In this dissertation, I use three conceptual frameworks from science and technology studies-political sociology of science, boundary objects, and actor-network theory-across three studies to examine how relations of power engender the production of environmental knowledge within type 2 diabetes science. In the first study, I examine how discourse on environmental factors related to type 2 diabetes have been distributed across time, journal venues, and research institutions within the United States. This in response to "who" produces knowledge in Western science being chronically understudied. Post-war depictions of science have only reinforced its reputation as an objective endeavor, where the chance to engage in knowledge production is equally shared among all who participate in the scientific process. Within type 2 diabetes science, such a reputation is upheld by a clear increase in engagement with environmental risk factors across a greater breadth of medical experts. However, based on a critical content analysis of scientific literature on environmental factors related to type 2 diabetes (160 research articles from 20 medical journals, published from 1990 to 2019), I show how such diversification of expertise associated with environmental knowledge production has been consolidated among a handful of scientific journals and institutions. When fitted to a political sociology of science framework, my findings lend further weight to the critique that the privilege and power-in other words, the sheer momentum-built up behind some research institutions and not others greatly influences who can capitalize on topics of scientific salience.In the second study, I investigate how environmental factors have inadvertently facilitated the production of interdisciplinary discourse on type 2 diabetes. Within the context of Western science, there is a stereotype that knowledge production is siloed, that is, confined to discipline-specific paradigms. The assumption is that maintaining disciplinary boundaries lends itself to more sophisticated levels of expertise. Yet the idea of scientific siloes contradicts knowledge being produced on salient research topics-such as health and medicine-in which such topics are actually shared by multiple disciplines. Based on a critical discourse analysis of scientific literature on environmental factors related to type 2 diabetes (160 research articles from 20 medical journals, published from 1990 to 2019), I show how environmental factors themselves act as a boundary object that links multiple groups of scientists under the same intellectual effort. In this case, the vague etiologies suggested by environmental factors within type 2 diabetes discourse allows groups of scientists to ensure that the production of knowledge does not cease. Such groups coast on its neutral connotation and conserve space within its interpretive flexibility to engage with pastiche science, where explanations of disease turn speculative and limited by scientists' positionalities. As such, in likening environmental factors to boundary objects, I shows how such object can facilitate a collective process of knowledge production that is nevertheless imbued with scientists' best-guesses rather than the results of rigorous empirical investigation.Finally, in the third study, I examine how medical experts define and make sense of the environmental factors that they perceive are relevant to the lives of people living with type 2 diabetes. Within critical studies, the position of "expert" is a contentious one, since who is considered an expert largely depends on the social systems and knowledge infrastructures in place that provide credibility to such expertise. Within Western contexts, medical expertise is distinct in that it a site of tremendous prestige and authority. Thus the interpretation of environmental factors by medical experts are an important baseline to acquire, since it is their interpretations that are likely the most mainstream. By applying an abductive analysis to 24 in-depth interviews with medical experts located in the United States, I show how such experts perceived environmental factors as being one and the same as structural constraints that can prevent the pursuit of a healthy life for people living with type 2 diabetes. Further, I show how medical experts discussed environmental factors in tandem with what they perceived were structural constraints regarding their ability to provide effective interventions. Fitting these findings to actor-network theory, these findings suggest that for medical experts, environmental discourse within type 2 diabetes science is shorthand for relations of power that reproduce unjust distributions of disease.
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