Turn, Turn, and Turn Again: The Woolgar Formula

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Abstract
This response to a recent article in ST&HV by Woolgar ("The Turn to Technology in Social Studies of Science") investigates Woolgar's concept of analytic ambivalence. The response points out how this notion originates in a formula applied to social problems research and how this formula is used as the basis for Woolgar's critique of work in the social studies of technology. The response then goes on to show that Woolgar's own application of the formula of analytic ambivalence is formulaic and glosses over many of the interesting features of the social studies of technology. Woolgar's article seems set to become another exemplification of the reflexivist formula rather than an occasion for questioning the idea of applying formulas altogether.