Strategic Action and Expertise: The Case of a Cultural Competence Intervention Tool

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Creativity and Strategic Action in the Workplace

Abstract

In his programmatic statement for the “sociology of expertise”, Gil Eyal (2013) carved out an approach to a history of tasks and problems that examines “expertise” as analytically distinct and complementary from “experts”. In it, he specified two mechanisms – generosity and co-production – that facilitated the circulation, acceptance, and adoption of an expert statement. In divorcing “expertise” from “experts”, the role of actors in strategically activating these two mechanisms remains unexplored. In this article, I draw upon ethnographic data detailing the agentic practices undertaken by a medical research group attempting to secure the circulation, acceptance, and adoption – or, institutionalization – of their expert statement: a cultural competence intervention tool. I will demonstrate the utility of observing on-the-ground tactics, and the deliberative process leading up to them, in gaining a comprehensive understanding of how new forms of expertise enter the process of institutionalization.

Author

• Lauren Olsen, University of California- San Diego