Doing Narrative Science - A TRANS (disciplinary) strategy

• In Event: TRANS-disciplinary Research Through STS Practice Part 2

Abstract

The doing of sciences in places at the margins of modernity, where different epistemic cultures meet, requires a careful rethink of scientific practices, both the premises upon which those practices are founded and sciences’ means for presenting their understandings and findings. Doing sciences at the margins requires us to attend to the assumptions we make when we practice our professions. It also requires reorientation of the way we approach both the actual doing of science and the communication of scientific knowledge to people whose assumptions, experiences and practices are different to our own.

This paper seeks to examine the role of narrative in the doing of science and how a recognition and respect for narrative might help in the process of being more inclusive in our professional practice. A ‘narrative science’ may or may not change the methods involved in gathering and interpreting scientific knowledge, but it does seek to help us rethink our relationship to their use and recognise the cultural, social and constructed nature of our work. It opens a space for alternative ways of thinking and interpreting what we see and responding to the knowledge-making we do.

Author

• Greg Williams, PO Box 8