The entanglements of research and teaching. Analysis of technoscientific controversies at the CSI Mines ParisTech

Abstract

The analysis of technical and scientific controversies has emerged over the last thirty years as one of the cornerstones of the study of science and technology embedded in their social and cultural contexts. This article focuses on research and teaching experiences, conducted at the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation (CSI) of MINES ParisTech, revolving around the analysis of controversies. It examines their origins, mutual influences and key principles to finally discuss how a pragmatic approach to the study of controversies constitutes an opportunity for the development or evolution of innovative teaching methods, able to include a critical approach to the very contents of knowledge, and means of learning. Far from refusing the search for objectivity itself, this approach proposes to seek objectivity by means of dense descriptions of the associations that develop in and around the subject of study.