Orders and their others: On the constitution of universalities in medical work

Configurations

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 31-61

  Berg, Marc ^a  

^a BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0037992630     PISSN: 10631801     EISSN: 10806520     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/con.2000.0001     Document Type: Article

References (147)

1. For examples of such discourses in medicine see D. M. Eddy The Challenge Journal of the American Medical Association 263 (1990): 287-290;
2. David L. Sackett and William M. C. Rosenberg The Need for Evidence-Based Medicine Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 88 (1995): 620-624.
3. Joseph O'Connell Metrology: The Creation of Universality by the Circulation of Particulars Social Studies of Science 23 (1993): 129-173.
4. Ibid. p. 165.
5. See Bruno Latour Aramis or the Love of Technology (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press 1996):
6. G. Bowker Science on the Run: Information Management and Industrial Geophysics at Schhimberger 1920-1940 (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press 1994).
7. Wiebe E. Bijker Of Bicycles Bakelites and Bulbs: Towards a Theory of Socioteclmical Change (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press 1995);
8. H. M. Collins Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice (London: Sage 1985).
9. Bruno Latour Science in Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1987);
10. Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other Social Studies of Science 14 (1984): 399-441.
11. See e.g. Michel Gallon The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle in Mapping the Dummies of Science and Technology éd. Michel Gallon John Law and Arie Rip (London: Macmillan 1986) pp. 19-34;
12. Bruno Latour Give Me a Laboratory and 1 lVill Raise the World in Science Observed ed. Karin D. Knorr-Cetina and Michael Mulkay (Beverly Hills: Sage 1983) pp. 141-170.
13. See e.g. the studies in W. E. Bijker T. P. Hughes and T. J. Pinch eds.. The Social Construction of Technological Systems: Nelv Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press 1987).
14. For such critiques (often raised by those largely sympathetic to the theoretical enterprises scrutinized) see e.g. Nick Lee and Steve Brown Otherness and the ActorNetwork: The Undiscovered Continent American Behavioral Scientist 37 (1994): 772-790;
15. Annemarie Mol and John Law Regions Networks and Fluids: Anaemia and Social Topology Sodal Studies of Science 24 (1994): 641-671;
16. John Law and John Hassard eds.. Actor Nehvork Theory and After (Oxford: Blackwell 1999);
17. Mike Lynch and Kathleen Jordan Instructed Actions in of and as Molecular Biology Human Studies 18 (1995): 227-244;
18. Nicolas Dodier Les hommes et les machines (Paris: Métailié 1995);
19. Donna Haraway A Game of Cat's Cradle: Science Studies Feminist Theory Cultural Studies Configurations 2 (1994): 59-71;
20. Leigh Star Power Technologies and the Phenomenology of Conventions: On Being Allergic to Onions in A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power Technology and Domination ed. John Law (London: Routledge 1991) pp. 26-56.
21. See e.g. Mary Jacobus Evelyn Fox Keller and Sally Shuttleworth eds. Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science (New York: Routledge 1990);
22. Joseph Rouse What Are Cultural Studies of Scientific Knowledge? Configurations 1 (1993): 1-22;
23. Isabelle Baszanger Deciphering Chronic Pain Sociology of Health and Illness 14 (1992): 181-215;
24. Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison The Image of Objectivity Representations 40 (1992): 81-129;
25. Lisa M. Mitchell and Alberto Cambrosio The Invisible Topography of Power: Electromagnetic Fields Bodies and the Environment Social Studies of Science 27 (1997): 221-273;
26. Marc Berg and Annemarie Mol eds. Differences in Medicine: Unraveling Practices Techniques and Bodies (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press 1998).
27. Donna J. Haraway Simians Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge 1991);
28. Susan Leigh Star ed. Ecologies of Knowledge: Work and Politics in Science and Technology (New York: State University of New York Press 1995).
29. lan Hacking 'Style' for Historians and Philosophers Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 23 (1992): 1-20;
30. Karin Knorr-Cetina The Care of the Self and Blind Variation: The Disunity between Two Leading Sciences in The Disunity of Science: Boundaries Contexts and Power ed. Peter Galison and David J Stump (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1996) pp. 287-310.
31. For a study in the medical domain that builds upon Hacking's work see J. Fujimura and D. Y. Chou Dissent in Science: Styles of Scientific Practice and the Controversy over the Cause of AIDS Social Science and Medicine 38 (1994): 1017-1036.
32. CPR-ECC Standards for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiac Care Journal of the American Medical Association 227 (1973): 836-868.
