Towards the PERIpatetic approach: epistemology of close encounters within contemporary STS

This chapter is outlining key features of an emerging shift in research philosophy within science and technology studies (STS), involving greater proximity to participants through longer-term interaction and embeddedness in various contexts of Participatory Action Research (Darrouzet, Wild and Wilkinson, 2009). Hence, in this chapter, I am outlining the changing nature of social scientific enquiries and the related re-calibration of researchers’ philosophical framework.
Outlining my experience of a multi-level study of innovation processes and practices within the (New) Space Sector in Scotland, I am combining the understanding of abductive epistemology (Blaikie, 2004), best practice in researching professional elites (Mikecz, 2012), and multi-method research design and data collection, it develops the “participatory strategic ethnography of innovation” inspired by the Biographies of Artefacts and Practices (Hyysalo, Pollock and Williams, 2016) and frames the “uninformed insider” positionality as critical advances within STS research.
This is a reflexion on half a decade of engagement with the studied community and resolving critical practical and theoretical challenges. In particular, I have been working on a problem-solving-driven study, as well as conducting it in close cooperation with collaborators in the field, having been embedded within an innovation team at a leading research organisation.
Put together, I argue that the set-up of this work reflects a new methodological framework of the "PERIpatetic Approach" - a Practical Epistemology for Researching Innovation (PERI). The acronym PERI also (sub-)refers to the ambition that the philosophy behind the PERIpatetic Approach is based on re-interpretation of the core tenants of the strong programme in Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (Bloor, 1991) to base the future STS research on Perspectival, Embedded, Responsive and Introspective principles.