Beyond replicability in the humanities

Merit, Expertise and Measuremen

Understanding life together: A brief history of collaboration in biology

AbstractThe history of science shows a shift from single-investigator ‘little science’ to increasingly large, expensive, multinational, interdisciplinary and interdependent ‘big science’. In physics and allied fields this shift has been well documented, but the rise of collaboration in the life sciences and its effect on scientific work and knowledge has received little attention. Research in biology exhibits different historical trajectories and organisation of collaboration in field and laboratory – differences still visible in contemporary collaborations such as the Census of Marine Life and the Human Genome Project. We employ these case studies as strategic exemplars, supplemented with existing research on collaboration in biology, to expose the different motives, organisational forms and social dynamics underpinning contemporary large-scale collaborations in biology and their relations to historical patterns of collaboration in the life sciences. We find the interaction between research subject, research approach as well as research organisation influencing collaboration patterns and the work of scientists

Infrastructural Work in Child Welfare: incommensurable politics in the Dutch Child Index

The Dutch Child Index is a nationwide information system (IS) designed to alert professionals about each other’s involvedness with at-risk children, enabling identification of individual at-risk children, improvement of multidisciplinary collaboration and timely interventions. In this paper, we study the infrastructural work and complexities engaged in making the collaborative system of the Child Index function in real life and in care situations. We use the information infrastructure perspective as an analytical lens and describe the infrastructural work that is performed to make the Child Index become part of actual practices. We also identify flexibility, heterogeneity and the connection to existing platforms as difficulties participants have had while performing infra- structural work. The paper makes two main contributions. First, it provides an in-depth empirical analysis of this specific collaborative and preventive infrastructure. Second, based on this empirical analysis, we argue that when developing and understanding infrastructures, it is important to identify limits to the integrative capacity and disciplining power of ISs as result of conflicting infrastructural work due to incommensurable politics. perspective as an analytical lens and describe the infrastructural work that is performed to make the Child Index become part of actual practices. We also identify flexibility, heterogeneity and the connection to existing platforms as difficulties participants have had while performing infrastructural work. The paper makes two main contributions. First, it provides an in-depth empirical analysis of this specific collaborative and preventive infrastructure. Second, based on this empirical analysis, we argue that when developing and understanding infrastructures, it is important to identify limits to the integrative capacity and disciplining power of IS’s as result of conflicting infrastructural work due to incommensurable politics