Storytime: A Tale of Male Tales

                It seems to me that, more than members of any other social science, anthropologists love a good story. A simple, well-spun tale can demonstrate complex ideas and memes that might prove much more difficult to explain using technical terms. My eyes might glazed over slightly (or not-so-slightly) when Traweek categorized stories about physics grad students as examples "not of romance but of high mimesis" in which "the hero is superior in degree to others, but not to the environment", but I understood her point much more clearly when I remembered the story of a grad student, recently ejected from his lab by a propane tank explosion, who daringly (or desperately) dashed back into the building to retrieve his precious data before being thrown out again by a second blast.¹

                As Traweek leads us through the "stages" of a career in high energy physics, she relays little anecdotes that show us what roles individuals at various stages of their physics careers are expected to fill, and how they are perceived by the high energy physics community at large. In doing so, she tells a sort of meta-story; though each of her anecdotes is about a different individual, together they form a myth detailing the life of an idealized überphysicist who shows promise and daring early on, perseveres through the impossibilities of postdoc life, establishes himself as a member of the core physics community as a group leader, transitions into ambassadorial work as a statesman, and finally achieves the status of genius, to serve as a model for the newer generations of developing physics tadpoles. Along the way, the author makes the point that the idealized characteristics in these stories - persistence, dominance, aggressiveness² -  reflects the dominance of the male way of thinking in the physics community.

                        What I liked about this reading was that it reinforced the idea that while science is perceived by the general public as absolutely objective, it has a culture nonetheless that is just as receptive to anthropological examination as any other. Amongst scientists, the saying goes that the plural form of "anecdote" is not "data”, but I particularly enjoy the use of storytelling in the cultural analysis of science itself.

¹ Traweek, Sharon. 1988. "Pilgrim's Progress: Male Tales Told During a Life in Physics." Ch3 in Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists. Harvard University Press. pp 84-85

²p 103