Winter, Michael F. “Specialization, Territoriality, and Jurisdiction: Librarianship and the Political Economy of Knowledge.” Library Trends 45, no. 2 (1996): 343-63.
This is going to be mostly an outline again, sorry, but I will add some comments. I’m not trying to make it so you don’t need to read these articles anyway. I’m just trying to show you what they contain that may be of value to you and, in my better moments, intrigue you into reading something.
INTRODUCTION
Winter uses a sort of quasi-Marxist theory and Abbott’s work on the sociology of the professions as a foundation.
“The general orientation of this article is the idea that human activity is, roughly speaking, ecological—a process that involves interaction between social groups and environments” (343).
INTEGRATION, SPECIALIZATION, AND THE GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE
States that “much progress in trying to understand the often overwhelming complexity of contemporary knowledge growth” has been made; but that most of it has been of a theoretical nature with very little in the area of “problem- or policy-oriented research” (344).
This type of work “provides a kind of ethnography of knowledge production, which in turn provides a number of essential starting points for model building and theory construction” (344).
Discusses various works on the problems of specialization and the “hope of integration which haunts” the literature on interdisciplinarity (344).
SPECIALIZED ADVANCE, TERRITORIAL IMPULSE, AND INTELLECTUAL COLONIALISM
Specialization is still the prevailing process, though, through “the Cartesian impulse to endlessly decompose subjects into ever finer analytic domains” (345). [On this idea, see also Mary Midgley's The Myths We Live By, especially chapter 4-5.]
Looks at models of specialization:
- Organic – new organisms and species through hybridization
- Spatial, regional, geopgraphic – islands and archipelagos or cities and frontier (intellectual) outposts
- But what about a 3rd that integrates them?
They are both territorial, competitive, and expansionist. “They share, in other words, a general pattern of exploiting available resources to produce new life forms and new settlements and thus to create, occupy, populate, and colonize new intellectual regions” (346).
There is “a rhetorical duality: there are, on the one hand, “metaphors of place—turf, territory, boundary, domain”—but also “metaphors of connection—network, web, system, field, overlap, interconnection, and interpenetration” (Klein, same issue of Library Trends)” (Winter, 346).
The author’s own argument places “a strong emphasis on the first of these [metaphors of place] and suggests that specialization works against integration in any systematic way, [although] it does give rise to its own characteristic style of connection” (346).
GLOBALIZATION, CULTURE FLOW, AND THE EMERGENCE OF TRANSNATIONAL CULTURAL SPACE
We’ve been told that the nation-state is done. “Patterns of migration, employment, and trade” have changed dramatically (347). “The result is the emergence of a richly textured, culturally pluralistic, highly unstable emerging world order at the end of the twentieth century” (347).
How “has this affected the production and distribution of formal knowledge” (347)?
- Migration of large numbers of “highly skilled and educated professional and technical workers in the physical, life, and health sciences” to the US (348).
- Expanded “demand for the study and teaching of the histories, cultures, and societies of the newer immigrant groups, and certainly a willingness to devote resources to collecting their literatures” (348).
- “For librarians, this means that the center and periphery of collectible bodies of literature are not what they were even a generation or two ago, as the intellectual capital of past epochs gets redefined as part of the spoils of Western imperialism” (349).
And yes, his comments are as imperialistic as that last statement. I just realized that every word on these two pages that address the above question are about the impact on knowledge production in the United States. Shame on you, Mr. Winter! America is not the only place where formal knowledge is produced.
DISCIPLINES, OCCUPATIONS, AND THE QUEST FOR JURISDICTION
Disciplines are “social groups with distinct cultures,” “tribes” (349).
Disciplines, with their differences of value, worldview, method, technique, leading ideas and theories, to say nothing of the characteristic ceremonies, rules, norms, rites of passage, patterns of apprenticeship, and hierarchies of authority are, like any social grouping, subcultures whose attitudes, behaviors, communication patterns, and vocabularies are frequently incomprehensible and inpenetrable to outsiders (Bauer, 1990, p. 112; Marcus, 1995) (Winter 349-50).
But Winter prefers “the “social fields” of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology:”
A discipline, in other words, is an area defined by the relative positions of individuals and groups, their social networks, their dynamic interactions, and whose shifting outlines are dictated in large measure by the social, political, cultural, and intellectual resources that participants bring to them as they occupy the research field (Bourdieu, 1986; Marcus, 1995) (Winter 350).
Why, yes, that is so much more polite. </sarcasm>
This social structuring leads to claims of professional jurisdiction ala Abbott in The System of the Professions (Winter 350).
