Representation and Visualization

Representation is central to STS, as well as to information studies.   It includes such issues as creating (and using) visualizations; geo-referencing; and even creating powerpoint presentations.

Representation is not just a matter of creating representations but of practices — embodied and cognitive — of  seeing and of working with representations — all of which is highly situated, especially in professions/disciplines. Furthermore, representations get shared and used across disciplines.  (See Boundary Objects.)

Much of what we will be doing is asking how we can extend the STS discussions about scientific visualization to other domains of visualizations.

 

Burri, R. V., & Dumit, J. (2008). Social studies of scientific imaging and visualization. The handbook of science and technology studies, 297-318.

Latour, Bruno (1999). “Circulating Reference: Sampling the Soil in the Amazon Forest.” From Pandora’s Hope, Harvard University Press.  (10/27 Replaced earlier copy with a cleaner copy.)

Goodwin, C. (1994). Professional vision. American Anthropologist, 96(3), 606-634  CLASSIC

This is a lot of reading, but Latour is discursive, and Goodwin is a classic that you really can’t NOT read.

 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Latour, B. (1986). Visualization and cognition: Thinking with eyes and hands. Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present,6, 1-40.  Also in Dropbox.

 

Latour, B. (1990). Drawing Things Together. In M. Lynch and S. Woolgar (Eds.) Representation in Scientific Practice. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press: 19-68.

 

 

Also useful:

BERG, M. (1997) Of forms, containers, and the electronic medical record: some tools for a sociology of the formal. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 22, 403-433.

Goodwin, C. (1995). Seeing in Depth. Social Studies of Science, 25(2), 237-274. Similar to the above.

Lynch, M., & Woolgar, S. (1990). Representation in scientific practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lynch, M. (1985). Discipline and the Material Form of Images: An Analysis of Scientific Visibility. Social Studies of Science, 15(1), 37-66.

Coopmans, C. (2011). “Face value”: New medical imaging software in commercial view. Social Studies of Science, 41(2), 155-176.  Not sure this goes here.

Leuenberger, C., & Schnell, I. (2010). The politics of maps: Constructing national territories in Israel. Social Studies of Science, 40(6), 803-842.  Critical cartography. Have to look at.

Harvey, F. (2000). The social construction of geographical information systems. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 14(8), 711-713.  If someone is interested in GIS and geo-location, there are more recent explorations.

Bowker, G. C. (2000). Mapping biodiversity. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 14(8), 739-754.

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