Rethinking Evidence in the Time of Pandemics: Scientific vs Narrative Rationality and Medical Knowledge Practices

The COVID-19 crisis has transformed the highly specialized issue of what constitutes reliable medical evidence into a topic of public concern and debate. This book interrogates the assumption that evidence means the same thing to different constituencies and in different contexts. Rather than treating various practices of knowledge as rational or irrational in purely scientific terms, it explains the controversies surrounding COVID-19 by drawing on a theoretical framework that recognizes different types of rationality, and hence plural conceptualizations of evidence. Debates within and beyond the medical establishment on the efficacy of measures such as mandatory face masks are examined in detail, as are various degrees of hesitancy towards vaccines. The authors demonstrate that it is ultimately through narratives that knowledge about medical and other phenomena is communicated to others, enters the public space, and provokes discussion and disagreements. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Table of Contents:
1. Evidence in Times of Crisis; 2. Narrative Rationality and the Logic of Good Reasons; 3. Whose Evidence? What Rationality? The Face Mask Controversy; 4. Whose Lives? What Values? Herd Immunity, Lockdowns, and Social/Physical Distancing; 5. The Rational World Paradigm, the Narrative Paradigm and the Politics of Pharmaceutical Interventions; 6. Objectivist vs Praxial Knowledge: Towards a Model of Situated Epistemologies and Narrative Identification; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Eivind Engebretsen is Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. He is Circle U Chair of Global Health and Executive Chariman of the Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE). Mona Baker is Affiliate Professor at the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway. She is Director of the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies at Shanghai International Studies University.

Review :
'Deploying a nuanced analytical framework to tackle the social complexity of evidentiary truth, Engebretsen and Baker bring sociological order and meaning to the apparent incoherencies of collective and individual action in times of crisis. An exemplary illustration of how social science can confidently illuminate the social dimensions of truth-making without undermining its own epistemic coherence.' Inanna Hamati-Ataya, University of Cambridge 'In this readable, incisive analysis of recent history, Engebretsen and Baker critically revisit, expand and update Fisher's narrative paradigm for the 21st century. Evident throughout is the urgent relevance of stories not only for how we make sense of the world but for how we must imaginatively configure new and hopeful stories for effective, transformative politics.' Sue-Ann Harding, Queen's University Belfast