No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Institutional Ecology, `Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39
Abstract
Scientific work is heterogeneous, requiring many different actors and viewpoints. It also requires cooperation. The two create tension between divergent viewpoints and the need for generalizable findings. We present a model of how one group of actors managed this tension. It draws on the work of amateurs, professionals, administrators and others connected to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, during its early years. Extending the Latour-Callon model of interessement, two major activities are central for translating between viewpoints: standardization of methods, and the development of `boundary objects'. Boundary objects are both adaptable to different viewpoints and robust enough to maintain identity across them. We distinguish four types of boundary objects: repositories, ideal types, coincident boundaries and standardized forms.
... The objective of this paper is to gain insight from the MSP Challenge serious games as a policy support tool, particularly for enhancing learning in transboundary MSP. We conceptualize the MSP Challenge serious games as a boundary object to understand how these games are (differently) interpreted and used, because boundary objects, such as artifacts or theories, offer means to align different perspectives and interests (Star and Griesemer, 1989) and enable knowledge sharing across boundaries (Bechky, 2003;Carlile, 2004). According to Akkerman and Bakker (2011), boundary objects not only help coordinate and facilitate collaboration across boundaries, but also provide insight into whether and how practices differ from each other, viewing one's own practice from a different perspective, and jointly transforming (new) practices (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011). ...
... Boundary thinking is, therefore, powerful in the analysis of social interactions, such as in the exchange of different forms of understanding when learning. While the boundary work by (Gieryn, 1983) is generally known for its emphasis on contrasting and delineating scientific and non-scientific knowledge, Star and Griesemer (1989) focus on the ways different interpretations may converge at boundaries, using the concept of "boundary objects" (e.g. (Riesch, 2010;Stange et al., 2016)). ...
... Star and Griesemer (1989: 393) state that boundary objects "are objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites". They are representational forms-artifacts or theories-used in different ways (or interpreted differently) by different communities (Star and Griesemer, 1989), while offering a means to collaborate without necessarily coming to a consensus (Star, 2010). According to Star, a defining characteristic of boundary objects is their ability to "tack back and forth" between specific and abstract, whereby a "loosely-structured object" that is used in a multi-actor setting takes on more concrete features when examined from the specific perspective of one group (Star, 2010: 605;Stoytcheva, 2015: 4). ...
Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is a politically guided and stakeholder-driven process involving a range of actors (i.e., planners, stakeholders, scientists, and citizens). Theories of boundary objects offer a lens to understand how actors, in the context of decision and policy-making in organizations, can coordinate without consensus. This seems particularly relevant when institutions and communities are relatively young, and the body of knowledge is fragmented and fluid, such as in the case of MSP. A key question is whether, and how boundary objects can be intentionally designed and used to facilitate social and policy learning in such communities. In this research, the focus is on the use of the MSP Challenge serious games as a boundary object to facilitate learning in 'Communities of Practice' (CoP) around MSP. Data were collected through questionnaires of 62 MSP Challenge workshops between 2016 and 2020 with more than 1100 participants. Additionally, 33 interviews with key stakeholders were conducted. The findings show that the MSP Challenge is widely used for various goals and in various settings and that they are interpreted differently by different users. The success of the MSP Challenge relies on the boundary space in which it is implemented, taking into account discrepancies in learning due to variations in the backgrounds and attitudes of the participants towards the object, the activity, and the setting in which it is deployed.
... Noe forskning har undersøkt hvordan digital teknologi i form av for eksempel Eportfolier, apper og videodagbøker kan anvendes som grenseobjekter (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011;Star & Griesemer, 1989) som kan skape sammenheng mellom skole og arbeidsliv (for eksempel Berntsen & Johannesen, 2023;Cattaneo & Aprea, 2018;Kilbrink et al., 2022;Nore & Lahn, 2014). Det er få studier som har undersøkt hvordan didaktisk anvendelse av digital teknologi er brukt til å skape sammenheng mellom skoleopplaering og arbeidslivspraksis i YFF. ...
... Begrepet boundary objects (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011;Star & Griesemer, 1989), grenseobjekter på norsk, beskriver artefakter som har som funksjon å bygge bro mellom ulike praksiser. Et grenseobjekt skal fungere i hver av de ulike kontekstene, og skal derfor vaere elastisk nok til å fungere i den lokale konteksten og samtidig robust nok til å kunne vaere et bindeledd mellom kontekstene (Star & Griesemer, 1989). ...
... Begrepet boundary objects (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011;Star & Griesemer, 1989), grenseobjekter på norsk, beskriver artefakter som har som funksjon å bygge bro mellom ulike praksiser. Et grenseobjekt skal fungere i hver av de ulike kontekstene, og skal derfor vaere elastisk nok til å fungere i den lokale konteksten og samtidig robust nok til å kunne vaere et bindeledd mellom kontekstene (Star & Griesemer, 1989). I yrkesopplaeringen kan grenseobjekter vaere for eksempel refleksjonstime og temaoppgave og digitale artefakter som blogg, SJVD Vol 10, No 1 2025 e-Portfolios og videodagbøker (for eksempel Berntsen & Johannesen, 2023;Enochsson et al., 2022;Nore & Lahn, 2014). ...
