Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry
Bigfoot exists. Not necessarily as a biological creature, but certainly as an object around which thousands of Americans organise their lives, analysing evidence, and making knowledge. This book examines the Bigfooting community sociologically. Using concepts from Science and Technology Studies (STS) as well as cultural sociology, Lewis and Bartlett shed new light on what it is to do ‘science’, what it is to behave ‘scientifically’, and where the borders of legitimate scientific practice lie.
Through detailed interviews with Bigfooters themselves, this book explores the ways in which the Bigfooting community makes sense of traces and absences to make knowledge claims that are acceptable to those within that community. It also shows how Bigfooters, in the face of scepticism, attempt to render Bigfoot a proper object of scientific inquiry outside of their own circle.
This fascinating, accessible, and entertaining reading will appeal to scholars and students of science and technology studies, cultural sociology, and the sociology of mystery, as well as to those interested in the public trust in and understanding of science.
Jamie Lewis is a Reader in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research interests include the sociology of science and the sociology of mystery as well as qualitative research methods. He is the co-author of Completing Your Research Project: a guide for the social sciences, published in 2025.
Andrew Bartlett is based at the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations at Sheffield University. He is interested in transformations in the social organisation of science, including questions of interdisciplinarity, boundary work, and the role of communities in knowledge making outside traditional scientific institutions.