The concept of ‘community of practice’ was first introduced to language and gender research by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnel-Ginet (Pichler 2015, 196) who define it as “an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations - in short, practices... Continue Reading →
Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing / Didier Fassin
In the interview he granted me shortly after the riots of 2005, the chief of police for the district in which I was then carrying out research expressed his amusement and surprise at the attitude of youngsters from the projects who, he said, would routinely run away when they saw a police car. “So they’re... Continue Reading →
Objectivity: A Very Short Introduction / Stephen Gaukroger
Certain philosophers, most notably Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) and Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), have argued that the natural sciences and the human sciences are quite distinct in this respect. In particular, while it might be appropriate to ‘stand back’ from phenomena in the natural sciences to achieve objectivity, this is inappropriate in the case of the human... Continue Reading →