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Reviewed by: Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise: Creating New Kinds of Collaboration Sergio Sismondo (bio) Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise: Creating New Kinds of Collaboration. Edited by Michael E. Gorman. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011. Pp. viii+302. $30. This is a book about incommensurability and the practical work of bridging scientific, technical, and other cultures. The volume stems from what clearly must have been an excellent workshop, inspiring for a number of the participants. Almost all of the chapters respond to the theoretical introduction by Harry Collins, Robert Evans, and Michael Gorman, with the result that a group of examples and phrases serve as touchstones through the volume. In the introduction and in separate chapters, first by Peter Galison (who also provides a narrative reconstruction of his thinking on the topic) and then by Collins and Evans, "trading zones" and "interactional expertise" are explained and elaborated on in connection with a few related concepts. Valuable here is the effort to discriminate among different bridges of incommensurable cultures. While his trading zones might be everywhere that there is trade across cultures, the foundation for trade that Galison is best known for describing is the development of pidgins, and eventually creoles, that allow participants to interact. Collins and Evans identify interactional expertise as a potential foundation for trade: the development of enough expertise in an area to be able to interact interestingly. Collins, Evans, and Gorman also identify other solutions to trading zones: coordinated action through "boundary objects" and subversion or imposition of one local culture by another. These two play limited roles in the volume, probably because the contributors are generally looking for models of collaboration. Collins, Evans, and Gorman warn against the temptation to see interactional expertise and trading zones everywhere. But Galison and Brad Allenby are the only contributors who devote substantial space to cautions about either of the two guiding concepts of the book. Allenby raises the [End Page 696] possibility that in promoting trading zones we might overvalue particular culturally specific kinds of communication. Galison's concerns are more general: since almost any space of interaction could be considered a trading zone, he wants to ensure that his concept remains useful by establishing limits. Unfortunately, Galison's caution is not shared by many of the other contributors. A good question, asked and answered by some of the authors, is where we might find pidgins and creoles, and where we might find interactional expertise. The chapter that does most to work with the theory is probably Lekelia D. Jenkins's exploration of the development of a turtle-excluding device for shrimp fishers. Because Jenkins follows the development of the device, her use of the model is diachronic, and addresses possible movements between different ways of bridging, in different circumstances. Although the theoretical chapters are useful, for the most part they explain concepts familiar from the authors' other work. Thus the main contribution of the volume as a whole lies in the examples of successful and unsuccessful interaction, all of which are framed in terms of either trading zones or interactional expertise or both. The cases in the empirical chapters are thought-provoking—I especially appreciated Jeff Shrager's account of his efforts to teach molecular biologists enough computer programming to give them independence from programmers—and there were interesting accounts of "service science," business strategy, medical devices, and interdisciplinary collaborations. However, most of the chapters do not go beyond identifying trading zones in their subject matter, thus announcing the success of the theory. As a result, the volume is overly harmonious, with too few of the authors challenging or going beyond their common starting points. A few chapters turn the notions of interactional expertise and trading zones into moral ones. These authors see ethical action borne out of moral imagination, which is an ability to understand the ethical limitations of one's own established cultural practices. I am unconvinced that any of the authors here do a good job of establishing a connection between moral imagination and interactional expertise or trading zones. Lack of communication may give rise to unethical actions, but so might communication. Developing trading zones may not be enough. [End Page 697] Sergio Sismondo...
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