Denne studien undersøker hvordan yrkesfaglærere i utdanningsprogrammet for medieproduksjon og informasjonsteknologi (IM) utnytter læringspotensialet som skapes når elevene beveger seg mellom opplæring i skole og bedrift. Ved å anvende konseptet grensekryssing (boundary crossing) analyseres hvordan yrkesfaglærerne kan utnytte ulikheter mellom læringsarenaene som en ressurs i det yrkesdidaktiske arbeidet. Studien er basert på data innhentet gjennom et sekvensielt mixed methods-design hvor en kvantitativ surveystudie blant yrkesfaglærere i utdanningsprogrammet ble etterfulgt av ti semistrukturerte intervjuer. Resultatene viser at elevenes grensekryssing skaper yrkesdidaktiske muligheter gjennom videreføring av arbeidslivspraksis i skolen. Eksempler på dette er reelle prosjekter fra næringslivet som å produsere reklamesfilmer og utvikle nettsider for navngitte bedrifter og offentlige virksomheter i skoleopplæringen, samt kontakt med bransjen som bidrar til oppdatert undervisning. Samtidig opplever lærerne betydelige utfordringer knyttet til mangel på tid og ressurser, noe som begrenser deres muligheter til å følge opp elevene. Kvaliteten på samarbeidet med bedrifter varierer, og resultatene indikerer at bedriftene ikke alltid bidrar, slik lærene ønsker, til utdanningsinnholdet. Studien peker på behov for å sikre ressurser til lærernes oppfølging av arbeidslivspraksis, utvikle mer strukturerte samarbeidssystemer samt å undersøke forskjeller mellom første og andre året i skoleopplæringen. Studien bidrar med kunnskap om betydningen av et tett samarbeid mellom skole og arbeidsliv og hvilke muligheter og utfordringer lærerne møter i det yrkesdidaktiske arbeidet med å skape sammenheng mellom læringsarenaene.
... Educational technologies can be characterized as objects that can potentially be transformative for educational practices (Fisher, 2006), affecting how education is propagated. However, education technological offerings have been noted to provide a sometimes wide gap between the state-of-the-art technological advances, their possible potential educational uses, and the 'state-of-the-actual' (Selwyn, 2010), of what technologies are used on the ground of actual practices. ...
... The aim is to present diverse ecological contexts of use and demonstrate how these influence technological practice and interactions on the ground (cf. Selwyn, 2010). Walan and Enochsson (2022) found that Swedish preschool teachers perceive various affordances and constraints of digital technologies for science activities. ...
... Educational technologies are part of transforming education today, but this is sometimes less than ideal or even fails (cf. Selwyn, 2010). This study has examined both more and less elaborate transformations from digital technologies; it is important that we can learn from these and other cases so that we understand both the drawbacks and potentials of technologies in early childhood education. ...
For decades, educational technologies have been distributed to educational arenas, more recently also including early childhood education. However, many problems stem from a less transformative first-order change in the implementation of digital technologies. This study follows the changing states of educational technologies from three case studies spanning 2015–2022, during which early childhood curricular changes occurred in Sweden. Drawing on an ecological framework, three ethnographies of technology-in-use are examined for how technological affordances affect practice, using meta-ethnography comparisons and qualitative ethnographic analysis. Results show how macro-level curricular change interplays with local rules, technological offerings, pedagogical practice, and interaction to influence how technologies are used and pedagogies are shaped. The paper discusses how local negotiations make second-order educational innovation possible considering all ecological change layers and adds how pedagogy-first and child-first models can work to drive critically informed change in early childhood educational environments.
... By boundary objects, we refer to the material and conceptual tools that support ongoing, joint work in RPPs (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011;Farrell et al., 2022). Boundary objects do not fully belong to any community, but rather, exist at the intersection of multiple communities (Star and Griesemer, 1989;Star, 2010). They have interpretative flexibility; that is, they are open-ended enough in that they can reflect multiple perspectives and be understood by multiple communities (Star and Griesemer, 1989;Star, 2010). ...
... Boundary objects do not fully belong to any community, but rather, exist at the intersection of multiple communities (Star and Griesemer, 1989;Star, 2010). They have interpretative flexibility; that is, they are open-ended enough in that they can reflect multiple perspectives and be understood by multiple communities (Star and Griesemer, 1989;Star, 2010). They can support the coordination of work even in the absence of consensus within a community and between different communities (Star, 2010). ...
... Two specific objects were mentioned more than three times as frequently as the others: the driver diagram and the mindset survey. Drawing on existing literature (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011;Star, 2010;Star and Griesemer, 1989), we then memo-ed on whether and how these objects operated as boundary objects, including if and how these objects were recognizable by multiple communities, reflected and communicated the perspectives of different communities, were used and interpreted by different communities, and coordinated work within and across different communities. We also analyzed boundary practices. ...
Introduction
Under federal policy guidelines, school districts are increasingly expected to engage with research evidence to guide their efforts around instructional improvement. This article explores how a continuous improvement research-practice partnership (CI RPP) can create opportunities for educators to learn new research-based ideas and practices.
Methods
We present a year long case study of two rural school districts engaged in a CI RPP focused on math instruction.
Results
We focus show how research-based mathematics ideas introduced by research partners were taken up by teachers, school leaders, instructional coaches, and district leaders. Then we describe how the county office of education created important opportunities for learning through a boundary infrastructure: the network of people, practices, and objects that supported the movement of ideas between research, practice, and CI communities.
Discussion
We highlight the possibilities of county offices as critical actors in CI efforts. We also highlight how the county office’s efforts to broker knowledge did not involve just overcoming or transcending boundaries but also maintaining them when they perceived external partners to be “overstepping.”
... Moreover, FBO's strong focus on monitoring placed biodiversity observation at the centre of agronomic thinking. Farmland biodiversity observation therefore became a boundary object (Star & Griesemer, 1989), adaptable to different viewpoints, but with the different interpretations still structured enough to be recognised by other players and to be a source of discussion and negotiation. Bearing an 'interpretative flexibility' (Star & Griesemer, 1989), biodiversity observation takes on different qualities depending on the context and actors, showing its 'multiplicity' and its evolution according to the appropriations. ...
... Farmland biodiversity observation therefore became a boundary object (Star & Griesemer, 1989), adaptable to different viewpoints, but with the different interpretations still structured enough to be recognised by other players and to be a source of discussion and negotiation. Bearing an 'interpretative flexibility' (Star & Griesemer, 1989), biodiversity observation takes on different qualities depending on the context and actors, showing its 'multiplicity' and its evolution according to the appropriations. For example, from local to national levels, farmland biodiversity observation can be: an irreducible experience for the farmer, providing information on their field and a source of naturalist learning; data that are more or less contextualised depending on the networks, a support for comparisons, a source of questions and frustrations; a vector of legitimacy for agricultural players, also generating discussions, negotiations and cooperation with the naturalist sector; or, finally, one piece of data among many, simplified to conform to the database that will be used for statistics. ...
