- My work investigates how people know what they know and why they do what they do, says professor at UC Berkeley, Marion Fourcade, who this fall will come to Oslo to be appointed honorary doctor at The University of Oslo (UiO)
- I am still processing the news. I am humbled and deeply honoured by the University's decision and I very much look forward to my trip to Oslo, says Marion Fourcade.
- How would you describe your most important research contribution?
- I am a sociologist of knowledge, technology and capitalism. My work investigates how people know what they know and why they do what they do. I have developed this broad agenda through a series of historical and comparative case studies, for instance in my first book on the rise of the economics profession in three countries.
- More recently, I have sought to conceptualize the societal transformation wrought by the combined expansion of massive data sets and large-scale computation. My forthcoming book with Kieran Healy, The Ordinal Society, describes the social and economic consequences of a new regime of knowledge, where everyone can be seen and scaled by way of behavioural data harvested through digital environments.
Brilliant and wise
Professor Kristin Asdal, who is the Centre Director at Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK) nominated Marion Fourcade.
- I am am very excited and happy to learn that she has been appointed. Fourcade is brilliant and wise and so is the decision. I know she is extremely busy but can only hope this will be the start of even more contact and more interest around her research here at the University of Oslo. Fourcade teaches and works at UC Berkeley, a university we already have a lot of contact with. She is an excellent and very engaging lecturer.
- Why did you take the initiative to nominate Marion Fourcade?
- For the simple reason that she is currently one of our most interesting and inspiring scholars in the social sciences. She works across political economy, sociology and valuation studies with an astonishing ease. She has published heavily and became early very well known for her comparative study of the profession of economists. Her paper from 2011 in American Journal of Sociology, Cents and Sensibility on Economic valuation of Nature -and oil spills, is worth reading again and again.
- More recently her research evolves around trying to understand the digital economy. Her paper The fly and the cookie on this topic is simply amazing and can be read as a small precursor to what we can expect from her in her upcoming book on this topic.
- As for myself I have for many years been inspired by her work and my own most recent book Nature-Made Economy takes the cue from her work, says Asdal.
Extensive research
Marion Fourcade is a professor in the Department of Sociology at UC Berkeley and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Over the years, Fourcade has made significant scholarly contributions through her extensive work, innovative expansions, and deep analyses within the field of economic sociology. She engages in dialogue with the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Social Studies of Markets, with a particular emphasis on comparative studies and valuation practices.
Her extensive research into the institutional placement and development of the economics profession across three different countries is considered a standard reference. She has published widely, including a ground-breaking study of valuation practices through a comparative analysis of compensation procedures related to major oil spills in the American Journal of Sociology.
More recently, Fourcade has researched and published on valuations in the banking sector, particularly about credit scores, and has written very insightfully about the new political economy associated with the emerging digital economy. This work connects to core literature in economic and political sociology.
Read about all new honorary doctors at the University of Oslo: New honorary doctorates at the University of Oslo - University of Oslo (uio.no)