Sociology of Expertise and Collective Action

How is knowledge produced and legitimated? How does one become an ‘expert’? Who should lead and participate in expertise building? While institutions have historically served as major channels for the construction, certification, and advancement of expertise, challenges from “citizen experts” or “experts by experience” have increasingly shifted attention to knowledge production processes that exceed institutional bounds. In this course we will examine how different collective action initiatives construct, dispute, and operationalize expertise vis-à-vis their movement’s objectives. We will discuss foundational theories within the sociology of knowledge, examine three contentious areas of expertise (health and biomedical knowledge, environmental expertise, and financial expertise), and consider epistemological and empirical implications of challenges to institutionally produced specialized knowledge.