The bad expert
Social Studies of Science November 10, 2020 Paige L. Sweet, Danielle M. Giffort 21 citations
By telling stories about a reviled 'bad expert,' professionals help create new cultures of expertise. Two cases illustrate this: feminist therapists working on domestic violence and the revival of psychedelic medicine. In both, practitioners used antithesis performances—narratives about a dangerous or discredited scientific Other—to generate turning points that allowed new forms of expertise to emerge. The analysis links the sociology of professions' jurisdictional model with science and technology studies' network model, showing how cultural factors like scientific narratives and embodied performances connect expert domains and create new boundaries around expert practice.