33. For this history see e.g. Paul N. Edwards Tlie Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press 1996);
34. Philip Mirowski When Games Grow Deadly Serious: The Military Influence on the Evolution of Game Theory in Toward a History of Game Theory ed. E. R. Weintraub (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press 1992) pp. 227-255.
35. Marc Berg Rationalizing Medical Work: Decision Support Techniques and Medical Practices (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press 1997);
36. M. Ashmore M. Mulkay and T. Pinch Health and Efficiency: A Sociology of Health Economics (Milton Keynes: Open University Press 1989).
37. Personal communication. The anonymous referees have pointed out that as a philosophical theme this claim is not original: Kuhnjs anomalies for one were disorder only in the light of a specific paradigm. Likewise Bruno Latour would argue that this claim lies at the philosophical roots of his theorizing: Order he says in his lireauctions is extracted not from disorder but from orders (Bruno Latour The Pasteurization of France [Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press 1988] p. 161).
38. The argument however has not been very prominent in recent empirical STS work. Resetting the classical debates on art versus science for example some studies have indeed argued that the former should not be seen as a primitive situation that is prior to and threatened by the latter: see e.g. Alberto Cambrosio and Peter Keating 'Going Monoclonal': Art Science and Magic in the Day-to-Day Use of Hybridoma Technology Social Problems 35 (1988): 244-260;
39. Warwick Anderson The Reasoning of the Strongest: The Polemics of Skill and Science in Medical Diagnosis Social Studies of Science 22 (1992): 653-684. Our claim however is different in that we focus on how what counts as wild is coproduced with the emergence of the order and how different sciences thus invoke different coexisting arts.
40. Michel Serres Rome: The Book of Foundations (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1991).
41. B. Latour A Relativistic Account of Einstein's Relativity Social Studies of Science 18 (1988): 3-44.
42. Haraway Game of Cat's Cradle (above n. 8) p. 70; Star Power (above n. 8).
43. Lee and Brown Otherness (above n. 8) p. 781.
44. Bruno Latour On Recalling ANT in Law and Hassard Actor Nehvork Theory and After (above n. 8) pp. 15-25 p. 20.
45. Mol and Law Regions Networks and Fluid(above n. 8);
46. Adrian Cussins Norms Networks and Trails paper presented at the conference AflerANT: Second Annual Conference CSTT Keele July 1997.
47. These terms have been put into circulation through the writings of Marilyn Strathem (Partial Connections [Lanham Md.: Rowman and Littlefield 1991]) and
48. Donna Haraway (Simians Cyborgs and Women [above n. 10]).
49. Vicky Singleton and Mike Michael Actor-Networks and Ambivalence: General Practitioners in the UK Cervical Screening Programme Social Studies of Science 23 (1993); 227-264;
50. Stefan Timmermans and Marc Berg Standardization in Action: Achieving Universalism and Localization in Medical Protocols ibid. 27 (1997): 273-305.
51. Leigh Star's notion of boundary object could be argued to contain the same message: Susan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer Institutional Ecology 'Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology 1907-39 ibid. 19 (1989): 387-420.
52. Madeleine Akrich The De-scription of Technical Objects in Shaping TechnologyBuilding Society: Studies in Socioteclmical Change ed. Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press 1992) pp. 205-224.
53. Mark Seltzer Bodies and Machines (London: Routledge 1992).
54. Stefan Timmermans Sudden Death and the Myth ofCPR (Philadelphia: Temple University Press 1999).
55. R. O. Cummins et al. Recommended Guidelines for Uniform Reporting of Data from Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: The Utstein Style Circulation 84 (1991): 960-973.
56. Alvan R. Feinstein Clinical Biostatistics XXXIX. The Haze of Bayes the Aerial Palaces of Decision Analysis and the Computerized Ouija Board Clinical Pharmacology and Tlierapeutics 21 (1977): 482-496 p. 482.
57. A. R. Feinstein An Analysis of Diagnostic Reasoning. III. The Construction of Clinical Algorithms Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 47 (1974): 5-32 p. 6.
58. There are many variations on this theme. Cost-efficiency analysis where costs are compared rather than utilities is a potent actor in current health policy domains. Sometimes benefits are included in the form of QALYs (Quality Adjusted Life Years); see e.g. Ashmore Mulkay and Pinch Health and Efficiency (above n. 14). In the case of individualized clinical decision analysis the utilities can be derived from the in-
59. L. J. Savage The Foundations of Statistics 2d rev. ed. (New York: Dover 1972).
60. See also Eddy Challenge (above n. 1);
61. M. C. Weinstein et al. Clinical Decision Analysis (Philadelphia: Saunders 1980).
62. P. Safar Closed Chest Cardiac Massage Anesthesia and Analgesia 40 (1961): 609-613.
63. See e.g. Feinstein Clinical Biostatistics (above n. 28).
64. See W. H. Montgomery et al. Citizen Response to Cardiopulmonary Emergencies Annals of Emergency Medicine 22 (1993): 428-435.
