Increasing the frame: interdisciplinarity,

transdisciplinarity and representativity

MORGAN MEYER
Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TU, UK

Why do scientists have to work within a frame? How do they increase their frame, and what
are the challenges of doing so? These are the questions I wish to address in this paper. I
will argue that framing is a necessary but problematic practice for anyone engaged in
producing and communicating knowledge. Scientists have to frame the world in order to
produce – at least temporarily – an enclosed space containing stable objects of interest. Yet
there are now many ways in which frames are being enlarged. Interdisciplinarity, for
instance, draws on more than one discipline to tackle a given issue. Transdisciplinarity
expands knowledge production beyond academic disciplines, by involving the public or the
government for example. And, finally, representativity is one of the keys to the powerful
and authoritative status of scientific knowledge, as it enables knowledge to travel from one
place – the present, the original place where data was gathered – to another place where
this knowledge is represented, generalised, translated.

Let’s start with a common way of framing in research: a scientific publication. And let’s
look, as an example, at this journal. How is Interdisciplinary Science Reviews framed? When
submitting a paper, authors are constrained by a word limit (‘anything up to ten thousand
words’), by scholarly conventions (‘with notes and references as appropriate’), and by data-
formatting requirements (‘Word or a compatible format’) – all frames formalised in the
notes for contributors.1 In terms of content, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews is a journal which
‘aims to set contemporary and historical developments in science and technology in their
wider social and cultural context’. The current special issue, more specifically, con-
textualises science and technology through focusing on the theme ‘Water, environment
and society’.
‘Water, environment and society’ was also the theme of a seminar series at which earlier
versions of the papers in this special issue were previously presented. This seminar series
was temporally framed: it happened over six occasions, during which time-slots were
allocated to speakers and discussion periods were scheduled. The seminars also took place
in specific locations (usually within or not far from the University of Sheffield). And they
revolved around a specific theme: the interrelationships between water, the environment
and society. All kinds of frames were set for the participants of this seminar series (as they
are for any kind of conference): participants had to be at a certain place, at a certain time,
to talk about a certain topic, in a certain language, etc. These kinds of framings are all
necessary, as without them communication would be unthinkable. For scientific and
technical communication, in addition a whole multitude of other factors come into play:
language, the history and social organisation of science, conventions of writing and
speaking, conventions of presenting and comprehending visual images, etc.2 But it is not

DOI 10.1179/030801807X211702 INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 2007, VOL. 32, NO. 3 203
© 2007 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. Published by Maney on behalf of the Institute
204 Morgan Meyer

only when scientists communicate knowledge that they frame their work; framing also
happens as knowledge is being produced.
Through framing, every scientific discipline reduces the complexity of the natural or the
human world. Let’s take three examples:
• biologists often work with model systems like mice or cells or they study a very limited
part of nature. On the one hand, these models do not permit conclusions to be drawn
easily about complex organisms such as humans or about whole ecosystems. But, on
the other hand, useful and valid knowledge about such things as cancer, nutrition and
the environment has been created through the use of models that are reduced,
simplified and more manageable
• economists very often work with statistical models and in so doing transform the world
into numbers, diagrams and charts. It is through markets, prices and rational actors that
economists try to understand the world. They surely reduce the world, but at the same
time they are able to better model, analyse and understand it
• sociologists often carry out case studies that are limited in time and space and look at
one specific culture or one particular phenomenon, from which it is thus difficult to
deduce how society functions in its totality and in all its complexity. However, these
studies do result in consistent, reliable knowledge.
Biologists, economists and sociologists – we could make this list much longer – all have at
least one thing in common. They reduce the complexity of the world. But an important
gain is thus obtained. They can thus better question, understand, analyse and manage
a certain portion of the world. Instead of using the term ‘reduction’, which I have just
done but which sounds somewhat negative, it is more appropriate therefore to talk about
‘framing’.
But what, exactly, do we mean by a ‘frame’? On a very basic level, we might define it as
follows: ‘The frame . . . usually acts like a window frame, enclosing and focusing the
viewer’s gaze onto the scene that unfolds within its boundaries. . . . the modern concept of
the frame is that of a regular enclosure isolating the field of representation from the sur-
rounding surfaces, and marking the area in which the conventions of the image become
operative’.3 Also, ‘“Frames” are thought organizers, devices for packaging complex issues
in persuasive ways by focusing on certain interpretations over others. A frame suggests
what is relevant about an issue, and what should be ignored’.4 Framing, then, has certain
inherent characteristics.
First, framing is a practice, something done, not something already existing and deter-
mined by the nature of things. The effect of this practice is the simultaneous production of
three entities: the object under scrutiny, the context of this object (which is linked – and
thus somehow internal – to the object), and everything that is entirely external and unre-
lated to the object. Dilley writes that a frame ‘creates a disjunction between the object of
interest and its surroundings on the one hand, and those features which are excluded and
deemed as irrelevant on the other’.5
Second, framing is a heterogeneous practice: a practice that takes place within discourse,
through the use of specific techniques and tools, through defining precise spatialities and
temporalities, and in a specific social world. More so, framing defines what is to be studied
and how it is to be studied. To put it in a Foucauldian way, the ‘archaeology’ of framing
and framing techniques needs to be studied.