As for any innovation, integrating farmland biodiversity into agricultural practices is a complex process, leading to decisions made under uncertainty, due to the difficulty of foreseeing the consequences of decisions. This uncertainty comes under many different forms, depending among others on the type of environmental innovation in agriculture, in a continuum from Efficiency/Substitution‐Based Agriculture (ESBA) to Biodiversity‐Based Agriculture (BBA). To handle this uncertainty, new knowledge production tools, some of which rely on citizen science on farms (CSOF), are developed. They aim to support decision‐making by collecting large databases but also by enabling knowledge production ‘on the field’, directly by farmers. Yet, the ability of CSOF to actually meet these challenges has little been studied. It is now necessary to understand how new biodiversity knowledge production tools are designed and used.
Using a user‐centred approach, we analysed a CSOF monitoring scheme, the Farmland Biodiversity Observatory (FBO), wherein farmers monitored biodiversity in their fields (3558 fields, from 2011 to 2023, still ongoing). As insiders in the research group, and using an exploratory approach based on 32 interviews, we observed an operational limitation of the scientific knowledge produced, which fails at producing technical recommendations to protect biodiversity locally. While this led to a difficulty to offer prescriptive practices, some participants shifted to non‐prescriptive knowledge, that is, they accepted high uncertainty and used FBO to gain knowledge and navigate through this uncertainty.
As a theoretical result, we witnessed that shifting to high uncertainty due to the complexity of ecological processes consists in accepting a leap into the unknown. Farmers must trust the action of biodiversity, making themselves ‘vulnerable’ with respect to the possible responses of the ecosystems to a change in farming practices. We identified several factors likely to favour this trust towards biodiversity.
As a practical outcome, our results show that, to work with biodiversity, farmers must move from reduction and control of uncertainty to acceptance and reliance on trust towards biodiversity. The ensuing management recommendation is to favour a clinical and contextual production of knowledge, emerging from individual experience, over a controlled, standardised and statistical production, inherited from industrialization.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
... Digital badges serve as a boundary object (Star, 1988), an idea first introduced in library and information science literature. A boundary object is a concept used in social sciences and organizational studies to describe artifacts, documents, terms, or ideas that serve as a point of reference across different social worlds or communities of practice, facilitating coordination while allowing for localized interpretations (Star and Griesemer, 1989). Boundary objects are flexible enough to adapt to different group needs while maintaining a shared identity across boundaries. ...
Project Abstract: In 2023, William Paterson University submitted an idea application to the Lyrasis Catalyst Fund. It outlined a microcredential model for professional development in the focus areas of disaster preparedness, crisis communication, response, and recovery to assist organizations in responding to crises brought on by climate change, natural disasters, and future pandemics. Lyrasis would pilot the microcredential from late May to early July 2024 on a small scale to a group of 8 participants consisting of current librarians, archivists, museum professionals, and performing arts leaders. All participants completed Lyrasis' first microcredential and earned the organization's first digital badge. The findings from the pilot study are presented in this case study.
... The overarching objective of the project was to elicit stakeholders' perceptions of the SAM indicator system, including their requirements for complementary or alternative indicators and the background information and expertise required to interpret indicator trajectories (blue framed center part in figure). The process should clarify the usefulness of the SAM indicator system and its usability as a "boundary object" (Star & Griesemer, 1989) at the national level. ...
Agriculture is central to sustainable development both from provisioning and pressure perspectives. It is hence imperative to measure its diverse outcomes, for which various global indicator systems have been developed. Yet, these come with trade‐offs, for example, between comparability among countries versus specificity to national context. This poses the question how relevant generic indicators are for national stakeholders and how specific information requirements can be integrated within a globally comparable assessment. Herein, we present the co‐evaluation of an existing system of global agricultural sustainability indicators with national stakeholders from agricultural practice, research and education, public administration, private sector, and NGOs in Austria, representing an expert community. Focusing on the relevance of the indicators and the requirements for complementary metrics, we found that particularly social themes and related indicators were highly specific to the national context, followed by economic and environmental aspects. Co‐interpretation of selected indicator trajectories showed that drivers and interactions were highly complex and may change over time, emphasizing also the importance of complementary contextual information. Yet, availability of data to measure indicators proposed by stakeholders remains a key limitation to the adaptation of the indicator system. We outline two options for improving the relevance of the global indicator system: (a) substituting less relevant indicators or (b) introducing a second tier covering regionally important aspects. To explore which of the two options is most appropriate across geographies and whether unified approaches to such a regionalization are indeed feasible, we propose to include the co‐creation of regionalized indicator frameworks in future iterations across agriculturally diverse countries.
... Indeed, the formalisation of the term commonly shared by the two disciplines, through a rigorous method understandable to all project participants, allows the establishment of a common ground between the public policy maker and the territory stakeholders. The lived territory becomes a negotiation platform or a boundary object (Star and Griesemer, 1989;Groot and Abma, 2021) in the implementation of the bottom-up logic in the space organisation. ...
Territorial inequalities in access to care and the lack of health practitioners represent one of the important challenges health systems are facing worldwide. Territorial management seems to be the discipline to address these concerns in a holistic and interdisciplinary way, specifically via the concept of lived territory. Territorial management and health geography share the same vision on the definition of the lived territory, namely a territory which is a social construction, dynamic and shaped by its users. However, territorial management lacks tools to define the lived territory, whereas the ‘relative flows’ method in health geography identifies users’ real healthcare consumption on the territory, offering an operational tool for stakeholders, including healthcare professionals and local decision makers. Focusing on the intersection of management and health geography, this study is looking to address the question: to what extent would the inter- and transdisciplinary approach enable an effective response to the difficulties of access to care in the territory?
This research is based on a case study of the French region Centre-Val de Loire. The findings of the study emphasise an added value of the inter- and transdisciplinary approach in operationalisation of territorial management discipline. The lived territory concept appears a most appropriate grid in the evaluation of inequalities in access to care and thus an effective tool to mobilise the involvement of healthcare stakeholders in a new territorial organisation centred on user needs in care.
