No document available.
Abstract :
[en] In “Knowledge in policy”, Freeman and Sturdy propose a phenomenology with the aim of “knowing knowledge” (Freeman & Sturdy, 2014, p. 2). Knowledge can have different forms called “inscribed”, “embodied” and “enacted”. This framework is presented as a way to categorize and describe the form, the circulation and the transformation of knowledge in policymaking. In this paper, we intend to focus on inscribed knowledge, and particularly on documents conceived as essential artefacts of public policies (Freeman & Maybin, 2011). Freeman and Sturdy defined inscribed knowledge as “written down in texts, or represented in pictures and diagrams; or it may be incorporated into instruments, tools and machines, among other things”(Freeman & Sturdy, 2014, p. 10). This form of knowledge is particularly “stable”, “easily reproducible” and “highly mobile” so “it can be communicated or made available to many different individuals separated in time and/or space”(Freeman & Sturdy, 2014, p. 10). This statement draws from works in sociology of science and technology. These works, especially Latour’s (1987) studies of the laboratory work and Law's (1986) analysis of control at distance particularly emphasize the power of inscriptions in constraining social action over time and space. Through the analysis of the implementation of two policy plans in the Belgian healthcare sector, we question and put the role of inscriptions in perspective with moments of enactment, by focusing on meetings. We intend to show that some documents are crucial at particular moments and lose value at other moments. In the same vein, we also aim to show the importance of iteration, moments, duration, and rhythms in public action. By doing so, we show how the public policy itself is transformed through time, documents and meetings. We address this issue by drawing on two PhD researches focusing on the devising and implementation of the policy plans mentioned above. By relying on interviews, observations and document analysis, we describe the policy strategies inscribed in documents as well as key moments of both documents’ trajectories. In so doing, we emphasise that documents and meetings articulate with each other in an iterative process that in turn transforms the public policies themselves.