The growing social and economic significance of expertise is reflected in popular suggestions that we are moving into a post-industrial 'knowledge society'. The subject of expertise is becoming recognised in a range of scholarly disciplines ranging from science and technology, psychology, computing and artificial intelligence through to management and organisational behaviour. Exploring Expertise brings together some of these diverse understandings of the character and implications of expertise, and demonstrates through a set of empirical case studies how expertise means different things to different groups, how it is constructed differently in different settings, and the consequences of this process for relations between 'members' of the knowledge society and those 'on the outside'. The book includes case study material ranging from a hospital ward to a factory to a nuclear weapons facility.

HARRY COLLINS Department of Sociology, University of Southampton GILLIAN HARDSTONE CENTRIM, University of Brighton JOANNE HARTLAND School of Social Science, University of Bath ROBERT HOFFMAN Department of Psychology, Adelphi University, New York, USA JOHN HOWELLS Department of Business and Management, Brunel University DONALD MACKENZIE Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh MAUREEN MCNEIL Department of Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham ROB PROCTER Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh PAOLO SAVIOTTI Universite Pierre Mendes-France JACKY SENKER Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex NIGEL SHADBOLT Department of Psychology, Nottingham University GRAHAM SPINARDI RCSS, University of Edinburgh