... The niche concept can help to draw attention to the complexity and dynamicity of research settings, and provides resources for describing and explaining important phenomena. To illustrate, consider the intersections of museums, archives, amateur collectors, biologists and conservation ecologists discussed by Susan Leigh Star and James Griesemer when proposing their foundational concept of "boundary objects" (Star & Griesemer, 1989). In Star and Griesemer's retelling, a key location is the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of Berkeley, whose first director Joseph Grinnell was interested in managing biological specimens to facilitate their use for evolutionary biology and ecology. ...
Several philosophers of science have taken inspiration from biological research on niches to conceptualise scientific practice. We systematise and extend three niche-based theories of scientific practice: conceptual ecology, cognitive niche construction, and scientific niche construction. We argue that research niches are a promising conceptual tool for understanding complex and dynamic research environments, which helps to investigate relevant forms of agency and material and social interdependencies, while also highlighting their historical and dynamic nature. To illustrate this, we develop a six-point framework for conceptualising research niches . Within this framework, research niches incorporate multiple and heterogenous material, social and conceptual factors (multi-dimensionality); research outputs arise, persist and differentiate through interactions between researchers and research niches (processes); researchers actively respond to and construct research niches (agency); research niches enable certain interactions and processes and not others (capability); and research niches are defined in relation to particular entities, such as individual researchers, disciplines, or concepts (relationality), and in relation to goals, such as understanding, solving problems, intervention, or the persistence of concepts or instruments (normativity).
... Inspired by this type of valuation study (see also Helgesson and Muniesa 2013), our paper asks, "What is a good grassland?" in order to understand the greening trend observed on the Tibetan Plateau. In our case, the grassland can also be understood as a boundary object (Star and Griesemer 1989). We adopted a valuation study approach because it involves judgement and assessment. ...
The ongoing vegetational change on the Tibetan Plateau, where pastoralism has been the predominant way of life, is of regional and global importance. Although recent influential research suggests that the vegetation on the Tibetan Plateau has been greening, or improving, local yak herders in Nagchu (Tibetan Autonomous Region, China) report that their grassland has deteriorated. To understand this discrepancy, we critically analysed and contrasted remote sensing observations and ethnographic accounts within the framework of valuation studies. We argue that these seemingly contradictory observations are not mutually exclusive because the remote sensing data mainly focuses on the spatial vegetation coverage, whereas herders care about vegetation height and its nutritional quality as yak fodder. Taking into account that these two sets of data evade a direct comparison, valuation studies help to understand in what respect the underlying perspectives and observations—i.e. remote sensing and local experiences—can be understood as social activities in which assessments are made based on different criteria. Our study argues that a pluralistic way of understanding the grassland dynamics helps to understand the complexity of the changing environment.
... The scenarios that result from this work-scenarios that area watershed councils, county conservationists, farmers, and business owners have urgently asked for-can serve as boundary objects for difficult conversations about more liveable futures, where boundary objects are entities and ideas that straddle the boundaries of various communities, and force challenging and consequential conversations around common problems (Star and Griesemer 1989;Wilson and Herndl 2007). This doesn't mean that these scenarios provide easy paths forward, or even points of consensus. ...
Despite ongoing debates about its origins, the Anthropocene—a new epoch characterized by significant human impact on the Earth's geology and ecosystems—is widely acknowledged. Our environment is increasingly a product of interacting biophysical and social forces, shaped by climate change, colonial legacies, gender norms, hydrological processes, and more. Understanding these intricate interactions requires a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative, biophysical and social research.
However, mixed-methods environmental research remains rare, hindered by academic boundaries, limited training, and the challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration. Time, funding, and the integration of diverse data further complicate this research, whilst the dynamics and ethics of interdisciplinary teams add another layer of complexity.
Despite these challenges, mixed-methods research offers a more robust and ultimately transformative understanding of environmental questions. This Field Guide aims to inspire and equip researchers to undertake such studies. Organized like a recipe book, it assists researchers in the preparation of their field work, as well as offering entry points to key methods and providing examples of successful mixed-methods projects.
This book will be of interest to scholars wishing to tackle environmental research in a more holistic manner, spanning ‘sister’ disciplines such as anthropology, statistics, political science, public health, archaeology, geography, history, ecology, and Earth science.
... As artefacts that both inform, represent, and help develop models for tools and technologies, these range of models can serve a number of purposes for practitioners and designers within both the target local context, and broader practice. Thus a dual purpose of these models is that they make explicit and transparent the theory of change for (1) evidence synthesis and product evaluation; while also (2) supporting understanding of the tool and intervention between (and within) stakeholder and researcher groups, acting as a boundary object (Star & Griesemer, 1989), for shared reasoning and model improvement (Cukurova et al., 2019;Weatherby et al., 2022). ...
Across sectors, including education, there are a confluence of pressures towards integration of research and evidence into practice. These include a focus on evidence quality in practice and policy, inclusion of research and evidence evaluation in professional training, and development of implementation standards and translational resources to support evidence mobilisation. However, while current approaches to evidence synthesis support many purposes, there is a gap in approaches to identify and design for evidence-informed practice ‘from within’ those practices. That is, current approaches may not adequately reflect the ways that practices: emerge and may be seen as ‘in need of evidence’; make use of proto-theories; and give rise to a need for clear alignment (or relevance) with evidence, and designed features of intervention contexts. This narrative review draws on an instrumental case to describe a novel method for Pragmatic Evidence Synthesis Matrices (PESM). PESM emerged from a body of work, particularly in educational technology (edtech), with one instrumental case briefly described to motivate its development. PESM: draws on extant evidence synthesis approaches, particularly best fit realist synthesis; integrates design artefacts including theory of change or logic model approaches and persuasive design; and is stakeholder oriented through use of narrative scenario-based methods. Through use of approaches such as PESM, evidence synthesis and systematised approaches to their development and use may be more readily developed across domains.
