Boundary Objects and Beyond Working with Leigh Star

by Bowker, Geoffrey C.; Timmermans, Stefan; Clarke, Adele E.; Balka, Ellen

• ISBN13: 9780262528085
• ISBN10: 0262528088
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2016-02-26
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

The multifaceted work of the late Susan Leigh Star is explored through a selection of her writings and essays by friends and colleagues.

Susan Leigh Star (1954–2010) was one of the most influential science studies scholars of the last several decades. In her work, Star highlighted the messy practices of discovering science, asking hard questions about the marginalizing as well as the liberating powers of science and technology. In the landmark work Sorting Things Out, Star and Geoffrey Bowker revealed the social and ethical histories that are deeply embedded in classification systems. Star's most celebrated concept was the notion of boundary objects: representational forms—things or theories—that can be shared between different communities, with each holding its own understanding of the representation.

Unfortunately, Leigh was unable to complete a work on the poetics of infrastructure that further developed the full range of her work. This volume collects articles by Star that set out some of her thinking on boundary objects, marginality, and infrastructure, together with essays by friends and colleagues from a range of disciplines—from philosophy of science to organization science—that testify to the wide-ranging influence of Star's work.

Contributors
Ellen Balka, Eevi E. Beck, Dick Boland, Geoffrey C. Bowker, Janet Ceja Alcalá, Adele E. Clarke, Les Gasser, James R. Griesemer, Gail Hornstein, John Leslie King, Cheris Kramarae, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, Karen Ruhleder, Kjeld Schmidt, Brian Cantwell Smith, Susan Leigh Star, Anselm L. Strauss, Jane Summerton, Stefan Timmermans, Helen Verran, Nina Wakeford, Jutta Weber

Author Biography

Geoffrey C. Bowker is Professor and Director of the Evoke Lab at the University of California, Irvine. He is the coauthor (with Susan Leigh Star) of Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences and the author of Memory Practices in the Sciences, both published by the MIT Press.

Stefan Timmermans is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Adele E. Clarke is Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Ellen Balka is Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University.

Geoffrey C. Bowker is Professor and Director of the Evoke Lab at the University of California, Irvine. He is the coauthor (with Susan Leigh Star) of Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences and the author of Memory Practices in the Sciences, both published by the MIT Press.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Adele E. Clarke is Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

James R. Griesemer is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Davis.

James R. Griesemer is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Davis.

Brian Cantwell Smith is Reid Hoffman Professor of Artificial Intelligence and the Human at the University of Toronto, where he is also Professor of Information, Philosophy, Cognitive Science, and the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. He is the author of On the Origin of Objects (MIT Press).

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Geoffrey C. Bowker is Professor and Director of the Evoke Lab at the University of California, Irvine. He is the coauthor (with Susan Leigh Star) of Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences and the author of Memory Practices in the Sciences, both published by the MIT Press.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Ellen Balka is Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Susan Leigh Star was Doreen Boyce Chair for Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Stefan Timmermans is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.