Stephen Woolgar holds a BA (First Class Honours) in engineering and a PhD in sociology, both at the
University of Cambridge.
Career
Woolgar was Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Human Sciences and director of CRICT (Centre for Research into Innovation, Culture and Technology) at
Brunel University until 2000. He then held the Chair of Sociology and Marketing at the
University of Oxford where he was a fellow at
Green Templeton College. He is the former director of Science and Technology Studies within Oxford's Institute for Science, Innovation and Society. He is (2022) now retired from Oxford, and also from
Linköping University where he worked more briefly in the late 2010s.[2]
Contributions
Woolgar is a contributor in the fields of
science studies,
sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) and the
science and technology studies (STS) (especially on the topic of sociology of machines). He wrote Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (1979), a
social constructionist account of the practice of science, together with
Bruno Latour, who he first met in California when Latour was conducting hie early ethnographic work in scientific facilities. Woolgar has subsequently adopted an even more
relativist stance, for example in his 1988 book Science: The Very Idea.[3] Woolgar espouses a radically relativist and constructionist position. In 1985 he wrote a paper proposing a sociological approach towards machines and AI, in which he outlined the importance of associating AI with the field of sociology.[4]
Woolgar, Steve (1993) [1988]. Science: the very idea. London New York: Routledge.
ISBN9780415084758.
Woolgar, Steve (1988). Knowledge and reflexivity: new frontiers in the sociology of knowledge. London: Sage.
ISBN9780803981201.
Woolgar, Steve;
Fuller, Steve; de Mey, Marc; Shinn, Terry (1989). The cognitive turn: sociological and psychological perspectives on science. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
ISBN9789401578257.
Woolgar, Steve; Grint, Keith (1997). The machine at work: technology, work, and organization. Cambridge, UK Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press.
ISBN9780745609256.
Woolgar, Steve (2002). Virtual society? Technology, cyberbole, reality. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press.
ISBN9780191593963.
Woolgar, Steve;
Lynch, Michael; Coopmans, Catelijne; Vertesi, Janet (2014). Representation in scientific practice revisited. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
MIT Press.
ISBN9780262525381.
Nigel Thrift, Adam Tickell, Steve Woolgar, William H. Rupp. (2014) Globalization in Practice. Oxford University Press.
Annamaria Carusi, Aud Sissel Hoel, Timothy Webmoor, Steve Woolgar (eds.). (2020) Visualization in the Age of Computerization. Routledge.
Steve Woolgar, Daniel Neyland (2020). Mundane Governance: Ontology and Accountability. Oxford University Press.
Steve Woolgar, Else Vogel, David Moats and Claes-Fredrik Helgesson (eds. (2022) The Imposter as Social Theory – Thinking with Gatecrashers, Cheats and Charlatans. Bristol University Press. ISBN 978-1529213089
Chapter in books
Woolgar, Steve (1992), "Some remarks about positionism: A reply to Collins and Yearley", in
Pickering, Andrew (ed.), Science as practice and culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 327–342,
ISBN9780226668017.