[P]rofessionalization has a special importance for the knowledge-intensive work of the middle- and uppper-middle classes in the advanced industrial societies. In these cases, higher education credentials and special learning experiences play a critical role in controlling access to work and in legitimating the group’s jurisdicational claim to the outside world (Friedson, 1986; Abbott, 1988) (Winter 351).
GLOBALIZATION, PROFESSIONALIZATION, AND SYSTEM DISTURBANCES
Globalization, and the resulting capital and resource flows, “may have some of the “system disturbing” effects that Abbott (1988) refers to in his account of professional competition and conflict (pp. 91-98)” (351).
LIBRARIANSHIP AND THE ECOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE DISTRIBUTION
“Librarians, to borrow a phrase from the ecological register of comparisons, occupy different niches [within the information distribution function] even though there is an overlap of function” (352).
SYSTEM DISTURBANCES AFFECTING LIBRARIANSHIP
Some functions have split off and are now done by others, e.g., the library assistant. Paraprofessionals have grown much faster. Also, much technical work is handled by the bibliographic utilities (353).
Paraprofessionals staffing reference desks. Growth of “Administrators, managers, accountants, systems analysts, computer resource specialists, development officers, and student assistants” (354). “Librarians” used to do all of these functions.
THE NEED FOR SPECIALIZATION
- “First and perhaps most important, specialization is a coping mechanism for dealing with the overwhelming mass of output; by narrowing the focus, it filters out some of the flow and makes the rest easier to manage (see Wilson’s article in this issue of Library Trends)” (355).
- “Second, it permits the librarian to understand enough of textual form and content to be of more help to users” (355).
- “And librarians must also be specialized otherwise they cannot hope to have any semblance of collegial contact and communication with a wide range of their user groups” (355).
We need to specialize so we can take over new niches, since others have taken over many of our previous functions/roles.
Many possibilities:
- Geographical area, language
- Subject specialization, esp. hybrid and interdisciplinary subjects
- By function and format – E.g., governement documents, children’s literature, maps, digital formats, textual authority
THE NEED FOR INTEGRATION: THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE
But doesn’t all this specialization create disunity within the profession? Yes, but.
Older forms of integration, which should be continued:
- General classification schemes
- Cataloging services
- Cognitive organization (357)
Social epistemology, which Winter defines as “Basically, it is the study of the social organization of knowledge production and distribution or, alternatively, the sociology of formal knowledge” (357), is to be our professional integrative function. Personally, I would quibble with Winter’s definition. I’d at least want him to define a few of his terms. But, it can stand for now.
From this viewpoint, what underlies and integrates the work of all librarians is that it deals with texts that encode the knowledge works of their producers. A widening of the traditional jurisdiction, in effect making the librarian a kind of specialist in the social organization of knowledge, brings some of the integrative potential which so often seems to disappear as knowledge production itself becomes more specialized (357-8).
While I’m somewhat in agreement with Winter on both the call for specialization and for an integrative function for social epistemology in librarianship, they both have serious issues, at least in today’s environment.
Further specialization on a wide scale, despite its merits, is just not an option in today’s fiscal environment. Libraries cannot and are not hiring to fill all of the positions that they already have open or have need need for. There is, of course, room for some specialists and there almost always has been. But for everyone to be a specialist as Winter lays it out is simply a desideratum, and an unattainable one at that.
For all librarians to become social epistemologists is almost funny. Think back to the “science wars” between the humanities and sciences of a decade or so ago. These were, in effect (and to oversimplify), a battle between the social epistemologists (there are many kinds) and the more objectivist-types of epistemologists. It’d be great for the science librarians to become social epistemologists only to lose any and all respect of those they serve. For a good overview of the issues and positions in the “science wars,” see The One Culture?: A Conversation About Science. I read this book a few years ago and I found it to be very good. It was as much of a conversation as a book can be thanks to the way it was edited and produced.
Work, Text, and Collection
Librarians are charged with maintaining intangible “works” and tangible “texts” (358).
Use Values and Exchange Values of Cultural Objects
Distinguishes two types of commodity value: direct use and exchange value. Discusses the exchannge value of texts and works. Differentiates the exchange value of works and texts, which leads to the “two provinces” of scholarship: criticism and bibliography (358-9).
Cultural Capital Formation in Knowledge Production
This is his wrap-up, so I’ll leave it to you. Actually doesn’t say much in my opinion.
All in all, not a bad article. While I agree with much of what he says, I am not sure what he recommends is feasible in our current “corporate”/fiscal environment, nor do I think it is the best and most useful analysis to make of the situation. It does have many interesting ideas in it, though.
