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Context and situation always matter in both human and animal lives. Unique insights can be gleaned from conducting scientific studies from within human communities and animal habitats. Inside Science is a novel treatment of this distinctive mode of fieldwork. Robert E. Kohler illuminates these resident practices through close analyses of classic studies: of Trobriand Islanders, Chicago hobos, corner boys in Boston's North End, Jane Goodall's chimpanzees of the Gombe Stream Reserve, and more. Intensive firsthand observation; a preference for generalizing from observed particulars, rather than from universal principles; and an ultimate framing of their results in narrative form characterize these inside stories from the field.
Resident observing takes place across a range of sciences, from anthropology and sociology to primatology, wildlife ecology, and beyond. What makes it special, Kohler argues, is the direct access it affords scientists to the contexts in which their subjects live and act. These scientists understand their subjects not by keeping their distance but by living among them and engaging with them in ways large and small. This approach also demonstrates how science and everyday life – often assumed to be different and separate ways of knowing – are in fact overlapping aspects of the human experience. This story-driven exploration is perfect for historians, sociologists, and philosophers who want to know how scientists go about making robust knowledge of nature and society.
Chapter One. Situating
Chapter Two. Participant Observer: Bronislaw Malinowski
Chapter Three. Hobo Sociologist: Nels Anderson
Chapter Four. Corner Sociology: William Whyte
Chapter Five. In Chimpland: Jane Goodall
Chapter Six. Wildlife Ecology: Three Life Histories
Epilogue: Inside Science
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Robert E. Kohler is emeritus professor of the history and sociology of science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of many books, including Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life and Landscapes and Labscapes: Exploring the Lab-Field Border in Biology, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
"Inside Science is destined to be a classic. Kohler treats his readers to a thought-provoking study of situated knowledge in the making in this brilliant deliberation on the power of context in the history of anthropology, sociology, primatology, and wildlife ecology. He tracks the development of 'resident science' in modern science, with its practices of observing, case studies, and stories, as the counterpoint to the desituated science, with its emphasis on objectivity, quantification, abstraction, and law. Kohler elegantly combines compelling biographical accounts of such figures as Bronislaw Malinowski, Nels Anderson, William Whyte, and Jane Goodall with incisive analyses of a scientific tradition that is far more important than is usually recognized."
– Bernard Lightman, York University
