From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
British sociologist
Stephen William Woolgar
(born 14 February 1950)
[1]
is a British
sociologist
. He has worked closely with
Bruno Latour
, with whom he wrote
Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts
(1979).
Education
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Stephen Woolgar holds a BA (First Class Honours) in engineering and a PhD in sociology, both at the
University of Cambridge
.
Career
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Woolgar was Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Human Sciences and director of CRICT (Centre for Research into Innovation, Culture and Technology) at
Brunel University
until 2000. He then held the Chair of Sociology and Marketing at the
University of Oxford
where he was a fellow at
Green Templeton College
. He is the former director of Science and Technology Studies within Oxford's Institute for Science, Innovation and Society. He is (2022) now retired from Oxford, and also from
Linkoping University
where he worked more briefly in the late 2010s.
[2]
Contributions
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Woolgar is a contributor in the fields of
science studies
,
sociology of scientific knowledge
(SSK) and the
science and technology studies
(STS) (especially on the topic of sociology of machines). He wrote
Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts
(1979), a
social constructionist
account of the practice of science, together with
Bruno Latour
, who he first met in California when Latour was conducting hie early ethnographic work in scientific facilities. Woolgar has subsequently adopted an even more
relativist
stance, for example in his 1988 book
Science: The Very Idea
.
[3]
Woolgar espouses a radically relativist and constructionist position. In 1985 he wrote a paper proposing a sociological approach towards machines and AI, in which he outlined the importance of associating AI with the field of sociology.
[4]
Awards
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Selected bibliography
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Books
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- Woolgar, Steve;
Latour, Bruno
(1986) [1979].
Laboratory life: the construction of scientific facts
. Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press
.
ISBN
9780691094182
.
Originally published 1979 in Los Angeles, by
SAGE Publications
- Woolgar, Steve (1993) [1988].
Science: the very idea
. London New York: Routledge.
ISBN
9780415084758
.
- Woolgar, Steve (1988).
Knowledge and reflexivity: new frontiers in the sociology of knowledge
. London: Sage.
ISBN
9780803981201
.
- Woolgar, Steve;
Fuller, Steve
; de Mey, Marc; Shinn, Terry (1989).
The cognitive turn: sociological and psychological perspectives on science
. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
ISBN
9789401578257
.
- Woolgar, Steve;
Lynch, Michael
(1990).
Representation in scientific practice
. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
MIT Press
.
ISBN
9780262620765
.
- Woolgar, Steve; Grint, Keith (1997).
The machine at work: technology, work, and organization
. Cambridge, UK Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press.
ISBN
9780745609256
.
- Woolgar, Steve (2002).
Virtual society? Technology, cyberbole, reality
. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press.
ISBN
9780191593963
.
- Woolgar, Steve;
Lynch, Michael
; Coopmans, Catelijne; Vertesi, Janet (2014).
Representation in scientific practice revisited
. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
MIT Press
.
ISBN
9780262525381
.
- Nigel Thrift, Adam Tickell, Steve Woolgar, William H. Rupp. (2014)
Globalization in Practice
. Oxford University Press.
- Annamaria Carusi, Aud Sissel Hoel, Timothy Webmoor, Steve Woolgar (eds.). (2020)
Visualization in the Age of Computerization
. Routledge.
- Steve Woolgar, Daniel Neyland (2020).
Mundane Governance: Ontology and Accountability
. Oxford University Press.
- Steve Woolgar, Else Vogel, David Moats and Claes-Fredrik Helgesson (eds. (2022)
The Imposter as Social Theory ? Thinking with Gatecrashers, Cheats and Charlatans
. Bristol University Press. ISBN 978-1529213089
Chapter in books
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- Woolgar, Steve (1992), "Some remarks about positionism: A reply to Collins and Yearley", in
Pickering, Andrew
(ed.),
Science as practice and culture
, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 327?342,
ISBN
9780226668017
.
Journal articles
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References
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External links
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Archival collections
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