in the course of 19th century Europe and Britain. While Weber’s theoretical framework does not answer the questions posed by present-day scholars about specific historical events, it provides insight into the process through which such histories are ‘constructed’, explains why many of these attempts at understanding history are inadequate, and offers the means to more coherently conceptualise the role of medical knowledge in historical change

the Sociology of Health and Medicine in australia Sociología de la medicina y de la salud en Australia

&lt;p&gt;This paper offers an analysis of the development and institutionalisation of the sociology of health and medicine in Australia. As a former British colony, sociology was primarily brought into the country with its British and European migrants, and developed in a series of six discrete stages: the formative years of the Colonial period and early decades after Federation; the period of inter-disciplinarity and collaboration in the 1950s and early 60s; a stage of intensification and organisation from the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s; the years of institutional growth and specialisation in the 1980s; a decade of both consolidation and fragmentation during the 1990s; and, in the first ten years of the new century, a time of internationalisation. The evidence suggests the formation and growth of the sociology of health and medicine has closely followed the developmental trajectory of the parent discipline, but unlike the latter, has more permeable disciplinary boundaries.&lt;/p&gt;<br>&lt;p&gt;Este artículo ofrece un análisis del desarrollo y de la institucionalización de la sociología de la salud en Australia. Como una antigua colonia británica, la sociología fue inicialmente introducida al país a través de inmigrantes británicos y europeos, desarrollándose siguiendo cinco diferentes estadios: los &lt;em&gt;años de formación &lt;/em&gt;del período colonial y primeras décadas después de la Federación; el &lt;em&gt;período de interdisciplinariedad y colaboración &lt;/em&gt;en la década de 1950 y comienzos de la década de 1960; el estado &lt;em&gt;de intensificación y organización &lt;/em&gt;desde finales de la década de 1960 y a lo largo de la década de 1979; los años de &lt;em&gt;crecimiento institucional y especialización &lt;/em&gt;en la década de 1980; una década de tanto &lt;em&gt;consolidación como de fragmentación &lt;/em&gt;a lo largo de la década de 1990; y, en los primeros años del nuevo siglo, un periodo de &lt;em&gt;internacionalización&lt;/em&gt;. Las evidencias sugieren que tanto la formación como el crecimiento de la sociología de la medicina y la salud han estado estrechamente relacionados con el propio desarrollo de la disciplina pero, a diferencia de esta última, sus límites han sido más permeables a otras disciplinas.&lt;/p&gt