In this article, the authors identify the disciplines that have taken an interest in masks over time, as well as how, in what proportions, according to what concerns, with what developments, and possibly with what effects. They ask whether the multiplicity of disciplinary perspectives is likely to lead to the emergence and sharing of new concerns, especially environmental ones, or whether the balkanization and juxtaposition of disciplines may leave certain aspects in the dark and thus contribute to the persistent production of a certain kind of ignorance. Based on a bibliometric and textometric study of more than 6000 scientific articles (1892-2023), they show the extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic has turned the study of masks upside down. It has encouraged the development of multidisciplinary and even interdisciplinary approaches, even if the legacy of almost exclusively medical sciences and engineering tends to severely limit hybridizations. The study highlights the possible emergence of a new movement of ‘scientization of the popular’, which leads scientists to incorporate the everyday concerns of ordinary citizens into the conduct of their research, thus challenging and reversing the well-known process of popularizing science.
We explore the causes and outcomes of scientific conceptual change using a case study of the development of the individualized niche concept. We outline a framework for characterizing conceptual change that distinguishes between epistemically adaptive and neutral processes and outcomes of conceptual change. We then apply this framework in tracing how the individualized niche concept arose historically out of population niche thinking and how it exhibits plurality within a contemporary biological research program. While the individualized niche concept was developed adaptively to suit new research goals and empirical findings, some of its pluralistic aspects in contemporary research may have arisen neutrally, that is for non-epistemic reasons. We suggest reasons for thinking that this plurality is unproblematic and may become useful, e.g., when it allows for the concept to be applied across differing research contexts.
Interdisciplinary teaching is increasingly adopted globally to enhance students’ competency development, but teachers face various challenges in its implementation. This qualitative study tracked a primary school for nearly 2 years, exploring the boundaries teachers encounter when implementing interdisciplinary theme-based learning and how multiple school leaders promote interdisciplinary theme-based learning implementation. Using the framework of boundary objects and boundary spanning leadership, the study found that principals act as primary boundary spanners, employing strategies such as identifying teachers’ genuine challenges and primary needs, connecting external resources, forming “vanguard teams,” restructuring school structures, building a culture of sharing and setting “hard and soft” evaluation rules. Subject leaders serve as pioneers, demonstrators, and bridges in implementing interdisciplinary theme-based learning, developing school-based interdisciplinary theme-based learning lessons, leading by example, and bridging the gap between interdisciplinary theme-based learning theory and practice. Principals and subject leaders play distinct yet complementary roles in embracing this new curriculum reform, ensuring the sustainable promotion of interdisciplinary teaching among teachers.
Following the racial reckoning of 2020, officials in local governments faced demands for police transformation and antiracist action. Yet a variety of constraints hindered their ability to fundamentally change policing. I examine how city councilors navigated this terrain through the case of a progressive city where officials made commitments to reimagine public safety, followed by reinvestments in police funding. Drawing on video footage from city budget meetings and other public materials, I analyze how state actors explained their decision‐making. I find that local officials expressed shared commitments to enhancing public safety, addressing racism, representing constituents, and making data‐driven decisions. Yet their interpretations of what each of these commitments meant varied. I argue that analyzing such concepts as political boundary objects can reveal emergent divisions among similarly situated actors, map dominant and alternative meanings, and identify salient features of the institutional environment that shape decision‐making. While the majority of city councilors drew on versions of political boundary objects that recentered policing as essential to public safety and positioned organizational diversity as a remedy to racism, a minority pointed to alternative avenues for action.
Amidst a global nursing shortage, ensuring sufficient nurses are available to care for patients is an international policy priority. High‐income countries have developed and implemented numerous models to ensure safe nurse staffing, yet evidence to recommend any single methodology remains limited. Existing research primarily evaluates nurse staffing systems by inputs and outcomes, neglecting their internal dynamics. Using qualitative case study data from England and Wales and drawing on practice perspectives and Actor Network Theory, this paper examines these socio‐material relations. Healthcare systems are complex, diverse and constantly evolving. Whilst identifying a single ‘best’ model may prove both impractical and elusive, this paper demonstrates the value of this theoretical approach for understanding the interplay of system components and the mediating effects of context. These insights can inform future research and help improve systems to meet the demands of late modernity.
Now in its third edition, this Handbook is essential for students and researchers in Strategic Management and Organizational Theory and Behaviour. The Strategy as Practice approach moves away from the disembodied and asocial study of firm assets, technologies and practices, towards the study of strategizing as an activity. Strategy is understood as something people do rather than something a firm has. This perspective explores how strategizing contributes to an organizations' daily operations at all levels. Through detailed empirical studies of the everyday activities and practice of people engaged in strategizing, the Handbook investigates who strategists are, what strategists do, how they do it, and what the consequences of their actions are. Featuring new authors and additional or fundamentally updated and revised chapters, this edition provides a state-of-the-art overview of recent reflections and works in this rapidly growing stream of strategic management, whilst also presenting a research agenda for the next decade.
Now in its third edition, this Handbook is essential for students and researchers in Strategic Management and Organizational Theory and Behaviour. The Strategy as Practice approach moves away from the disembodied and asocial study of firm assets, technologies and practices, towards the study of strategizing as an activity. Strategy is understood as something people do rather than something a firm has. This perspective explores how strategizing contributes to an organizations' daily operations at all levels. Through detailed empirical studies of the everyday activities and practice of people engaged in strategizing, the Handbook investigates who strategists are, what strategists do, how they do it, and what the consequences of their actions are. Featuring new authors and additional or fundamentally updated and revised chapters, this edition provides a state-of-the-art overview of recent reflections and works in this rapidly growing stream of strategic management, whilst also presenting a research agenda for the next decade.
