Abstract (eng)
This thesis considers the question of the making and unmaking of experts and expertise in the context of a controversy over cell phone masts in an Austrian village. Entries in a local online discussion forum and a talk delivered by a proponent of the citizens’ initiative at a doctors’ conference are analysed using membership categorization analysis. The analysis demonstrates the importance of local and spatial practices of knowledge construction. Furthermore different groundings of expertise in the texts are elaborated. In the discussion forum, mainly the personal trustworthiness of the members of the citizens’ initative against the cell phone masts is at stake. Findings of scientific studies which are introduced by some participants find no resonance in the discussion. By contrast, the member of the citizens’ initative in his talk at the doctors’ conference grounds his expertise mainly in his professional role as a medical doctor. Additionally, a specific epistemological model is designed to account for his actions, and his status as a person affected by electrosensitivity is of relevance. The analysis is contextualized by a discussion of current debates in science and technology studies on the relation between science, politics, and expertise, stretching between the possibility of a technical democracy and the fragility of modern societies.