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Third, framing is a practice that is necessary for any kind of inquiry. Callon argues that
framing is essential to any understanding and description of interactions of whatever kind.6
Framing is necessary to produce an enclosed space of interest populated by a demarcated
object or set of objects to concentrate upon. This makes it possible to focus on and
explore a manageable part of the world. Without framing, it would indeed be difficult to
produce intelligible, comprehensible, logical and focused accounts.
Fourth, framing is problematic, because, first, it can be difficult to select, define and
delineate a field of inquiry.7 There is a problem of closure, to determine how to bound a
case temporally and spatially.8 Also, framing inevitably reduces, excludes, blinds, omits,
ignores, separates. Framing reduces complexity and fragments reality, thus producing
partial, selective, situated knowledges. What is more, framing is historically changing and
contextually variable, and thus often inherently ambiguous.
Fifth, through framing the world, scientists are able to produce more or less stable
objects (and contexts). Framing stabilises objects through placing them within a techno-
scientific network. In doing so – by turning a phenomenon into an ‘object of interest’9 –
objects are decontextualised, inscribed, described, translated, connected, theorised, com-
pared, transformed. That is, objects become more or less stable and ‘thick’. Yet, potential
overflows are always ready to emerge.10 These arise when frames increase, when con-
troversies emerge, when paradigms shift, when points of view are disputed, and so forth.
Thus, rather than producing stable objects, framing produces ‘fragile stabilities’.11
Framing, finally, means drawing lines, erecting boundaries. Framing sets out boundaries
and, in doing so, performs different kinds of ‘boundary-work’.12 It simultaneously includes
and excludes, protects and disregards, connects and disconnects.

CROSSING DISCIPLINES
‘Interdisciplinary research in essence aims to avoid partial framings of problems’.13 It tries
to avoid this through an interaction, a joint-working, a dialogue between disciplines – in
other words, by literally creating a space ‘in-between’ disciplines.14 But it is not always easy
to do interdisciplinary research projects. It has been argued that interdisciplinary research
involving sociology and biology, for example, has led to strong oppositions of views. An
academic writes about how he experienced this: ‘On the one hand, sociology tended to
ignore or minimise the materiality of natural processes’. Sociologists of science in par-
ticular stress that science is a thoroughly social and cultural practice. Some stress that every
piece of knowledge of nature is a construct, that it is made by humans and not given by the
nature of things. And then, ‘on the other hand, biology reduced human beings to the
status of an external perturbation of naturally balanced ecosystems’.15 Nature, in the eyes
of most biologists, is something already there, something that can be objectively under-
stood, measured and ordered; humans are thus not part of nature.16 When sociologists and
biologists get together we can expect tensions.
That is one challenge if we so to say ‘increase’ a frame. Interdisciplinarity in practice
means reconciling multiple framings, integrating different approaches. But bringing
disciplines together is not straightforward.17 For the various academic disciplines represent
different cultures and different approaches in terms of lecturing style, design of cur-
riculum, role of students, political and social beliefs, and so on.18 Many challenges result