65. Feinstein Clinical Biostatistics XXXIX (above n. 28);
66. J. A. Rizzo Physician Uncertainty and the Art of Persuasion Social Science and Medicine 37 (1993): 1451-1459.
67. Herbert A. Simon critiquing the impossible assumptions of decision analysis argued that it is a beautiful object deserving a prominent place in Plato's heaven of ideas (Alternative Visions of Rationality in Judgment and Decision Making ed. H. R. Arkes and K. R. Hammond [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986] pp. 97-113 p. 100).
68. Simon's emphasis on satisfying fits in with the pragmatism of the protocol's logic and can also be found in that logic's half-sister Artificial Intelligence's Expert System; on these interrelations see Berg Rationalizing Medical Work (above n. 14).
69. Latour Pasteurization of France (above n. 15).
70. Berg Rationalizing Medical Work.
71. See Martha Nussbaum Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press 1991).
72. A. S. Brett Hidden Ethical Issues in Clinical Decision Analysis New England Journal of Medicine 305 (1981): 1150-1152;
73. D. M. Eddy The Individual vs Society: Is There a Conflict? Journal of the American Medical Association 265 (1991): 1446-1450.
74. Timmermans Sudden Death and the Myth ofCPR (above n. 26).
75. La tour Aramls (above n. 3).
76. Philip E. Agre Formalization as a Social Project Quarterly Nelvsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition 14 (1992): 25-27.
77. Marc Berg Of Forms Containers and the Electronic Medical Record: Some Tools for a Sociology of the Formal Science Technology and Human Values 22 (1997): 403-433. Quotation from Agre ibid. p. 27.
78. R. D. Cebul Decision Making Research at the Interface between Descriptive and Prescriptive Studies Medical Decision Making 8 (1988): 231-232;
79. W. B. Schwartz H. J. Wolfe and S. G. Pauker Pathology and Probabilities: A New Approach to Interpreting and Reporting Biopsies Nelv England Journal of Medicine 305 (1981): 917-923;
80. J. P. Kassirer et al. Decision Analysis: A Progress Report Annals of Internal Medicine 106 (1987): 275-291;
81. D. M. Eddy Anatomy of a Decision Journal of the American Medical Association 263 (1990): 441-443.
82. Mickey Eisenberg et al. Survival Rates from Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: Recommendations for Uniform Definitions and Data to Report Annals of Emergency Medicine 19 (1990): 1249-1259;
83. J. J. Clinton Improving Clinical Practice Journal of the American Medical Association 267 (1992): 2652-2653;
84. D. E. Kanouse et al. Changing Medical Practice through Technology Assessment: An Evaluation of the NIH Consensus Development Program (Ann Arbor: Health Administration Press 1989).
85. Jack Goody The Domestication of the Savage Mind (New York: Cambridge University Press 1977).
86. M. J. Field and K. N. Lohr eds.. Clinical Practice Guidelines: Directions for a Nelv Program (Washington D.C.: National Academy Press 1990) p. 21.
87. C. Sultan M. Imbert and G. Priolet Decision-Making System (DMS) Applied to Hematology: Diagnosis of 180 Cases of Anemia Secondary to a Variety of Hématologie Disorders Hématologie Pathology 2 (1988): 221-228 p. 227;
88. J. P. Kassirer and R. I. Kopelman Diagnosis and Decisions by Algorithms Hospital Practice 25 (1990): 23-24 27 31.
89. Kassirer et al. Decision Analysis (above n. 44);
90. E. H. Shortliffe Medical Informatics and Clinical Decision Making: The Science and the Pragmatics Medical Decision Making U (1991): 2-14 (suppl.).
91. P. E. Pepe N. S. Abramson and C. G. Brown ACLS-Does It Really Work? Annals of Emergency Medicine 23 (1994): 1037-1041;
92. M. S. Eisenberg et al. Cardiac Arrest and Resuscitation: A Tale of 29 Cities ibid. 19 (1990): 179-186;
93. Lance B. Becker David W. Smith and Karin V. Rhodes Incidence of CardiacVrest: A Neglected Factor in Evaluating Survival Rates ibid. 22 (1993): 86-91.
