Knowledge and the Social Sciences

Is knowledge what counts in today's society? How does knowledge shape social change? Do we trust experts less now than in the past? How do we decide which knowledge counts and which experts to trust? Knowledge and the Social Sciences: Theory, Method, Practice looks at the role of the social sciences in explaining and exploring what has been called the explosion of knowledge in the contemporary world. It takes as its starting point the claim that all forms of knowledge, including the social sciences, must be understood in their social context. It argues that the social sciences both describe and transform what they study and introduces students to some of the key concepts and arguments that are essential for further study in the social sciences. In a radical and practical introduction to ways of thinking and knowing in the social sciences, this text investigates the origins and consequences of different types of knowledge in areas of social change both in everyday thinking and in more academic fields, in medical science, religious belief systems and the environment and political responses to environmental change. These issues are explored in the context of the emergence of what has been called the 'knowledge society' in which the proliferation of new sources of knowledge, transmitted at speed across the globe, has been accompanied by a decline in trust in traditional forms of authority and expert knowledge.