Environing Innovation: Toward an Ecological Pragmatism of Scientific Practice

Abstract

Studies of scientific innovation that theorize the complex social and material influences on scientific inquiry and innovation can benefit from explicit theoretical attention to meso-level practices embedded in formal organizations. Combining insights separately developed by pragmatist perspectives in sociology and Science and Technology Studies (STS), I introduce an ecological pragmatist approach to scientific practice that helps account for the meso-level environments in which scientists innovate. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, I reanalyze classic works in sociology and STS on cancer research innovation to show how the distinct concerns for accountability in one formal organization—the U.S. National Cancer Institute—helped constitute the material and conceptual scaffolding that went on to shape individual innovations and macro-level institutional transformations. I conclude by suggesting ecological pragmatism offers a valuable perspective on recent efforts in sociology to conceptualize culture as cognition.