Title: How Experts Make Sense of Their Role
Subject Classification:  Sociology, Science, Society and Culture  
BIC Classification: JHM, GTC
BISAC Classification: SOC026000, SCI075000, SOC024000
Binding: Hardback, eBook
Planned publication date: Feb 2027
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-80866-036-8
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-80866-037-5

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Description

When multiple crisis events rapidly follow one another they lead to what is now known as a permacrisis—a prolonged period of instability and insecurity. Geopolitical conflicts and the COVID-19 pandemic constitute multiple crises, fostering a widespread perception of a permacrisis that generates uncertainty among the population. In these circumstances, experts offer their scientific expertise to inform and prepare citizens who are scared by unexpected phenomena they do not understand. Additionally, experts make their knowledge available to decision-makers, contributing to the development of practical solutions to complex problems that destabilize the community’s daily life.

This book investigates scientific expertise in times of multiple and persistent crises that activate specific relational processes between the expert and their non-expert publics, Such mechanisms shape the dynamics of the scientific expert's reputational self-representation. The authors present an empirical study conducted to examine the image experts have of themselves in light of what they believe non-experts expect of them, and the responsibility the experts feel when forced to manage the uncertainty regarding the problems they are called to solve. A number of focus groups were conducted with forty-five experts (junior researchers, senior researchers, department directors, communication experts, and laboratory technicians) working at renowned public and private research institutes in the fields of geopolitics and health. The results show that during the acute phases of crises, when the community’s need to rely on experts grows rapidly, the experts express a profound need for recognition. They do not seek reputation from their peers, but from the gaze of non-expert publics.

This is a fascinating study of relationships between the expert community and their public, which informs both policy and practice.

Biography

Author(s):  Marco Palmieri is a Tenure Track Researcher in Sociology at the Department of Communication and Social Research, La Sapienza University of Rome. His research focuses on the sociology of expertise, the dynamics of public reputation, and the relationship between scientific communities and society. Dr Rosario Aprile is a Research Fellow in the Department of Business Studies, University of Bergamo.

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