After Method

Law, John

doi:10.4324/9780203481141

Cited by 2,819 publications

(867 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

784

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This network is not a second level added to that of the individual, but exactly the same level differently deployed. In going from the actor to its network, we remain safely inside the 1-LS (Law 2004).…”

Section: How Digitally Available Profiles Modify the Element/aggregatmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This has been the key feature of ethnomethodology (Garfinkel 1967). It is also an important tenet of so many science and technology studies (STS) and the central argument of actornetwork theory (ANT) that the practical instruments that allow one actor to 'see the whole society' should be taken into account for any experience of the social order (Law 2004;Latour 2005). This vast research programme has been carried out for physics (Galison 2003), biology (Landecker 2007), accounting (Power 1995), economics (Callon 1998), as well as for cartography (Jacob 2006), geography (Glennie and Thrift 2009) and even sociology (Foucault 2003).…”

Section: Doing Away With the 'Dispatcher'mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

‘The whole is always smaller than its parts’ – a digital test ofGabrielTardes' monads

Latour

Jensen

Venturini

et al. 2012

British Journal of Sociology

343

249

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper we argue that the new availability of digital data sets allows one to revisit Gabriel Tarde's (1843-1904) social theory that entirely dispensed with using notions such as individual or society. Our argument is that when it was impossible, cumbersome or simply slow to assemble and to navigate through the masses of information on particular items, it made sense to treat data about social connections by defining two levels: one for the element, the other for the aggregates. But once we have the experience of following individuals through their connections (which is often the case with profiles) it might be more rewarding to begin navigating datasets without making the distinction between the level of individual component and that of aggregated structure. It becomes possible to give some credibility to Tarde's strange notion of 'monads'. We claim that it is just this sort of navigational practice that is now made possible by digitally available databases and that such a practice could modify social theory if we could visualize this new type of exploration in a coherent way.

show abstract

Section: How Digitally Available Profiles Modify the Element/aggregatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Doing Away With the 'Dispatcher'mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘The whole is always smaller than its parts’ – a digital test ofGabrielTardes' monads

Latour

Jensen

Venturini

et al. 2012

British Journal of Sociology

343

249

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These intersubjective, emotionally reflexive practices are more than self narration for its own sake: again they enact the emotional obligations and the moral basis of performing 'being there' which is part of the object of study. This, then, is about the methods rendering in particular ways -rather than constituting -what the research is about (Laws 2004). Enacting here is not replication; it is not the denial of any difference between the research experience and the world out there, or of the different ways both might be experienced by the researcher and research participant.…”

Section: Performing 'Being There'mentioning

confidence: 96%

‘Being there’: multidimensionality, reflexivity and the study of emotional lives¹

Brownlie

2011

British Journal of Sociology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Emotional lives tend to be untidy. Yet despite a growing recognition of this, sociological research designs rarely mirror the multidimensionality they are striving to represent. This article takes as its starting point a recent study of beliefs and practices about emotional support and emotions talk in Britain, to illustrate how a methodologically mixed approach offers particular purchase on what passes between us in our everyday emotional lives and in research about these lives. The notion of 'being there' is drawn on to help make this argument. Moving between 'being there' as topic, a form of emotional support, and 'being there' as a methodological resource, the article concludes that the analytical claims we make about our emotional lives are strengthened through a methodologically mixed - and by necessity, reflexive - approach which explores, rather than smooths out, the ragged, sometimes indeterminate, edges between methods.

show abstract

“…In other words, to develop a dispositif-as-method that is as "oppressive" as the dispositifs at the frontline of critique are supposed to be. This is not without consequences, if-again to paraphrase Law's argumentsocial sciences actively participate in ontological politics (Law 2004;Law and Urry 2004). Then, the main question is as follows: How can we prepare to participate in these politics?…”

Section: Conclusion: Back To the Setting And Beyondmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politics of Disappearance: Scanners and (Unobserved) Bodies as Mediators of Security Practices

Bellanova

Fuster

2013

Int Polit Sociol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2008, debates over the deployment of body scanners in EU airports gave rise to imbroglios of technologies, bodies, law, and policies. Eventually, these entanglements appeared to be undone and resolved by the concealment of bodies from the screens of the machines—which had, meanwhile, been renamed security scanners. Using the concept of setting, this article describes the processes of disappearance operating among a vivid multiplicity of actants and connections and identifies three main paradoxical features characterizing them. Based on this analysis, the article advances the notion of the politics of disappearance, where heterogeneous elements—both material and immaterial, visible as well as invisible—actively contribute to the making of a security practice and, potentially, to the opening of political landscapes.

show abstract

After Method

Cited by 2,819 publications

References 0 publications

‘The whole is always smaller than its parts’ – a digital test ofGabrielTardes' monads

‘The whole is always smaller than its parts’ – a digital test ofGabrielTardes' monads

‘Being there’: multidimensionality, reflexivity and the study of emotional lives¹

Politics of Disappearance: Scanners and (Unobserved) Bodies as Mediators of Security Practices

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

After Method

Cited by 2,819 publications

References 0 publications

‘The whole is always smaller than its parts’ – a digital test ofGabrielTardes' monads

‘The whole is always smaller than its parts’ – a digital test ofGabrielTardes' monads

‘Being there’: multidimensionality, reflexivity and the study of emotional lives1

Politics of Disappearance: Scanners and (Unobserved) Bodies as Mediators of Security Practices

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

‘Being there’: multidimensionality, reflexivity and the study of emotional lives¹