Into the Woods: New Ethnographies

Into the Woods mounts an informed defence of climate science by offering a detailed investigation of the making of a paleoclimate reconstruction. For four years, Ramrez-i-Oll joined a team of climate scientists in their tree sampling expeditions in the Scottish Highlands, observed their efforts in the laboratory to derive climate information from wood samples and followed their discussions in conferences, on-line conversations, workshops and peer-reviewed journals. Into the Woods takes its readers through the process of producing a scientific graph to show the evolution of past temperatures in Scotland in its various social and epistemic geographies. This study is organised linearly to demonstrate the complexities of knowledge-making; Ramrez-i-Oll calls this methodological approach to research and writing in which the production of knowledge is intensely described and analysed "epistemography". By understanding science as a situated practice shaped by disciplinary commitments to knowledge production--as well as other sociocultural and material factors that shape any human activity--Ramrez-i-Oll provides crucial insights into the practice of climate science, distinct from the grotesque caricatures and damaging myths circulating in popular media and literature.

This book will appeal to scholars in science and technology studies, environmental policy, sociology, anthropology, and the history of science, as well as those engaged in the relatively new and promising field of ethnographies of climate science. Into the Woods will also be of interest to activists, bloggers and journalists interested in climate science.