Identifying social spaces in the Sustainable Grazing Systems Program

Abstract

In this paper I will establish that the SGS constituted not one, but many interrelated social spaces within which the science performance was undertaken. These different social spaces comprised their own unique boundaries, their own narratives, and their own contestations and negotiations between SGS actors. The implications of the claims made in this paper are pertinent to analysts of science attempting to understand the social dynamics involved in complex research programs common in today's research environment. The notion of single arenas, agoras, fields or other social spaces of contestation attempting to embrace the full complexity of science performance, as discussed in much of the sociology of science literature, is too simplistic to adequately deal with the multi-dimensional and temporal nature of the social relations involved in modern science. This paper moves away from such notions and shines light on science in practice within multiple social spaces.