Boundary speak in sustainability studies: Computational reading of a transversal field

Jeremias Herberg, Seán Schmitz, Dorota Stasiak and Gregor Schmieg

Science and Public Policy, 2021, vol. 48, issue 3, 398-411

Abstract: This article discusses the role of language in the collaboration between science, policy, and society. Combining computational methods of corpus linguistics (manifold learning) with sociological field theories, we analyze approximately 30,000 articles that were published in the field of transdisciplinary sustainability studies. We show that the field oscillates between deliberative and technocratic vocabularies and can therefore be characterized as a transversal field. We conclude that researchers who collaborate in science–society interstices are thrown into a semantic pluralism that cannot be boiled down to a common language. For transdisciplinary research practice and corresponding science policies, this involves trade-offs between generating a homogenous language and a collaborative appeal; between creating a stable creole and a situated semantic plurality. A corresponding theoretical viewpoint and science policy approach should be based on a pluralist view on the science–society–policy interplay.

Keywords: science–society–policy interplay; trading zone; computational methods; transdisciplinary sustainability studies; sociological field theory; deliberation and technocracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/scipol/scab006 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:scippl:v:48:y:2021:i:3:p:398-411.

Access Statistics for this article

Science and Public Policy is currently edited by Nicoletta Corrocher, Jeong-Dong Lee, Mireille Matt and Nicholas Vonortas

More articles in Science and Public Policy from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().