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from interdisciplinary work. Here are some of the questions that arise: How can communi-
cation be facilitated? How can constructive dialogue be organised? What bodies fund this
kind of research and how do we evaluate it? Who and what will be included? Who and
what will be excluded? Do concepts change their meaning when used in different
disciplines?
Any ‘inquiry needs a social space where it can roam freely’. Thus when the disciplinary
frame of research increases, the social space in which research takes place has to increase
as well. Interdisciplinarity needs a social architecture (associations, conferences, journals,
funding, policies, career paths, etc.) and a material architecture (buildings, laboratories) of
its own. Yet, even interdisciplinary science relies on framings. A sociologist of science
writes: ‘While interdisciplinarity may not respect disciplinary boundaries, it needs boun-
daries of its own to protect its free-ranging activities, especially so that inquirers are not cut
short as they attempt to challenge or bridge differences in existing bodies of knowledge’.19
How can we further theorise the shift from disciplinary science towards interdisciplinary
science? An influential work here is the book by Michael Gibbons et al., The New Production
of Knowledge, in which the authors discriminate between two major modes of knowledge
production. The ‘older’ mode they identify (mode 1) is a very disciplinary type of
knowledge production. It is characterised by homogeneity and hierarchy. Examples would
be biologists or sociologists who explore problems, use methods and communicate
knowledge while remaining strictly in their respective disciplines. The new mode (mode 2)
in contrast is defined as a ‘knowledge which emerges from a particular context of application
with its own distinct theoretical structures, research methods and modes of practice but
which may not be locatable on the prevailing disciplinary map’. The organisational form is
based on heterogeneity and heterarchy. This new form, the authors claim, is more flexible
and socially distributed. Moreover it is less firmly institutionalised and regroups a wide and
heterogeneous set of practitioners.20
Mode 2 knowledge production is based upon three developments: (1) contemporary
research is increasingly carried out in the context of application, and problems are for-
mulated from the very beginning within a dialogue among a large number of different
actors and their perspectives; (2) there is an emergence of loose organisational structures,
flat hierarchies, and open-ended chains of command; (3) frameworks of intellectual activity
are emerging which may not always be reducible to elements of the disciplinary structure.
The kind of knowledge discussed in this special issue seems to be of this second form: not
locatable within one discipline, but bringing together multiple points of view, multiple
frames.
Yet, the argument that we can genuinely talk of a ‘new’ production of knowledge, which
is more interdisciplinary, more context-dependent and so on, has been criticised for a
number of reasons. First, some argue that the ‘new’ mode of knowledge production is a
recent invention and it is a too a-political model.21 Mode 1 never existed in a pure form.
Thus, the most interesting contrast is not in historical terms, but in the fact that hetero-
geneous regimes of knowledge production can coexist. Interdisciplinarity is not a new
phenomenon and ‘[d]isciplines still exist and new ones arise continuously from inter-
disciplinary work’.22 Second, others observe that: ‘We hear nothing about changes in
astronomy, natural history museums, language laboratories or departments of archaeology
and musicology . . . the new images of scientific knowledge production have a social

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epistemology that is rather limited in scope’.23 While scientists might be increasing their
frames through interdisciplinary research in various places, this does not mean that this is
necessarily a trend that holds for all domains and that takes place at the same pace every-
where, that disciplines have ceased to exist or ceased to be useful, or that integrating
disciplines is a new phenomenon. And, while interdisciplinary research holds the promise
of avoiding partial framings through the creation of a common and shared frame that
tries to integrate various disciplines, there is still a need to create a material and social
architecture for interdisciplinarity and to manage potential tensions and frictions.