94. Feinstein Clinical Biostatistics (above n. 28) p. 494.
95. See also A. R. Feinstein Clinical Judgment Revisited: The Distraction of Quantitative Models Annals of Internal Medicine 120 (1994): 799-805.
96. E.g. Richard O. Cummins CPR and Ventricular Fibrillation: Lasts Longer Ends Better Annals of Emergency Medicine 25 (1995): 833-836.
97. Feinstein Analysis of Diagnostic Reasoning. Ill (above n. 29);
98. A. R. Feinstein The Intellectual Crisis in Clinical Science: Medaled Models and Muddled Mettle Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 30 (1987): 215-230;
99. Feinstein Clinical Biostatistics (above n. 28). In fact this specific rebuttal is weakened by evidence that does not leave the protocol's logistics. Physiological studies have shown repeatedly that the value of CPR to restore the vital functions is negligible:
100. see e.g. Pepe Abramson and Brown ACLS-Does It Really Work? (above n. 50).
101. And indeed with years of experience and only occasionally a survivor many rescuers have very little faith in their life-saving abilities: see Timmermans Sudden Death and the Myth ofCPR (above n. 26).
102. See e.g. George Ritzer The McDonaldization of Satiety: An Investigation into the Changing Character of Contemporary Social Life (Thousand Oaks Calif.: Pine Forge 1992).
103. For a further analysis see Marc Berg The Politics of Technology: On Bringing Social Theory into Technological Design Science Technology and Human Values 23 (1998): 456-490.
104. A. R. Feinstein Clinimetrics (New Haven: Yale University Press 1987);
105. Harry M. Marks The Progress of Experiment: Science and Tlierapeutic Reform in the United States 1900-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997).
106. Sackett and Rosenberg Need for Evidence-Based Medicine (above n. 1).
107. G. Gigerenzer and D. J. Murray Cognition as Intuitive Statistics (Hillsdale N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 1987);
108. Steve J. Heims John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press 1980);
109. Theodore M. Porter Trust in Numbers: Tlie Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1995).
110. lan Hacking The Taming of Chance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990).
111. Goody Domestication of the Savage Mind (above n. 46).
112. Howard Raiffa Decision Analysis: Introductory Lectures on Choices under Uncertainty (Reading Mass.: Addison-Wesley 1968) p. 6.
113. Michel Serres L'obus le canon-deuxième fondation in idem Statues (Paris: François Bourin 1987).
114. Bijker and Law Shaping Technology (above n. 24);
115. Latour Aramis (above n. 3).
116. Lucy Suchman Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem ofHuman-Macliine Communication (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1987);
117. Brian Wynne Unruly Technology: Practical Rules Impractical Discourses and Public Understanding Social Studies of Science 18 (1988): 147-167;
118. Susan Leigh Star The Sociology of the Invisible: The Primacy of Work in the Writings of Anselm Strauss in Social Organization and Social Process: Essays in Honor of Anselm Strauss ed. David R. Maines (Hawthorne: Aldine de Gruyter 1991) pp. 265-283.
119. R. D. Cebul A Look at the Chief Complaints Revisited: Current Obstacles and Opportunities for Decision Analysis Medical Decision Making 4 (1984): 271-283;
120. L.J. Savage Diagnosis and the Bayesian Viewpoint in Computer Diagnosis ami Diagnostic Methods ed. J. A. Jacquez (Springfield 111.: Charles C. Thomas 1972) pp. 131-138.
121. A. Tversky and D. Kahneman Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases Science 185 (1974): 1124-1131; Cebul Decision Making Research (above n. 44); Kassirer et al. Decision Analysis (above n. 44).
122. P. J. H. Schoemaker The Expected Utility Model: Its Variants Purposes Evidence and Limitations Journal of Economic Literature 20 (1982): 529-563.
123. W. B. Schwartz Decision Analysis: A Look at the Chief Complaints Nelv England Journal of Medicine 300 (1979): 556-559; Kassirer et al. Decision Analysis.
124. J. C. Hershey and J. Baron Clinical Reasoning and Cognitive Processes Medical Decision Making 7 (1987): 203-211;
125. J. G. Dolan Can Decision Analysis Adequately Represent Clinical Problems? Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 43 (1990): 277-284;
126. D. M. Eddy Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: Is It up to the Task? Journal of the American Medical Association 267 (1992): 3342-3348.
127. Raiffa Decision Analysis (above n. 60); Kassirer et al. Decision Analysis (above n.
128. 44); D. M. Eddy Applying Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: The Inside Story Journal of the American Medical Association 268 (1992): 2575-2582.
