Martes 27 de junio de 2023 a las 12 horas

Sala de reuniones segundo piso. Palau Cerveró.

Seminario: « Ignorance studies: Recent trends and future avenues » Soraya Boudia (Université Paris Cité)

Ignorance as a research topic has been en vogue in sociology, philosophy, history and anthropology for over twenty years, leading to a rich body of literature. The objective of this paper is to discuss the contributions and limitations of the ignorance studies, especially in studying health and environmental risks issues. It aims to provide an account of findings from studies of ignorance from agnotology, the new political sociology of science, and the study of strategic ignorance, and to document developments in their research questions and what they excluded or left in the shadows. Based on this analysis, the paper then proposes overcoming their limitations by further pursuing some paths opened by ignorance studies and by widening the focus to renew and expand the study of ignorance, working to clarify the complex dynamics that connect ignorance, knowledge, and uncertainty in a variety of configurations. The paper will be particularly focus on the study of the situations generated by the increasing toxification of the ecosystems and bodies, and more generally the global environmental crisis that our society is facing.

Soraya Boudia  es historiadora y socióloga de la ciencia, la tecnología y el medio ambiente, profesora de sociología en la Université Paris Cité y miembro del Centre de recherche, médecine, science, santé, santé mentale, société (CERMES3, UMR 8211 CNRS-INSERM -EHESS -Universidad de la Cité de París).

Está particularmente interesada en los riesgos sanitarios, ambientales y tecnológicos, proponiendo primero una sociohistoria del riesgo y la sociedad del riesgo, después un análisis de las transformaciones de los modos de gobierno de las sustancias tóxicas. Su proyecto actual se centra en las transformaciones del conocimiento y las políticas de residuos y residuos tóxicos en la era de la Antropoceno.

Entre sus publicaciones destacan, con N. Jas, Gouverner un monde toxique (Paris, Editions Quae, 2019) te Powerless Science? The Making of the Toxic World in the Twentieth Century, New York te Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2014 (paperbook en 2016); Las mises en économie de la environnement, número especial Écologie & Politique, 52, 2016 ; con E. Henry, La mondialisation des risques. Une histoire politique te transnationale des risques sanitaires environnementaux, Rennes, Prisas Universitaires de Rennes, 2015.

Readings

Frickel, S. and Edwards, M. (2014). “Untangling Ignorance in Environmental Risk Assessment”. In: Soraya Boudia et Nathalie Jas (Eds.), Powerless science? science and politics in a toxic world. New York: Berghahn Books, 215-233.

Hess, D., “The Sociology of Ignorance and Post-Truth Politics”, Sociological Forum, 2019.

Additional bibliography

Frickel, S., Howard, J. S. Gibbon and Kempner, J. (2010). “Undone Science: Charting Social Movement and Civil Society Challenges to Research Agenda Setting”, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 35(4), 444-473.

Hess, D. (2015). “Undone Science and Social Movements. A Review and Typology”. In: Gross, M. and McGoey, L. (Eds) (2015). Routledge international handbook of ignorance studies, London, New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 141-154.

Michaels, D. (2008). Doubt is their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens your Health, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Oreskes, N., Conway, E. (2011). Merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming, New York: Bloomsbury Press.

Proctor, R. et Schiebinger, L. (2008), Agnotology: the making and unmaking of ignorance. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

DURACIÓN: 100 min