Theory groups are small research groups who develop a new scientific theory and work together to promote its acceptance by the scientific community. This book offers a pioneering analysis of theory groups by reconceptualizing them as socio-emotional collectives characterized by evocative group cultures and emergent small group processes that enable their members to conceptualize new theories and champion new intellectual movements that cut against the status quo in their fields. Utilising data from a fifteen-year, multi-sited ethnography of a theory group in sustainability science, it investigates the significance of faith, solidarity, fun, and flow episodes for developing transformative science. Chapters also explore the importance inter-generational group dynamics for advancing new theories, and of specific geographic locations such as remote islands for fostering creativity. This gripping first-hand account is an essential read for those wishing to understand the conditions that support transformative scientific creativity and the social dynamics of intellectual movements.

‘Academic theory groups reveal the intersection of social psychology and intellectual history. Sociologist John Parker has masterfully revealed the complexities of shared presence in his comprehensive and engaging account of the ecological Resilience Alliance: its rise and challenging present. Finding private spaces to develop hypotheses and friendships is crucial in producing secure knowledge. This volume is the next best thing to spending island time with these creative and congenial researchers.’

Gary Alan Fine - James E. Johnson Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University, and author of Tiny Publics: A Theory of Group Action and Culture

‘This book does for ecological research what The Double Helix did for DNA research: unveiling the competitiveness, conflict, and emotional jags of scientists as they really are. Like a well-written novel, the story arcs from a group of merry musketeers to their crisis and resurrection. It will be crucial reading on climate science, and the sociology of creativity.’

Randall Collins - author of The Sociology of Philosophies

‘Island Time is a highly creative analysis of scientific creativity. In it, John N. Parker skillfully combines three recent generations of theorizing in several areas of sociology with a fascinating multi-sited, multi-year ethnography of the Resilience Alliance, a small band of scientists who pioneered a new approach to the study of social-ecological systems. In this way, Parker successfully pushes contemporary research on scientific innovation beyond its current focus on individual knowledge producers toward the analysis of the socio-emotional group dynamics - the energizing rituals, the collective MOMENTS of joy and frustration - that undergird scientific revolutions. Going still further, he persuasively draws from this case study broader sociological principles about the nature of cultural creativity, principles that will demand the attention of future scholars who seek to understand the winding pathways to scientific innovation.’

Charles Camic - Lorraine H. Morton Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University