129. F. T. de Dombal Back to the Future; or Forward to the Past? Gut 28 (1987): 373-377.
130. D. Adams et al. Computer Aided Diagnosis of Acute Abdominal Pain: A Multicentre Study British Medical Journal 293 (1986): 800-804. A similar phenomenon occurred in the case of the CPR guidelines. The Utstein guidelines (meant to standardize and uniformize the data reporting of CPR attempts) are to be applied only when the collapse is caused by an underlying cardiac etiology: only by limiting to this subcategory the broad range of incidents and accidents that traditionally formed the site of resuscitative interventions were they able to make detailed instructions for mapping and following the CPR attempt. Yet cases of sudden infant death syndrome drug overdose suicide drowning hypoxia exsanguination cerebrovascular accidents subarachnoid hemorrhage and trauma are all noncardiac etiologies. Although the same lifesaving sequences will be performed on those victims and although they were previously included in resuscitative efforts they are excluded from survival rates with the Utstein guidelines. In addition the unwitnessed cardiac arrests the patients who do not show an initial cardiac rhythm of ventricular tachycardia (slow heartbeat) or ventricular fibrillation (in which the heart is no longer pumping) and the patients on whom bystanders did not initially perform CPR disappear in the grey area of unaccounted marginality. They are the disorder-uncategorized undescribed unaccounted-for-that
131. Cummins CPR and Ventricular Fibrillation (above n. 52) p. 836.
132. See also S. P. Winchell and P. Safar Teaching and Testing Lay and Paramedical Personnel in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Anesthesia and Analgesia (1966): 441-449.
133. Becker Smith and Rhodes Incidence of Cardiac Arrest (above n. 50) p. 86.
134. Vicky Singleton Stabilizing Instabilities: The Laboratory in the UK Cervical Screening Program in Differences in Medicine: Unraveling Practices Techniques and Bodies ed. Marc Berg and Annemarie Mol (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press 1998) pp. 86-104.
135. Star Power (above n. 8) p. 41. There is a dyiwmic interrelation between the orders and their disorders that we do not explore here. In their unremitting encounters orders change redefine themselves. The incorporation of subjective probabilities in the statistical order for example can also be depicted as the emergence of a new order in which this subjectivity was upgraded as the necessary ingredient of rational decision making. Thus new orders emerge from the interplay between previous orders and their disorders-and new disorders will come into being with them in a never-ending process.
136. Bruno Latour lVe Have Nel-er Been Modern (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press 1993).
137. Marilyn Strathern After Nature: English Kinship in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992).
138. Bruno Latour in his reply to commentaries to his paper On Interobjectivity (Mind Culture and Activity 3 [1996]: 228-245) argues that no narrative can be the master of any reader since there is no naive reader and of course no writer mastering its own writing (p. 266).
139. Adele E. Clarke and Joan H. Fujimura eds. The Right Tools for the fob: At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press 1992); Collins Changing Order (above n. 4).
140. See e.g. E. Gerson and S. L. Star Analyzing Due Process in the Workplace ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems 4 (1986): 257-270;
141. Kjeld Schmidt and Liam Bannon Taking CSCW Seriously: Supporting Articulation Work Computer Supported Cooperative Work 1 (1992): 7-40;
142. Graham Button ed.. Technology in Working Order: Studies of Work Interaction and Technology (London: Routledge 1993).
143. F. J. Ingelfinger Algorithms Anyone? Nelv England Journal of Medicine 288 (1973): 847-848;
144. W. E. May Consensus or Coercion Journal of the American Medical Association 254 (1985): 1077.
145. Berg Rationalizing Medical Work (above n. 14);
146. John Harley Warner Science in Medicine Osiris 2d ser. 1 (1985): 37-58. See also n. 15 above.
147. One referee argued that in fact researchers who use the concept articulation work make the same arguments as we do and that from Strauss on people who have used this concept have been very clear that there is a dynamic tension between universality (order) and articulation work. The point here is not that we do not make similar arguments when we foais on the protocol's logistics-we do. Also it is indeed true that these authors have been excellent in pointing at the dynamic tension between universality and articulation work. We point here at the fact that articulation work is not a universal descriptor of human work but a description specifically tied to a critique of rules standards and other tools that have logistics similar to the protocol. Only once this specificity is seen does it become logically possible to start paying attention to the multiplicity present in the realm of the standard or the universal. For a more indepth analysis of this argument see Berg Politics of Technology (above n. 54).