The Missing Narrativist Turn in the Historiography of Science

Abstract

The narrativist turn of the 1970s and 1980s transformed the discussion of general history. With the rejection of Rankean historical realism, the focus shifted to the historian as a narrator and on narratives as literary products. Oddly, the historiography of science took a turn in the opposite direction at the same time. The social turn in the historiography of science emphasized studying science as a material and practical activity with traceable and documentable traits. This empirization of the field has led to an understanding that history of science could be directly describable from scientific practice alone without acknowledging the role of the historian as a constructor of narratives about these practices. Contemporary historians of science tend to be critical of science's ability to describe its object—nature, as it is—but they often are not similarly skeptical of their own abilities to describe their object: past science, as it is. I will argue that historiography of science can only gain from a belated narrativist turn.

Taking Historical Embeddedness Seriously: Three Historical Approaches to Advance Strategy Process and Practice Research

“…As for historical narratives, realist history usually involves representation that aims at generalizations in terms of temporal causal patterns, interpretive history at reenactment of past actions and practices in situ, and poststructuralism at critical deconstruction of such narratives (see also Vaara, Sonenshein, & Boje, 2016). The narrative representations in each of these approaches may thus look very different, which should also be reflected in the writing of these historical analyses (Kuukkanen, 2012;Zagorin, 1999). In all, elucidating these differences is important because it helps to specify the alternative ways of conducting historically informed strategy process and practice research-as has recently been called for in management history more generally De Jong & Higgins, 2015;.…”

A sharper image: the quest of science and recursive production of objective realities

“…Nevertheless, I am not an historian, and my teaching experience is limited to the university. Therefore, the use I made of the aforementioned examples should be taken with a grain of salt: Regarding historical narratives, they often reflect common knowledge, and are not intended as position statements in the fields of historiography or history of science; see Kuukkanen (2012), Martins (2001), Sauer and Scholl (2012). Regarding pedagogical materials, they belong to the long-gone time of my youth, the way I describe them reflects mostly my own experiences, and these are not intended as position statements in the field.…”

Mapping ‘the ANT multiple’: A comparative, critical and reflexive analysis

“…One could claim that since ANT's initial assumptions are more flexible than those of other approaches, ANT would allow the achievement of more thorough descriptions. However, this claim continues to be contested (see Kuukkanen, ). So as ANT has not become the framework for constructing ‘thick descriptions’ it leaves us with two possibilities: either other practitioners have yet to understand the true virtue of ANT or, alternatively, equally good means to achieve quality descriptions exist.…”