PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

This paper presents a sociological analysis of scientific knowledge in the context of the epistemic culture of molecular biology. It begins with a contextualisation in the framework of laboratory studies in the field of social studies of science. Some historical developments preceding the present situation in molecular biology are the subject of the following part. The main topic of the paper is the analysis of current developments. The study uses the experience of several years of ethnographic work for an exploration and demonstration of translocal patterns in knowledge processes. A specification of the thesis of a 'new order of (biological) things' (Foucault) is used to examine the transformation of natural objects into epistemic ones in molecular biology. The ethnographic micro-sociological reconstruction of the pertinent steps also shows its fruitfulness in the context of more traditional questions in science studies.