Solving complex problems requires integrating knowledge and skills from various domains. The importance of cross-domain integration has motivated researchers to study integrative expertise: what knowledge and skills help achieve cross-domain integration? Much of the existing research focuses on the integrative expertise of academic researchers who perform inter- and transdisciplinary research. However, academics are not the only ones facilitating integration. In transdisciplinary research, where academics collaborate with professionals, stakeholders, and policymakers, these extra-academic actors can contribute significantly to cross-domain integration. Moreover, many complex problems are addressed entirely outside of universities. This paper contributes to a broader, more inclusive understanding of integrative expertise by drawing attention to the diversity of extra-academic integrative expertise, providing examples of what this expertise looks like in practice, and reflecting on differences with its academic counterpart. The contributions are based on a case study of integrative expertise in Oosterweel Link, a large urban development project in Antwerp, Belgium.
The contribution offers to the disciplinary debate on theories and practices of land-use planning the restitution of an ongoing research work to support the drafting of an unusual Landscape-Energy-Tourism Plan. Within this endeavor, on the one hand, the article gives an account of the review conducted on the national and international literature as well as on the few available practices, bringing out the elements present and the gaps, including conceptual ones, that need to be filled. On the other hand, starting from ongoing experimentation, the contribution focuses on first directions for an integrated and wide area plan that can offer itself as a possible reference on what planning should be practiced to better hold together landscape protection and enhancement with the necessary regulation of renewable energy facilities and the promotion of sustainable tourism development paths. In the frequent lack of adequate resources and technical expertise as well as sufficient bargaining power in the face of national or international energy managers or unscrupulous entrepreneurs who offer more than the available agricultural land is worth or produces, non-metropolitan territories have only the integrated and intermunicipal plan from their side (even though they don't know or care). While for planners is very difficult to address at the same time landscape protection and tourism development with the very strong request of land for the (sustainable) energy facilities.
Purpose
This paper explores the unanticipated performativity of an observation grid during the ideation phase of a large construction project. Performativity is conceptualized as the constitutive capacity (anticipated or not) of theory to bring the practice to life through communicational interactions between various actors.
Design/methodology/approach
The research used the action design research (ADR) methodology to design a grid to observe the facilitation of cross-disciplinary collaborative design workshops during the ideation phase. Key points in the grid’s design and data collection activities were analyzed in line with a communicative constitution of organization (CCO) conceptual framework and a process perspective.
Findings
Our findings demonstrate how an observation grid, as an other-than-human actor, gives a voice to other other-than-human actors and contributes to the performativity of two practices (research tool design and facilitation), even if the grid did not perform as originally intended. By guiding human actors to understand and resolve what was wrong, in hindsight, the grid worked as intended, even if perceived otherwise initially. Moreover, by considering the grid as a knowledge object, we show that its performativity changes through the evolution of its forms of agency.
Originality/value
While qualitative research generally perceives observation grids as data collection tools, not as actors, this study focuses on the grid itself and its performativity in the context of two practices: facilitation and research tool design. In addition, we investigate performativity using a Montreal School’s CCO framework that mobilizes knowledge objects.
In this chapter, several topics will be addressed. We first start with a short elaboration of what science is. Then, we focus on design or designing, as this is an important part of the methodology, with which new artefacts can be created. The question that then will be addressed is what design science is all about, before we elaborate design science research. The differences between the N-sciences and A-sciences, more specifically, the difference between knowledge questions and design problems, are elaborated. We also focus on two main elements of design science research: field problems and solution concepts. These solution concepts can mostly (also) serve as boundary objects. In the end, we pay attention to the intriguing question of what kind of knowledge can be ‘produced’ by using design science research. Finally, similarities and differences between action research and design science research are elaborated.
The question ‘What is design science methodology?’ is important in this chapter that will be addressed. To elaborate a field problem, which is at the start of DSM, in a rigorous way, several design science cycles are discussed. As a design science cycle consists of several steps, especially when dealing with design science, it can be necessary to go back and forth between these steps, for which the construct of iterations is discussed. Design science research knowledge, as we already discussed to some extent in Sect. 2.4.4, will be looked at more carefully, by elaborating the CAMO logic and explaining how a design science theory can become a grand theory.
Proposing a novel geological epoch, the Anthropocene, acknowledges the impact of anthropogenic change at the planetary level and suggests that the Holocene, which began approximately 11,700 years ago, has ended. This book examines how the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), a third-level subordinate body within the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), has led the debate about the Anthropocene concept among scientists and, significantly, within a wider global audience. For geoscientists, the focus has been on possible geological markers of a novel periodization in the Geological Time Scale (GTS) and the appropriate scientific methods to empirically validate a new geological epoch. However, scholars from other disciplines argue that the Anthropocene’s meaning extends beyond and differs significantly from geological markers, periodization, or time. The AWG evolved in this tension, seeking to make sense of the notion of a geological Anthropocene, drawing on various geoscientific and scholarly findings. We demonstrate how the AWG has become a focal point of a global debate that straddles the boundaries between academic disciplines and public perceptions of science.
Used clothing has long constituted a cherished consumer good and crucial source of livelihoods in Tunisia. Yet a marked deterioration in the quality of used garment imports, as well as the proliferation of homogenous fast-fashion stocks, has diminished opportunities for value retrieval. This article sets out from this qualitative decline on the markets of North Africa's largest current importer and re-exporter of used clothing to challenge framings of the global used clothing trade as a circular economy. Circularity, which is primarily premised on possibilities of reuse in the clothing value chain, has been promoted as an economically viable solution to the apparel industry's surplus production and the catastrophic environmental impact of ever-faster cycles of production, consumption and discard. However, images of illicit textile waste dumps in the Global South have exposed how the global used garment trade shifts a disposal problem to countries with weaker regulatory frameworks. This article extends such critiques of circularity by shifting attention from the dumpsite to the economic processes by which diverse actors actually enable reuse. An ethnographic study of what the article terms valuation work sheds light on the labour-intensive, material practices that enable circularity, but that are also prone to rupture or breakdown. This in turn elucidates how qualitative changes on the global used clothing market erode profit margins and devalue labour at a particular back end of the value chain. Unpacking the contingent and site-specific processes that show how the circular economy works in practice not only exposes the social and environmental injustices the framing obfuscates; it also points to alternative forms of knowledge production that might reorient critical debates about what circularity is and can be in the future.
