Evidence in Action between Science and Society: Constructing, Validating, and Contesting Knowledge

Description

This volume is an interdisciplinary attempt to insert a broader, historically informed perspective into current political and academic debates on the issue of evidence and the reliability of scientific knowledge. The tensions between competing paradigms, different bodies of knowledge and the relative hierarchies between them are a crucial element of the historical and contemporary dynamics of scientific knowledge production. The negotiation of evidence is at the heart of this process. Starting from the premise that evidence constitutes a central, but also essentially contested concept in contemporary knowledge-based societies, this volume focuses on how evidence is generated and applied in practice―in other words, on “evidence in action.” The contributions analyze and compare different evidence practices within the field of science and technology, how they interlink with different forms of power, their interaction with and impact on the legal and political domain, and their relationship to other, more heterodox forms of evidence that challenge traditional notions of evidence. In doing so, this volume provides much-needed context and historical background to contemporary debates on the so-called “post-truth” society. Evidence in Action is the perfect resource for all those interested in the relationship between science, technology, and the role of knowledge in society. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Contributors Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Evidence in Action Follow the Evidence! What Is Evidence? Evidence in Action Tensions of Evidence Establishing, Innovating, Governing, and Contesting Evidence Evidence in the Knowledge Society Notes Part I: Establishing Evidence: The Formation of Disciplinary Cultures 2. War, Wheat, and Crop Diseases of the Late Enlightenment: Contesting and Producing Evidence in Agriculture in Great Britain Introduction Crisis Cultures of Evidence The Debate over Barberry Experimentation and Illustrating Evidence Conclusion Notes 3. Presenting Chemical Practice in Court: Forensic Toxicology in Nineteenth-Century German States Practices and Their Practitioners Self-Descriptions of Forensic Toxicologists Performing Evidence—Presenting Performance Challenging Evidence by Criticizing Practice Presenting Chemical Practice Acknowledgments Notes 4. No "Mere Accumulation of Material": Fieldwork Practices and Embedded Evidence in Early (Latin) Americanist Anthropology "Let's Go Marching on American Soil": Landmass and Mapping "A Beautiful Piece of Land, Fertile and Exuberant": Scientists and American Landscape "There Is Much to Exhume": Evidence Buried in Layers of Soil "Among the Living Peoples": The Future of Fieldwork Notes Part II: Innovating Evidence: Contemporary Technoscientific Approaches 5. Prototyping Evidence: How Artifacts Demonstrate Technological Futures Present Futures Prototypes as Epistemic Objects Prototypes as Demonstrative Evidence Public Evaluation of Prototypes Making Futures Evident Notes 6. On Top of the Hierarchy: How Guidelines Shape Systematic Reviewing in Biomedicine Certifying Biomedical Evidence Methods and Theoretical Background Results and Discussion: Invoking the Crisis Guidelines in the Making Applicability by Simplicity Dissemination by Journals Enforcement by Gatekeeping Templating Evidence in Biomedicine Notes 7. On the (Im)possibility of Identifying the Evidence Base of the Impact of Star Architecture Projects Multidisciplinary Research of Star Architecture as a Case for Complicated Practice of Evidence The Missing Explanatory Links: Current Investigations into the Impact of Star Architecture Projects on Cities The Impact Model The Impact Model in Action: The Phaeno Project in Wolfsburg Strengths and Limitations of the Impact Model Acknowledgments Notes Part III: Governing Evidence: Evidence-Based Practice and Politics 8. The Thing We Call Evidence: Toward a Situated Ontology of Evidence in Policy The Thing We Call Evidence A Scene: The Whiteboard Evidence Made in Relations Evidence Made Public Evidence Made Political Conclusion: Toward a Situated Ontology of Evidence in Policy Notes 9. "Drawing Thresholds That Make Sense": Diagrammatic Evidence and Urgency in Automatic Outbreak Detection Early Warning Systems and Automatic Outbreak Detection Aberration Detection Exchanging Operative Scripts and Visual Styles Making Alarm Signals Visible Discussion: Diagrammatic and Affective Boundary Work Diagrammatic Evidence Practices Affective Evidence Practices Sociopolitical Boundary Work Conclusion Notes 10. Producing Migration Knowledge: From Big Data to Evidence-Based Policy? Evidence and Governance in Big-Data-Based Migration Research and Policymaking Coproducing Big-Data-Based Migration Knowledge Evidence-Based Policymaking: Data Challenges Policy-Based Institution-Building: Data Hubs Policy-Based Evidence-Making: Feasibility Studies on Big Data for Migration Management Evidence for and against Migration Policy Notes Part IV: Contesting Evidence: The Politics of Heterodox Evidence 11. Fearful Narratives: Evidence Production in the Visual Rhetoric of the Historic Anti-vaccine Movement in the German States The Historic Anti-vaccine Movement and Historic Media Development Anti-vaccine Rhetoric and Public Education Media Circumstantial Evidence Accidents and Uncertainties Notes 12. The Politics of Evidence: State Secrecy, Ambiguity, and Counterforensic Practice in "Missing Persons" Cases in Pakistan State Secrecy in Modern Warfare and "Counterterrorism" Silence, Censorship, and Ambiguity: Enforced Disappearances in Pakistan Forensics and Counterforensics Files: Documentation and Documentary Remains Photographs: Frames and Counter Frames of War Evidence, Power, and Ethnography Acknowledgments Notes 13. Digital Ethnographic Art(i)Facts as Evidence: Anthropological Entanglements between Techne and Episteme Evidence and Fabrication in Anthropology Letting Go of the Truth? Digital Ethnographic Art(i)Facts as Evidence In Defense of Poetry Why Experiment at All? Acknowledgments Notes Index