Abstract

SOSIUK, Ezequiel  and  MARTIN-VALDEZ, Emiliano. Thinking Epistemologies from the Field. Trilogía. Cienc. Tecnol. Soc. [online]. 2021, vol.13, n.25, e202.  Epub July 14, 2021. ISSN 2145-7778.  https://doi.org/10.22430/21457778.1767.

Pestre once argued that laboratory studies had produced an irreversible epistemological break in the way science was studied and conceived. This article expands that idea to consider epistemological problems found in a knowledge-production scenario that has been historically degraded: the field. Based on historical, sociological, and anthropological studies, this paper discusses how field sciences can make epistemological debates more complex and richer. Hence, it proposes three epistemological dimensions of these fields of knowledge in order to connect them to problems that are relevant to (a) the philosophy of science and (b) science, technology and society studies. First, it was found that doing science in the field means contextualizing the objects of knowledge because fieldwork implies operating on a terrain that has not been designed to be investigated. Second, field scientists produce and mobilize knowledge in order to control and organize their workplace. Third, experimental practices take on differential characteristics in the field. These three specific dimensions of field sciences represent a contribution to the ultimate development of contextualized epistemologies.

Keywords : Laboratory studies; field sciences; localized epistemology.

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