In recent decades, there has been a shift in robotics, leaning towards soft materials, which has resulted in a new class of soft robotics. Inspired by biological structures, soft robots are machines primarily composed of synthetic materials with elastic moduli comparable to those of soft organic materials. Their lifelike, bio-inspired qualities enable them to facilitate novel types of human-robot interactions. Soft robots have gained prominence in media art installations and performances, forging a distinctive, yet underexplored field within media art. This article aims to generate knowledge in soft robotics from the perspective of media art history, a dynamic and interdisciplinary field that traces soft robot aesthetics through various (media) art historical trajectories: soft feminist sculpture, inflatables and cybernetic sculpture. The study’s findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of soft robots’ corporeal design in human-robot interaction, constructing artificial corporeality – a conceptual framework for analyzing bio-inspired machines, particularly robots. The paper investigates the origins of soft robotic media art and performance, while also placing the field within the framework of posthuman theory (e.g. the work of Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad and N. Katherine Hayles) and new materialism through the symbolic figuration of a boundary object (Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer). Consequently, it enhances our comprehension of the field’s implications for soft robotics engineering, media art, human-robot interaction and the expanding ripples in culture and society.
Despite ongoing debates about its origins, the Anthropocene—a new epoch characterized by significant human impact on the Earth's geology and ecosystems—is widely acknowledged. Our environment is increasingly a product of interacting biophysical and social forces, shaped by climate change, colonial legacies, gender norms, hydrological processes, and more. Understanding these intricate interactions requires a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative, biophysical and social research.
However, mixed-methods environmental research remains rare, hindered by academic boundaries, limited training, and the challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration. Time, funding, and the integration of diverse data further complicate this research, whilst the dynamics and ethics of interdisciplinary teams add another layer of complexity.
Despite these challenges, mixed-methods research offers a more robust and ultimately transformative understanding of environmental questions. This Field Guide aims to inspire and equip researchers to undertake such studies. Organized like a recipe book, it assists researchers in the preparation of their field work, as well as offering entry points to key methods and providing examples of successful mixed-methods projects.
This book will be of interest to scholars wishing to tackle environmental research in a more holistic manner, spanning ‘sister’ disciplines such as anthropology, statistics, political science, public health, archaeology, geography, history, ecology, and Earth science.
Technological advancements and evolving value orientations reshape future value creation and pose new requirements for service innovation. While a variety of disciplines are developing new approaches to drive service innovation, this is primarily done in isolation and generates only fragmented solutions. Sociological theory has proposed "boundary objects" as an effective umbrella for communication and cooperation among communities. Therefore, we introduce continuous value shaping (CVS) as a boundary object describing service innovation approaches along five principles. We reflect on this concept through the different disciplinary lenses of researchers in service marketing, information systems, service engineering, sociology of work, and innovation management. These perspectives highlight how the CVS principles already connect to discourses within the individual disciplines. However, the CVS concept will not only provide an umbrella to embrace existing activities in different academic disciplines. It also assists to identify research themes that will benefit from uniting the power of these disciplines, and it can serve as an integrating framework to conceptualize complex service innovation approaches. Thus, the CVS concept should guide both researchers and practitioners to develop and implement novel innovation and transformation efforts-in and across organizations.
Boundary studies in STS are concerned with the co-production and inter-construction of power between science and politics, exploring who defines, how to define, and why issues are defined and set in certain manners. This study analyzes boundary work on energy issues as a debate and negotiation between multiple interests under the STS perspective. Using social network analysis (content and discourse analysis), this study takes the New York Times’ coverage of China’s clean energy since 2007 as an example to explore the distinction and alliance between scientific knowledge and political decision-making, as well as the typical significance of the knowledge-politics debate. The study findings reveal that the boundary construction of energy issues is manifested in the shape of “interpretive communities” reached through the co-production of media, business enterprises, governments, and the public. By adjusting the visibility of problems in tandem with policy changes, citing government and enterprise sources in preference to others, and employing the discourse strategy of relevant issues, the media has shaped a discourse advantage based on the specific knowledge linkages whereas the public selectively extrapolates or reproduces the issue boundaries defined by the media, and categorizes into distinct debate frameworks aligned with their own interest orientation and empirical knowledge, reinforcing the development of salience, credibility, and legitimacy of the boundary work of the energy issue.
Economic inclusion is generally regarded as a desirable goal for historically marginalized communities, but a critical reading of this goal raises important questions: who is included and/or excluded? And what are the power relations that structure decisions about the form of inclusivity in any economic development process? In this essay, I reflect on my community‐engaged research with Just San Bernardino (Just SB), a coalition of nine community‐based and union organizations that formed in the wake of the Covid‐19 pandemic to redefine initiatives toward genuine forms of economic inclusion. This research documented long‐standing community frustrations and mismatched understandings of priorities among communities, grant‐making organizations, and governmental agencies. The research led Just SB to develop a People's Plan for an Inclusive Economy and a companion People's Dictionary to lay the groundwork for a shared understanding of key terms and their goals. Reflecting on this grassroots research process, I suggest that economic inclusion has no monolithic definition, but rather must be grounded in multiple social worldviews if we are to generate meaningful change.
Background
The study aimed to investigate how psychiatrists handle the diagnosis and treatment of depression in the adult.
Participants
Psychiatrists ( N = 17) of the French-speaking Canton of Vaud (Switzerland), working in public institutions or in private sector (cabinets), having different theoretical backgrounds depending on their training (systemic, cognitive-behavioural or psychodynamic) and different duration of clinical experiences were included in the study.
Methods
A clinical vignette presenting a young man with depressive symptoms of moderate intensity having experienced multiples losses during the development and recent past was presented to the participants. Participants were invited to read the vignette and react (“thinking aloud”), followed by an invitation to elaborate on the diagnosis and treatment.
