Abstract
Meetings resemble one of the core components of standard scientific practices in the life of biologists. By identifying meetings as a vantage point, I discuss a twofold of concerns. First, I make sense of meetings as a practice, enacting forms of how scientists are together in time and space and second, I scrutinise how one’s former belonging as a practitioner of the field of study can hamper or advance a practice-based sense making. Therefore, I will take meetings as point of crystallisation to critically reflect on the methodological implications of a practice-based ethnography.
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Notes
- 1.
The quote has been translated from German by the author.
- 2.
Two and a half years after physically having left the laboratory, I have concerned myself with relevant STS literature and basic concepts of the field and accomplished all basic requirements to re-enter the laboratory with a different gaze. However, I still considered myself as being ‘in between’ disciplinary fields.
- 3.
Working at the ‘bench’ is commonly used to refer to the working space or desk in biology labs at which the craftwork is accomplished. ‘The bench laboratory is always activated; it is an actual space in which research tasks are performed continuously and simultaneously’ (Knorr-Cetina 1999, p. 37).
- 4.
As explicated in the section on methodology, the field notes contain explicitly marked sections of my emotional experiences as part of the participant observation.
- 5.
https://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/what-to-do-at-lab-meetings/ (accessed 27 July 2015).
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Schönbauer, S.M. (2017). How Biologists ‘Meet’. In: Jonas, M., Littig, B., Wroblewski, A. (eds) Methodological Reflections on Practice Oriented Theories. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52897-7_15
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