BEYOND DISCIPLINES
Let’s now move from interdisciplinarity to transdisciplinarity. Transdisciplinarity some-
times raises high expectations concerning non-academic actors becoming involved in
scientific research. The basic idea is to use the contribution of specific types of knowledge,
interests and values, and to integrate these before and during the research process rather
than only afterwards. This is the promise of transdisciplinarity: ‘to ensure that one
identifies and solves “real-world-problems” instead of remaining in the “ivory-tower” of
self-contained academic problems’.24
There are a number of current issues necessitating a transdisciplinary approach – just to
mention a few: controversies about genetically modified food, debates about cloning and
stem-cell research, environmental problems such as climate change – all of which involve
scientists, NGOs, industry, the public, the government, etc. Regarding environmental
problems especially, it seems paramount for scientists to increase their frames. For it has
been argued that ‘You cannot do research on problems that have to do with the degra-
dation of the natural environment without accounting for human intervention in these
processes. . . . Loyalty to science . . . may simply vanish when people do not feel that they
have a place in the knowledge which is being produced, allegedly for their benefit’. More
theoretically, it is argued that ‘what is needed in addition to reliable knowledge is socially
robust knowledge’.25 This means that knowledge does not only have to be valid according
to scientific standards, it also has to be approved by wider society.
I want to discuss two specific examples where transdisciplinary knowledge is made. The
first example comes from the UK and involves collaboration between scientists and fisher-
men to determine the quality of water. The second example will take me to Luxembourg
and to a collaboration between scientists and amateurs to monitor biodiversity. First, then,
the collaboration between scientists and fishermen to assess water quality. Currently, the
Natural History Museum in London is trying to encourage non-scientists to collect bio-
logical data.26 The museum tries to enrol citizens who actively engage with nature – such
as fly fishers – but who are not naturalists and are usually not involved in producing
biological records. In general, anglers ‘read the river well’, but they do not process their
knowledge into biological forms. So, in order to monitor the water quality of some rivers,
the museum has organised workshops to teach fly fishers how to identify river flies. This
initiative has been welcomed by fly fishers and has promoted the use of river-fly
populations as indicators of water quality.
Both the Natural History Museum and the anglers draw benefit from this collaboration.
The Natural History Museum can now rely on anglers who contribute records to river-fly

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recording schemes. New networks of human observers are engaged: ‘The anglers . . .
constitute a fresh, untapped audience who may be harnessed as part of the [Biodiversity
Action Plan] participatory process’.27 The fishers, on the other hand, are willing to par-
ticipate since they feel satisfied and ‘part of nature’ through their activities, and also since
they have an interest in river water quality because without clean rivers, their sport would
not continue.
My second example of transdisciplinary work comes from my own fieldwork in Luxem-
bourg, a country situated between France, Belgium and Germany. Similarly to the UK
example just discussed, the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg City also
tries to enrol members of the public and amateurs to record biodiversity. One such
example is their biannual biodiversity weekend. The idea of this event stems from the
USA, where it was initiated in 1998 as a citizen-based effort to monitor biodiversity.28 In
Luxembourg, the first biodiversity weekend took place in the year 2000. The 2004 event
was co-organised by the nature park in which the biodiversity weekend took place and the
National Museum of Natural History.29 The weekend pursued multiple goals at once. One
of these was to identify at least a thousand species and while doing so to draw up an
inventory of the regional environment. Two other aims were to render people attentive to
environmental issues and to catch children’s interest in science.
Altogether three different kinds of people took part in the event: ‘children’, ‘the general
public’, and ‘experts’. Children took part in workshops and games and they accompanied
the ‘experts’ to observe them at work. Here the agenda was not only to educate children
but also potentially to attract them into scientific careers. For ‘the general public’, prome-
nades were organised to explore biodiversity. The third group, the ‘experts’, gathered in
order to collect data. Yet many of the so-called experts were not trained biologists. Among
them there were engine drivers, teachers and retired lawyers. In short, many of those who
recorded data were amateurs. Without the help of these amateurs, the target of drawing up
a list of more than a thousand species would probably not have been reached and the
inventory of the environment would not have been as representative.
Bringing various actors together through the activities I have outlined is both a pro-
mising and a difficult exercise. It is promising since, through increasing the pool of those
who produce biological data, better knowledge of nature can be obtained. It can also aid
the development of more democratic and participatory models for science. Sometimes this
reliance on non-scientists is necessary; indeed amateur knowledge might become indis-
pensable when professional expertise is lacking. Moreover, the principle of including
laypeople to contribute directly and co-produce expert knowledge holds the promise of
plurality and promises better social outcomes.30 And it is a model that seems to work.
Collaboration between amateurs and professionals in natural history has the potential to
produce conference papers, data in databases, regional lists of species, journal articles, and
so on.
Yet a number of challenges arise when a scientific institution like a museum works
alongside amateurs. Encounters like these bring together actors from very different
professional backgrounds, actors who might have quite different interests. Such
encounters cut across many boundaries: institutional, disciplinary, professional, cultural.
Thus, managing a space between amateurism and professionalism, between leisure and
work, is a difficult exercise. More participatory, democratic, accountable and ‘socially

