Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 257-280 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| Journal | Social studies of science |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 22 Aug 2023 |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2024 |
Abstract
Scheduled meetings are associated with standardization and understood as a bureaucratic form of coordination, control, and rule observation. In attending assemblies of a research team in optical physics for over a year, we found regular lab meetings are compulsory for all their members and are an avenue to announce and give information about new and changed institutional regulations, to supervise members’ activities and their output. But more importantly, they offer an environment for continuous thinking through talk that goes beyond announcements. Meetings are a protected space to comment on conducted research, to amend experimental set-ups, to test argumentation, and to outline potentially new directions of research. By participating in these practices, researchers, become members of the team as they get acquainted with the ongoing research; its scope, problems, and limits; the solutions at hand; and the know-how within the team. In functional terms, observed internal meetings seem to (a) ensure that the research team focuses on a specific research agenda by talking about and discussing ongoing research in the lab, (b) be used to discuss and assure the quality of the team’s research output, and (c) generate and inspire new research within the team. Our findings suggest regular internal meetings, like shop talk, are constitutive of doing science by talking about ongoing research.
Keywords
- forms of presentation, lab meeting, optical physics, participant observation, research implicature, research team
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Arts and Humanities(all)
- History
- Social Sciences(all)
- General Social Sciences
- Arts and Humanities(all)
- History and Philosophy of Science
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In: Social studies of science, Vol. 54, No. 2, 04.2024, p. 257-280.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Inside regular lab meetings
T2 - The social construction of a research team and ideas in optical physics
AU - Philipps, Axel
AU - Paruschke, Laura
N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research [grant number 16PH20004].
PY - 2024/4
Y1 - 2024/4
N2 - Scheduled meetings are associated with standardization and understood as a bureaucratic form of coordination, control, and rule observation. In attending assemblies of a research team in optical physics for over a year, we found regular lab meetings are compulsory for all their members and are an avenue to announce and give information about new and changed institutional regulations, to supervise members’ activities and their output. But more importantly, they offer an environment for continuous thinking through talk that goes beyond announcements. Meetings are a protected space to comment on conducted research, to amend experimental set-ups, to test argumentation, and to outline potentially new directions of research. By participating in these practices, researchers, become members of the team as they get acquainted with the ongoing research; its scope, problems, and limits; the solutions at hand; and the know-how within the team. In functional terms, observed internal meetings seem to (a) ensure that the research team focuses on a specific research agenda by talking about and discussing ongoing research in the lab, (b) be used to discuss and assure the quality of the team’s research output, and (c) generate and inspire new research within the team. Our findings suggest regular internal meetings, like shop talk, are constitutive of doing science by talking about ongoing research.
AB - Scheduled meetings are associated with standardization and understood as a bureaucratic form of coordination, control, and rule observation. In attending assemblies of a research team in optical physics for over a year, we found regular lab meetings are compulsory for all their members and are an avenue to announce and give information about new and changed institutional regulations, to supervise members’ activities and their output. But more importantly, they offer an environment for continuous thinking through talk that goes beyond announcements. Meetings are a protected space to comment on conducted research, to amend experimental set-ups, to test argumentation, and to outline potentially new directions of research. By participating in these practices, researchers, become members of the team as they get acquainted with the ongoing research; its scope, problems, and limits; the solutions at hand; and the know-how within the team. In functional terms, observed internal meetings seem to (a) ensure that the research team focuses on a specific research agenda by talking about and discussing ongoing research in the lab, (b) be used to discuss and assure the quality of the team’s research output, and (c) generate and inspire new research within the team. Our findings suggest regular internal meetings, like shop talk, are constitutive of doing science by talking about ongoing research.
KW - forms of presentation
KW - lab meeting
KW - optical physics
KW - participant observation
KW - research implicature
KW - research team
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85169590844&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/03063127231188132
DO - 10.1177/03063127231188132
M3 - Article
C2 - 37606215
AN - SCOPUS:85169590844
VL - 54
SP - 257
EP - 280
JO - Social studies of science
JF - Social studies of science
SN - 0306-3127
IS - 2
ER -