Results
A heterogeneous approach towards the diagnosis and treatment of depression was observed. Without a consensus regarding the diagnosis of depressions, two distinct ways to understand the clinical vignette emerged: one pathogenic, identifying the underlying causes of the depressive symptoms, and the other nosological, based on diagnostic criteria. Consequently, proposition for treatment also diverged ranging from psychotherapy, psychotropic medication, complementary and alternative treatments, and paramedical approaches such as ergo- and socio-therapy, at times leaving the choice up to the patient. Possible explanations for this diversity are a more or less strict adherence to diagnostic criteria used by the psychiatrists, be they ICD or DSM, the double training as psychiatrist and psychotherapist which is mandatory in Switzerland, a certain prudence regarding psychiatric diagnoses by fear of stigmatisation, attention to the therapeutic alliance or divergent views on the theoretical and conceptual understanding of depression.
Conclusion
The results of this study underline the importance to include the epistemology of psychiatric disorders in training to raise awareness and conscientization regarding the influence of epistemological aspects on attitudes and approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of depression and other psychiatric disorders.
This paper presents an in-depth examination of the use of simulations in economic cybersecurity decision-making, highlighting the dual nature of their potential and the challenges they present. Drawing on examples from existing studies, we explore the role of simulations in generating new knowledge about probabilities and consequences in the cybersecurity domain, which is essential in understanding and managing risk and uncertainty. Additionally, we introduce the concepts of “bookkeeping” and “abstraction” within the context of simulations, discussing how they can sometimes fail and exploring the underlying reasons for their failures. This discussion leads us to suggest a framework of considerations for effectively utilizing simulations in cybersecurity. This framework is designed not as a rigid checklist but as a guide for critical thinking and evaluation, aiding users in assessing the suitability and reliability of a simulation model for a particular decision-making context. Future work should focus on applying this framework in real-world settings, continuously refining the use of simulations to ensure they remain effective and relevant in the dynamic field of cybersecurity.
Biocultural evolution has created propensities that guide, largely unconsciously, how species think and behave. Human anthropocentrism leads to a lack of recognition of the propensities shared by Homo sapiens and other species. Human narratives and values reflect these propensities even as they also affect evolution and possible pathways of (un)sustainability for social-ecological systems (SES). Signals and narratives provide information and affective communication that simplify SES complexities and guide thought and behavior. This paper presents key propensities, signals, and a narrative typology to raise conscious awareness of their roles in shaping largely unconscious human priorities that emanate from biocultural evolution and that are unsuited to modern challenges. Four dimensions of values (i.e., experiential, utilitarian, communitarian, transcendental) are also considered, and the transcendental concept of a “realm of knowledge-ends” is presented. The concept posits that because of the cumulative knowledge that they represent, biological and cultural entities ought to be afforded worth and value as “ends-in-themselves”, transcending their immediate utilities. Local-to-regional-to-global approaches are mentioned that could help strive toward this goal and improve global SES sustainability. A case study from New Zealand illustrates how four foundational elements (biocultural propensities, signals, narratives, and values) in the conceptual framework presented by this paper can be used: (a) to enhance critical reflective thinking and analyze modern natural resources and environmental situations; and (b) to create and use records of engagement and decision-making for improved participatory processes and societal engagement. Paying attention to biocultural propensities, signals, narratives, and values can improve sustainability pathways.
This paper establishes a framework and toolkit for designing Generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) that address foundational challenges of these technologies and reframe the problem‐solution space. The stakes are high for human‐centered solutions: genAI is rapidly disrupting existing markets with technologies that exhibit increasingly complex and emergent abilities, and accelerate scale, cognitive offloading, and distributed cognition. The Problem‐Solution Symbiosis framework and toolkit extends, rather than displaces, human cognition, including tools for envisioning, problem (re)framing and selection, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the alignment of stakeholder needs with the strengths of a genAI system. Applying the toolkit helps us guide the development of useful, desirable genAI by building intuition about system capabilities, developing a systemic understanding of emerging problem spaces, and using a matrix to identify if and when to offload tasks to the system. The framework is informed by systems theory, frame analysis, human‐computer interaction research on current AI design approaches, and analogous approaches from spatial computing design research.
OBJECTIVES
Despite decades of effort, programs continue to struggle to integrate competencies related quality improvement (QI) and interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP) into health professions education. Additionally, while QI and ICP may seem intuitively linked and there exists some examples of a coordinated approach, the literature regarding competencies, including knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs), is still largely focused on QI and ICP as separate fields of knowledge and practice. This study explored distinctions and connections between quality improvement (QI) and interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP) competency domains in health professions education.
METHODS
The authors used a qualitative case study approach with an instrumental case, that is, the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU), where QI and ICP were intentionally integrated as part of core curricula in health professional schools and programs. Eleven faculty members from medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and health care administration participated in interviews exploring their teaching choices in either classroom or clinical settings.
RESULTS
Study participants defined the goal of teaching QI and ICP as enabling learners to deliver safe and patient-centered care and described the knowledge and skills required for QI and the attitudes and skills required for ICP. Furthermore, they described the relationship between QI and ICP as one mediated by systems thinking, where ICP is backgrounded as a critical pre-requisite and QI is foregrounded as a vector for developing interprofessional competencies.
CONCLUSIONS
The MU case elucidates the potential synergies that occur when faculty address quality improvement and interprofessional collaborative practice competencies with an integrated approach that leverages connections, while also respecting distinctions. For health professions education programs looking to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their curricular approach to these fields, it may be fruitful to consider ICP as background and QI as foreground, remembering that without each other, ICP risks losing meaning and QI risks losing impact.
Community scientists provide essential support for understanding social-ecological systems. Here we analyze how community scientists work alongside institutions to study, manage, and protect these systems. Through interviews conducted in 2023 and 2024 in a coastal community in California, USA, we developed a conceptual framework showing how community scientists contribute to three main social-ecological processes: generating new knowledge, providing education to the community, and supporting enforcement of conservation regulations. Our analysis reveals that community scientists serve as boundary spanners, stepping in to help when government agencies and other institutions lack sufficient staff or resources. While community scientists effectively support environmental research and management by serving as additional observers in the field, their dynamic role raises important questions about relying on volunteers to fill institutional capacity gaps. These findings offer practical insights for improving how researchers and government agencies can work with community scientists to address environmental challenges in social-ecological systems.