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robust’ forms of knowledge production also need the creation of hybrid forums in which
a heterogeneous set of actors can each have their voice.

REPRESENTING AND CONCLUDING

The discussion in this paper is heavily determined – and therefore also limited – by local
contingencies. I have referred to very specific cases: a journal, a seminar series, anglers in
the UK, a biodiversity weekend in Luxembourg. Everything I say here is itself framed,
since a case is a bounded system: ‘certain features are within the system, within the
boundaries of the case, and other features outside’. Particularity and atypicality compete
with the search for generalisability.31 Nevertheless, while a case study is not typical it can
be used to form an understanding of the typical.32 From a geographically, historically and
culturally framed place we can develop arguments that connect to – and make sense in –
other places, other times and other cultures. When doing so, when moving from the
particular to the general, rigour is needed, since every explanation is scale-dependent.33 The
issue becomes even more complicated if research is not based directly on nature but on
models that try to mimic nature. This implies the movement of findings not only across
time and space, but also across different registers (computer model/real nature, simplified
model/complex organism or ecosystem, and so forth).
One way to talk about this process, this movement from one modality to another, is to
talk about ‘translation’: ‘To translate is to connect, to displace, to move, to shift from one
place, one modality, one form, to another while retaining something. Only something. Not
everything. While therefore losing something. Betraying whatever is not carried over’.34
Translating across disciplines, across academia, across the frame of our empirical data, is
always a difficult enterprise.
Concluding and generalising is problematic because, if we simplify, it is based on two
kinds of movement: scaling down and scaling up. A conclusion is based on research that
has been done on the world scaled down: the world simplified, de-complexified, a portion
of the world. This is an absolutely necessary move. Scientists – be they social or natural –
have to set out a certain frame, they have to investigate a topic within spatial, temporal and
cultural boundaries. For framing enables better questioning, exploration, handling and
manipulation of the topic.
Framing eases concentration.
But a conclusion also tries to scale up. It tries to move beyond a specific context. A con-
clusion aims at being able to say ‘in general, we can argue that . . .’. A conclusion has, then,
to do a balancing act. On the one hand, it has to acknowledge that some things remain
local, typical, national, confined. Some things cannot be transported but stay within a case,
they remain a case. On the other hand, the format of a conclusion pushes one to make
findings travel. The essence of a conclusion can be expressed in the following way: a con-
clusion has to draw things together and it has to press translations; it mobilises and
stabilises heterogeneous sets of ideas and, in turn, tries to increase their mobility. While
translating, a conclusion always risks betraying; a conclusion is ever partially connected,
fragile and hybrid.
How did I try to translate? How did I try to represent, conclude and generalise in this
paper?

