Adopting, Adapting and Putting into Practice: Translating Knowledge for Profitability

• In Event: Beyond Boundary Objects and Immutable Mobiles - New Ways of Thinking about the Movement of Knowledge II: Mediators of Knowledge

Abstract

In Science and Technology Studies movement of knowledge has been a central focus for quite some time, in particular how knowledge objects travel from one site to another. However, how knowledge is brought to users and integrated into their practices is just as important. In spite of the users’ central role in turning theoretical knowledge into active practice, these mediators and their intersection between theory and practice have not been studied. Paying attention to mediators shed light on the adaptations and translations between knowledge and practice that make knowledge usable and useful.

In this paper I turn the attention towards mediators and analyze how knowledge is transformed or not transformed into practice in an arena of conflicting interests. More specifically, I investigate how occupational health practitioners, as mediators, in Sweden adopt, adapt and put into practice scientific knowledge. Occupational health services is a practice where scientific knowledge meets with societal and work place demands. Given this, occupational health practitioners must take practical, financial, and power-related factors into considerations when turning theoretical knowledge into practice in their everyday work. Through ethnographic fieldwork, in order to capture mediators’ perspectives of their work, I analyze the practices, structures, and relations for integrating and translating knowledge into a practice that requires adaptation and translation to a case’s individual circumstances, thus, going beyond boundary objects and immutable mobiles.

Author

• Hannah Grankvist, Department of Thematic Studies - Technology and Social Change, Linköping University