Cultural speciality and social structure of scientific communities

Abstract

Social studies of science have dealt with the scientific communities from different viewpoints. However, it has been impossible hitherto to determine the social processes of scientific activity configuration. On the one hand, the limits of the specialities remain unclear and this uncertainty increases as the technological and epistemological processess become more complicated. On the other hand, these studies get on to some specialities of "hard sciences", so that we have a mosaic of different descriptions but not a global explanation of the operation modes in science, in any area of work. In addition, organizational changes in sciencie during the last decades, derive in the modifications of the researches objetives and the contexts of the scientific production. We argue here, that the analysis of the social structure of the scientific community must take into account the epistemological, organizational and indeed, methodological dimensions developed by the scientists. Thus, it must be approached in a global way, the scientific practices and task management within the research teams.