SCIENCES DE LA SOCIÉTÉ
-
N° 66 - octobre 2005
Merchandisation
and knowledge
Edited
by Alain LEFEBVRE et Pascale
TROMPETTE
Alain LEFEBVRE, Pascale TROMPETTE, Introduction [Text in french]
Geneviève AZAM,
The utopia of knowledge
economy
Christian PONCET, Jean-Pierre MIGNOT, Public policies and organizational implications in the
historical process of the industrialization of knowledge
Jean-Benoît ZIMMERMANN, Open source software and merchandisation. The paradox
of excellence
Dominique VINCK, Ethnography
of a public technological research laboratory. The analysis of
the mediation between public research and private appropriation
David PONTILLE,
Scientific and professional values : the economy
of authorship practices
Ashveen PEERBAYE,
Genomics between academic
and industrial research
Marie-Pierre BÈS, Knowledge
and know-how developed during researchers-industrialists partnerships
Vincent MEYER,
Instrumentalisation of knowledge in the field
of social issues : evaluation and merchandisation
Emmanuel PARIS, Fabien GRANJON, Knowledge
merchandisation, public research privatisation and reforms of
the French university
Nathalie PIGNARD-CHEYNEL, Scientific
journals' publishing. A kind of knowledge diffusion merchandisation
NOTES DE
LECTURE
Geneviève AZAM, The utopia of
knowledge economy
Abstract
This
article offers some reflections on the sense given to the invention
of a « knowledge economy », regarding it as the construction
of a field of economic activities as well as a discourse legitimating
the sense which is given to it. Our approach involves a prior
analysis of the conditions of knowledge commodification, as illustrated
by the current changes in knowledge property rights. Elaborating
on Karl Polyani's argument about « quasi-commodities »,
couldn't we regard knowledge as a « fictional » commodity
rather than a simple commodity ? It is the point of view we have
adopted in this article, which shows that the current attempts
at giving this fiction more actuality pose a threat to knowledge
itself by confining it to an instrumental function.
Key
words : commodity,
patent, knowledge property rights, « quasi-commodities »,
enclosure.
Christian
PONCET, Jean-Pierre MIGNOT,
Public policies and organizational implications in the
historical process of the industrialization of knowledge
Abstract
The transfer
of scientific knowledge produced by the public laboratories towards
the industrial sector means the organization - between two presumed
distinct spheres - of relations asking for a specific analysis
able to account for this process. The objective of this paper
is to set off, particularly, the importance of the history in
the understanding of the knowledge transfer and the industrialization
of this knowledge ; the emergence of singular organizational structures
linked to the research public policies likely to ease such operations.
It appears that, with regards to the observed situations, especially
in the theme of the patentability, the academic and industrial
culture and traditions of witch the analysis, the importance and
the understanding are answerable to the historic perspective,
play a determinant part leading to a better perception and a better
understanding of the logics witch prevail in the transfer process.
Keywords
: industrialization
of knowledge, transfer process, history, organizational structures,
academic world, industrial word.
Jean-Benoît
ZIMMERMANN,
Open source software and merchandisation. The paradox of excellence
Abstract
A «
free » or « open source » software is a software
whose source-code, that is the explicit expression of programming
work, remains openly accessible. Until recently, open source software
was considered as only concerning programmers motivated by the
building and the sharing of a base of programs developed for their
own needs. Today, the open source model involves commercial enterprises
and also an enlarged market of users. This brings to a paradoxical
situation in which the development of business relies on the existence
and durability of an activity of non-market nature. We will show
that solving such a paradox would lean on setting up new modes
of incentives involving a pecuniary dimension complementarily
to the motivations originated in the initial movement. Such a
turn still appears to be part of the actual way of working of
open source software in so far as a growing amount of the code
is produced by salaries that are paid for doing so. Such «
hybridization », mixing market and non-market rationales,
nowadays appears as an inescapable evolution that also challenges
policy makers for integrating support to open source software
in the instruments of technological policy.
Keywords
: Open
Source Software, public good, market, contribution, incentives.
Dominique
VINCK,
Ethnography of a public technological research laboratory.
The analysis of the mediation between public research and private
appropriation
Abstract
This paper concerns a peculiar intermediary of the merchandising
of knowledge, in this particular case a public technological research
laboratory, of which mission is to assure the transfer of the
results from research towards the industrial development. The
article focuses on this place of mediation and tries to seize
with its internal dynamics, notably of movement and stabilization
of a relative border between the production of knowledge and the
private appropriation. He reports the on-going dynamics in a technological
research laboratory and declines several dimensions of local dynamics.
Studied situation is particularly interesting because representative
of these public research laboratories strictly enlisted in technico-economic
dynamics. The inquiry is based on ethnography and on interviews.
The case allows thinking about the visible simplicity of the border
between common goods and private goods accounting of local processes
of construction and transformation of this passage. It shows the
contradictions such organisation should solve everyday in order
to maintain its position as interface between public research
and industry.
