Evaluative Spillovers from Technological Change: The Effects of DNA Envy on Occupational Practices in Forensic Science

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bechky, Beth A.
• 署名单位: New York University
• 刊物名称: ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-8392
• DOI: 10.1177/0001839219855329
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 606-643
• 关键词: INHABITED INSTITUTIONS; WORKPLACE; work; RETHINKING; sociology; IDENTITY; HISTORY; ORDER; jobs

摘要

Most studies of technologies' impact on occupational change focus on occupational groups' adoption and use of particular technologies in a field or workplace. Drawing on an 18-month ethnographic study of a crime laboratory, I focus instead on evaluative spillovers: the comparisons that occupations encounter when technologies change the work of neighboring occupations in their field. I explore what happened when DNA profiling was held up as the gold standard of forensic evidence, resulting in scientific, public, and legal scrutiny of other forensic science occupational groups. Comparisons with DNA profiling challenged the working techniques and the values of firearms examiners, toxicologists, and narcotics analysts, but each group responded differently, either embracing or resisting changes to their work practices. Their responses were predicated on the institutional pathways that evaluative spillovers traveled through the field in locales such as professional association meetings and court proceedings. These three aspects of the occupational system-technique, values, and institutional pathways-influenced how workers negotiated the impact of technological change in the field of forensic science.