Boundary-work

[citation needed] The original use of the term "boundary-work" for these sorts of issues has been attributed to Thomas F. Gieryn,[2] a sociologist, who initially used it to discuss the problem of demarcation, the philosophical difficulty of coming up with a rigorous delineation between what is "science" and what is "non-science".

[1] Gieryn looked specifically at instances of boundary-work in 19th-century Britain, in which scientists attempted to characterize the relationship between religion and science as one of sharp distinction,[4] and also looked at instances in which scientists attempted to argue that science and politics and/or ideology were inherently separate as well.

by sociologists and historians have since looked at boundary-work in many other situations, usually focusing on the rhetoric of scientists (or their opponents) and their interpersonal and intersocial interactions.

One instance of these studies is Aldous Huxley's book Literature and Science (see also Jennings 1970[6] and Garvin & Heath 1983[7]).

Researchers have used the notion of boundary-work to study demarcations among partially-overlapping consumer practices, such as boardsport variations (e.g, surfing, windsurfing, kiteboarding and standup paddleboarding), which started as close variations of each other but that, over time, diverged into distinct markets characterized by their own norms, market actors, rules, and gear.