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210 Morgan Meyer

• I focused on rather general concepts, such as framing, interdisciplinarity, trans-

disciplinarity and representativity. These concepts were already theory-laden and
relatively abstract and they permitted me to explore more generalisable issues
• while referencing the work of other scholars, I mobilised the past, the known, the
already written. I made my own work ‘bigger’ through connecting and comparing it
with other work. This paper does not float in an empty space, it is connected to
sociology in general and to sociology of science in particular
• throughout, this paper not only presented material, I was also ‘speaking from’ the
material.35 On the one hand, I did so by analysing and theorising the material, theory
involving going beyond what we can see and measure.36 On the other, I made
comparisons, suggested connections, criticised existing theories
• representation is a key element for making a case travel beyond its local contingencies.
By reducing information to more manageable dimensions, representation can be
eased.37 All the ‘presents’ I observed have been represented, translated: they have been
put into words, they have been translated into another language, they have been
theorised, etc.
All the above strategies enable the crossing of boundaries. But how far can my findings
really travel? To what extent can they be translated to other times, to other places, to other
disciplines without too much betrayal? How much can the frame of this particular paper
be increased? I let you, the reader, decide.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like especially to thank Susan Molyneux-Hodgson and Sharon Macdonald for their
invaluable support. Liz Sharp and Kate Woodthorpe provided helpful comments on
earlier versions of this paper.

NOTES
1. All quotes about Interdisciplinary Science Reviews are taken from www.maney.co.uk/journals/notes/isr.
2. J. H. Collier and D. M. Toomey: ‘Scientific and technical communication in context’, in Scientific and
Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Policy, (ed. J. H. Collier and D. M. Toomey), 3–37; 1997,
Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.
3. M. Carter and A. Geczy: Reframing Art, 70; 2006, Oxford, Berg.
4. M. Nisbet: ‘Rethinking science literacy as a public engagement tool’, www.spusa.org/mindfull/?p=8.
Another definition reads: ‘To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a
communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation,
and/or treatment recommendation’ (R. M. Entman: ‘Framing: toward clarification of a fractured paradigm’,
Journal of Communication, 1993, 43, 51–58, at 52, emphasis original). See K. Fisher: ‘Locating frames in the
discursive universe’, Sociological Research Online, 1997, 2, www.socresonline.org.uk/2/3/4.html for a review
of the various – and often incompatible – usages of the term ‘frame’. For a discussion of the framing of
science for a television format see R. Silverstone: Framing Science: The Making of a BBC Documentary; 1985,
London, BFI.
5. R. M. Dilley: ‘Introduction: the problem of context’, in The Problem of Context: Perspectives from Social
Anthropology and Elsewhere, (ed. R. M. Dilley), 1–46, at 2; 1999, New York, NY, Berghahn.
6. M. Callon: ‘An essay on framing and overflowing: economic externalities revisited by sociology’, in The
Laws of the Markets, (ed. M. Callon), 244–269, at 250; 1998, Oxford, Blackwell.
7. E. Nadai and C. Maeder: ‘Fuzzy fields: multi-sited ethnography in sociological research’, Forum: Qualitative
Social Research, 2005, 6, www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-05/05-3-28-e.html.

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 Interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and representativity 211

