Knorr-Cetina, K.

Karin Knorr Cetina (also Karin Knorr-Cetina) (born 19 July 1944 in Graz, Austria) is an Austrian sociologist well known for her work on epistemology and social constructionism, summarized in the books The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science (1981) and Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (1999). Currently, she focuses on the study of global microstructures and Social studies of finance. Knorr Cetina is the Otto Borchert Distinguished Service Professor (Jointly Appointed in Anthropology) and chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago. A knowledge object is a theoretical concept introduced by Knorr Cetina to describe the emergence of post-social relations in epistemic cultures. Knowledge objects are different from everyday things and are defined as unfolding structures that are non-identical with themselves; Jyri Engeström based the concept of social objects on this concept.