"Were It Not For the Post-It Notes...": A Laboratory Leader's Day at Work
"Kdyby nebyly žluťáky...": Pracovní den vedoucího výzkumné skupiny
bachelor thesis (DEFENDED)
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http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/12897Identifiers
Study Information System: 56297
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- Kvalifikační práce [6408]
Author
Advisor
Referee
Ezzeddine, Petra
Faculty / Institute
Faculty of Humanities
Discipline
Liberal Arts and Humanities
Department
Department of General Anthropology
Date of defense
19. 9. 2007
Publisher
Univerzita Karlova, Fakulta humanitních studiíLanguage
English
Grade
Excellent
This paper is based on over six months of participant observation at a national research institution in the Czech Republic. The work of the team I observed focuses on experimental chemistry. My work builds on the tradition of "laboratory ethnographies". In the methodological part I address some theoretical issues of ethnography as the taking and processing of fieldnotes and the generation of an ethnographic account, my position and role in the field as an observer, and ethical issues related to this type of research. In the ethnographic account I first present the physical and social setting, and then, drawing primarily on the work of John Law, I focus my attention on the laboratory leader. I show the lab leader in networks of relations which he is a part of and which allow him to exist and perform his position of manager. These networks are ever changing, they emerge and disappear on different occasions and for different purposes, they are not fixed and rigid, and one network is never exclusive. An important aspect of these networks is that they are materially heterogeneous - they are not composed of humans only, but also of non-humans (things, technologies, computers, post-it notes, telephone sets and cell phones, etc.). Thus, my question is not only "who" but also "what" is the lab leader. I show that a...