8. N. Castree: ‘The epistemology of particulars: human geography, case studies and “context”’, Geoforum,
2005, 36, 541–544.
9. M. Strathern: ‘Experiments in interdisciplinarity’, Social Anthropology, 2005, 13, 75–90.
10. Despite mechanisms of closure, there will always be connections with the world outside a frame; in other
words, overflows are inevitable.
11. J. Law: ‘Ontics: on fragile stabilities and meltdowns’, session at the 2006 EASST Conference: ‘Reviewing
humanness: bodies, technologies and spaces’, Lausanne, Switzerland, August 2006.
12. T. F. Gieryn: ‘Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: strains and interests in
professional ideologies of scientists’, American Sociological Review, 1983, 48, 781–795.
13. P. Lowe and J. Phillipson: ‘Reflexive interdisciplinarity research: the making of a research programme on
the rural economy and land use’, Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2006, 57, 165–184, at 167.
14. On interdisciplinarity see J. T. Klein: Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice; 1990, Detroit, MI, Wayne
State University Press, and Vol. 29, No. 1 of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews.
15. C. Claeys-Mekdade: ‘The practice of interdisciplinary between sociology and biology: syntheses of the
French experience and illustration with a case study’, in Public Proofs: Science, Technology and Democracy, 209;
2004, Paris, Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, Ecole des Mines de Paris.
16. See also B. Jurdant: ‘Le désir de scientificité’, Alliage, 1999, 41/42, 147–155.
17. M. Strathern: ‘Experiments in interdisciplinarity’, p. 82 (see Note 9).
18. H. H. Bauer: ‘Barriers against interdisciplinarity: implications for studies of science, technology, and
society’, Science, Technology & Human Values, 1990, 15, 105–119, at 105–106.
19. S. Fuller: ‘Interdisciplinarity. The loss of the heroic vision in the marketplace of ideas’, Interdisciplines,
1 October 2003, www.interdisciplines.org/interdisciplinarity/papers/3.
20. M. Gibbons, C. Limoges, H. Nowotny, S. Schwartzman, P. Scott and M. Trow: The New Production of
Knowledge, 168, 3–6; 1994, London, Sage.
21. D. Pestre: ‘Regimes of knowledge production in society: towards a more political and social reading’,
Minerva, 2003, 41, 245–261.
22. H. Nowotny: ‘The potential of transdisciplinarity’, Interdisciplines, 1 May 2003, www.interdisciplines.org/
interdisciplinarity/papers/5.
23. A. Elzinga: ‘Metaphors, models and reification in science and technology policy discourse’, Science as
Culture, 2004, 13, 105–121, at 120.
24. S. Maasen: ‘Transdisciplinarity: a new mode of governing science?’, in Public Proofs: Science, Technology and
Democracy, 203; 2004, Paris, Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, Ecole des Mines de Paris.
25. H. Nowotny: ‘The potential of transdisciplinarity’ (see Note 22).
26. R. Ellis and C. Waterton: ‘Environmental citizenship in the making: the participation of volunteer
naturalists in UK biological recording and biodiversity policy’, Science and Public Policy, 2004, 31, 95–105.
27. R. Ellis and C. Waterton: ‘Environmental citizenship in the making’, p. 100 (see Note 26).
28. R. D. Stevenson and R. A. Morris: Community Science for Biodiversity Monitoring, undated, http://diggov.org/
library/library/pdf/steven.pdf.
29. M. Meyer and P. Wealer: ‘The cultural diversity of biodiversity’, ShOP: Sheffield Online Papers in Social
Research, special issue on ‘Science in context’, 2007, www.shef.ac.uk/socstudies/Shop, forthcoming.
30. D. Pestre: ‘Regimes of knowledge production in society’, p. 260 (see Note 21).
31. R. E. Stake: ‘Case studies’, in Handbook of Qualitative Research, (ed. N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln), 436,
439; 2000, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.
32. R. Silverstone: Framing Science, p. 2 (see Note 4).
33. N. Castree: ‘The epistemology of particulars’ (see Note 8).
34. J. Law: Aircraft Stories: Decentering the Object in Technoscience, 99; 2002, Durham, NC, Duke University Press.
See also M. Callon: ‘Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the
fishermen of Saint Brieuc Bay’, in Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge, (ed. J. Law), 196–233;
1986, London, Routledge.
35. S. Macdonald: Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum, 246–247; 2002, Oxford, Berg.
36. R. Jenkins: Foundations of Sociology: Towards a Better Understanding of the Human World, 31–38; 2002,
Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

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37. M. Lynch: ‘The externalized retina: selection and mathematization in the visual documentation of objects
in the life sciences’, in Representation in Scientific Practice, (ed. M. Lynch and S. Woolgar), 153–186, at 181;
1988, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

Morgan Meyer (m.meyer@sheffield.ac.uk) is a sociologist of science whose primary interests lie in exploring
the practices, cultures and geographies of knowledge production. His special interests include boundaries
and boundary-work, actor-network theory, museum studies, science policy and the culture and society of
Luxembourg. He is currently editing a special issue on ‘Science in context’ of ShOP: Sheffield Online Papers in
Social Research (www.shef.ac.uk/socstudies/Shop).

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, 2007, VOL. 32, NO. 3