Keywords
: mediation,
R&D, technological transfer, research laboratory, public/
private, merchandising.
David
PONTILLE,
Scientific and professional values : the economy of authorship
practices
Abstract
A large
set of studies have showing the increasing capitalization of scientific
knowledge for thirty years. This marketization is generally perceived
as opposed to academic values that promote disinterested research,
gift and non-property. Nevertheless, the analysis of scientific
authorship proposed in this text involves another standpoint.
The economy of authorship practices supports several exchange
regimes that are complementary into the academy itself. Then «
science » appears less as an autonomous sphere, opposed
to the « market », than as a space of strains between
different forms of dealings with persons and things. This point
of view also reveals the particular place devoted to the «
work » in scientific activities.
Keywords
: authorship,
signature, work, science, gift, market.
Ashveen
PEERBAYE,
Genomics between academic and industrial
research
Abstract
The advent of a strategic science
regime has deeply modified the relations between academic and
industrial research, and complexified the modalities of accessibility,
distribution and appropriation of scientific knowledge. Focusing
on the emblematic case of genomic research, this paper highlights
processes ordinarily overlooked by traditional analyses of relations
between public and private research, which assume public research
pursues activities which are intrinsically different from those
undertaken by private firms. One of the important consequences
of modern biotechnology's dependency upon larger technological,
social and organizational system is the frequent coexistence of
situations in which generic technologies and shared research facilities
force academic and industrial players to cooperate while at the
same time competing. Instrumentation and technology then become
vectors of coordination between public and private genomic research.
We argue that the tensions which then arise between these heterogeneous
actors do not constitute mere obstacles or threats to scientific
production. Interactions, convergence and compe-tition between
academic and industrial research must rather be seen as orienting
scientific and technological trajectories, and modifying the nature,
accessibility and appropriation modalities of knowledge.
Keywords : strategic research, instrumentation, instrumental
coordination, genomics, biotechnology, technological platforms,
shared research facilities.
Marie-Pierre
BÈS,
Knowledge and know-how developed during researchers-industrialists
partnerships
Abstract
This
paper is based upon a detailed study of partnerships (contracts,
doctoral student funding schemes and joint laboratories) between
scientists and industrialists in the field of engineering sciences.
It aims to scrutinize the knowledge and know-how developed during
these partnerships in an effort to highlight their collective
and drawn-up aspects. We show that four kinds of specific knowledge,
i.e. technological, instrumental, methodological and economic
knowledge, are developed. These sometimes have a « tacit »
aspect and are therefore incompatible with distance transfer.
Precisely, in the closing pages of the paper, we raise the question
of the working methods of a more recent type of link between science
and industry, namely the joint laboratories between industry and
the French CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique).
Keywords
: contracts,
researchers, industrialists, scientific knowledge, tacit, joint
laboratories.
Vincent
MEYER,
Instrumentalisation of knowledge in the field of social issues
: evaluation and merchandisation
Abstract
This
contribution puts forward an analysis related to the current development
of this new « excitement » that takes place around
evaluation in the professional field of social services in France.
In the last-mentioned, which more and more stands against market,
production of knowledge about professional activities is nowadays
dependent on the human and financial means that are involved in
this field. Thus, these developments disclose many political,
ethical and social stakes, insofar as professionals in this field
will have to face an unprecedented instrumentalisation of their
knowledge. In this article which develops in three facets
: uses of evaluation, computer translation of knowledge and their
market effects - we will show why, and how the formatting of professional
knowledge, and the logics of evaluation application programs,
will gradually throw social services towards a market logic.
Keywords
: evaluation,
computerization, social intervention, merchandisation, knowledge
production.
Emmanuel
PARIS, Fabien GRANJON,
Knowledge merchandisation, public research privatisation and
reforms of the French university
Abstract
In this
article, we have wished to show, through some aspects, to what
extent the principles and awaited consequences of the reforms
of the french university stem from a strong will to commit the
alma mater into a dynamics of commodification of higher education.
The governmental injuction of autonomy, the end of the national
framing of the diplomas, the development of the domaines de formation
or the place taken by the psychological culture belong to a scheme
of new standards, rules and procedures whose vocation is to destabilize
the university system that we know today.
Keywords
: reform
of the university, social engineering, evaluation, psychological
culture.
Nathalie
PIGNARD-CHEYNEL,
Scientific journals' publishing. A kind of knowledge diffusion
merchandisation
Abstract
This
paper presents some results from the analyses of the merchandizing
process that accompanies the diffusion of scientific knowledge.
Based on the analyses of the scientific journals' publishing sector,
dominated during several decades by the giant editorial corporations,
their strategies tend to regard scientific content as profitable
goods. We evidence the way in which this commercial dimension
of the scientific journals generates a certain number of restrictions
for the scientific field, as well as the foreseeable evolutions
for the electronic publishing of scientific journals.
Keywords
: scientific
publishing, scientific journal, electronic publishing, merchandizing.