An Ethnographic Excursion

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 30, Issue 6, 2000, Pages 951-956

  Vaughan, Diane ^a  

^a BOSTON COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84992849172     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631200030006007     Document Type: Review

References (23)

1. David J. Hess, Science Studies: An Advanced Introduction (New York & London: New York University Press, 1997), 134–137
2. The famous exception is Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, [1935] 1979), but then we could also argue that that was before the beginning of S&TS.
3. For discussion, see Richard H.R. Harper, ‘The Organisation in Ethnography: A Discussion of Ethnographic Fieldwork Programs in CSCW’, Computer Supported Cooperative Work,Vol. 9 (May 2000), 239–264
4. Diane Vaughan, ‘The Rôle of the Organization in the Production of Technical Knowledge’, Social Studies of Science,Vol. 29, No. 6 (December 1999), 913–943
5. John Van Maanen, Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), esp. Chapter 3, ‘Realist Tales’, 45–72.
6. See, for example, Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).
7. For minimal identification, I have listed one citation for each author, although Sanne includes several for each. See, for example: Edward Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995)
8. Jean Lave, Cognition in Practice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
9. Richard H.R. Harper and John A. Hughes, ‘“What a F-ing System! Send ’em All to the Same Place and Then Expect Us to Stop ‘em Hitting”’, in Graham Button (ed.), Technology in Working Order (London: Routledge, 1993), 127–144
10. Alain Gras, Caroline Moricot, Sophie Poirot-Delpech and Victor Scardigli, Faced with Automation: The Pilot, the Controller, and the Engineer (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1994)
11. Lucy A. Suchman, Plans and Situated Actions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)
12. Karl E. Weick, ‘Organizational Culture as a Source of High Reliability’, California Management Review, Vol. 29 (1987), 112–127
13. Todd R. LaPorte and Paula M. Consolini, ‘Working in Practice But Not in Theory: Theoretical Challenges of “High Reliability Organizations”’, Journal of Public Administration and Theory, Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1991), 19–47
14. Gene I. Rochlin, ‘Iran Air Flight 655 and the USS Vincennes: Complex Large Scale Military Systems and the Failure of Control’, in Todd LaPorte (ed.), Social Responses to Large Technical Systems (Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991), 95–121
15. Charles B. Perrow, Normal Accidents (New York: Basic Books, 1984)
16. Karlene H. Roberts (ed.), New Challenges to Understanding Organizations (New York: Macmillan, 1993).
17. Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: An Outline of the Theory of Structuration (London: Polity Press, 1984).
18. William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society: The Social Organization of a Slum (Chicago, IL:The University of Chicago Press, 1943), 279–358.
19. Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (Chicago, IL: Aldine, 1967).
20. It is the case that the very characteristics of organizations that help us explain what we seek to explain are also obstacles to research. See discussion in Diane Vaughan, Controlling Unlawful Organizational Behavior (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1983), 113–136
21. The latter two are perspectives in disaster studies. Normal Accident Theorists examine accidents and disasters after the fact in order to discover their causes; High Reliability Theorists examine organizations that seldom fail in order to discover the cause of their high reliability. Not all scholars interested in risk, safety and accidents are described by these two categories, however. For discussion, see Diane Vaughan, ‘The Dark Side of Organizations: Mistake, Misconduct, and Disaster’, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 25 (1999), 271–305.
22. For an exception, see John Carroll and Constance Perin, Organizing and Managing for Safe Production, Rep. NSP95–005 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, 1995).
23. Karl E. Weick, ‘Education Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 21 (1976), 1–19.