Izmišljanje ufologije: konstrukcija nauke o vanzemaljcima
Inventing Ufology: Constructing a Science of Extraterrestrials

Author(s): Nina Kulenović
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure
Published by: Srpski genealoški centar
Summary/Abstract: The study takes the perspective of the anthropology of science and the studies of science as culture, and relies on traditions of research into popular culture and new religions, to examine the theoretical, methodological, epistemological, logical, media and institutional mechanisms through which ufology seeks to legitimize its own system of beliefs, ideas and thought as scientific knowledge, and to secure authority over interpretative rights for its own discourse. It also takes a look at the importance of cultural construction of epistemology and of the socio-cultural context which has enabled the ongoing establishing of a contingent semantic matrix which tends to interpret "strange celestial occurrences" as extraterrestrial ships. In shedding light on the political, ideological and ethical climate in which UFO discourse first arose, and on broader debates reassessing the established scientific canons characteristic of the second half of the 20th century, ufology is not seen as a mere pop-cultural sensation, but rather as a potentially subversive amalgamation of claims challenging both the mechanisms traditionally seen as the only legitimate and reliable producers of truth, and the channels for the distribution of truth and knowledge. The main objective of the study is to analyze the mechanisms for the construction and use of "science" as a symbol of cultural legitimacy. UFO discourse 6 hough originating on the fringes of popular culture and revolving around a purportedly nonexistent phenomenon 6  2come a very powerful and potentially dangerous system of beliefs/thought/knowledge defying the accepted knowledge, challenging the justification of the ways in which it is being produced as "objective", "real" or "existing", and the legitimacy of the mechanisms for the distribution and circulation of the knowledge as "true". It analyzes the rehabilitation of debates within the philosophy of science 6 2vious in scientific and public polemics about ufology 6 7tred on demarcation between science and pseudoscience, in order to demonstrate that there is no such thing as universal and operational criteria for demarcating science from less valid epistemic achievements. It stresses that the demarcation issue is not only a theoretical problem of an internalist notion of science, but rather that these criteria are a playground for an incessant battle over who will set them up and thus acquire the epistemological credibility and social authority to speak from the position of science. In that way, popular culture 6 in an age marked by a crisis of trust in official institutions and by the dismantlement of science conceived of as a value neutral and objective correspondence to reality 6   ge for ufology to aspire to establish itself as "more scientific than science" and "more objective than objective science", in other words, as an epistemologically valid, methodologically standardized, institutionally grounded, fiscally worthwhile and ethically superior scientific discipline. The study also proposes the concept of "science-likeness" (veriscientitude) as heuristically and analytically potentially productive in analyzing any process of creating new sciences.

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