The Spatiality of Knowledge Making: Campus Space and the Epistemic Environments of Area Studies Centers

• In Event: 540 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01. Scientific Careers and Education

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among area studies centers across eight American universities, this study develops theory linking the allocation of space on university campuses and the production of knowledge. Despite its centrality to how epistemic cultures are forged and reproduced in the everyday social life of the university, sociologists of knowledge have largely taken physical space as a given, rather than a highly variable resource. In this article, we examine how both the spatial configurations of area studies centers, as well as their location within broader campus topographies, shape the way that they form congregations, support processes of knowledge exchange and disciplinary socialization, and improve their status and legitimacy within the institutionalized academic hierarchy. In this study, we begin to widen the keyhole through which sociologists of knowledge consider space, examining the mediating roles of square footage, aesthetics and campus location in a centers’ support of knowledge production, as they pursue such tactics as forming an intellectual hub, fostering an interdisciplinary atmosphere, and building their campus presence. Though the empirical base for these conclusions stem from the particular study of area studies centers, they are offered here as a window on the quotidian lifeworlds of scholars on university campuses more generally. We suggest that these campus units simultaneously form the backbone of an organized intellectual enterprise, the container of an epistemic environment, and the symbol of their academic fields. In each of these roles, we argue that spatial allocations are the fulcra upon which their intellectual endeavors pivot.

Authors

• Jonathan Z Friedman, New York University

• Elizabeth Anderson Worden, American University