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- Convenors:
-
Tamara Pascale Schwertel
(University clinic Koeln)
Sarah B. Evans-Jordan (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU))
Carrie Friese (London School of Economics and Political Science)
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- Discussants:
-
Olaf Tietje
(Institute of Sociology)
Renate Baumgartner (VU Amsterdam)
Ursula Offenberger (University of Tübingen, Germany)
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel focusses on pragmatist methodology-inspired empirical research (i.e. with situational analysis by Clarke, Friese & Washburn 2018). We aim to engage in STS discussions about theorizing and empirical analysis while exploring how the understanding of qualitative inquiry transforms.
Long Abstract:
Many of late-modern societies challenges are complex problems that their origins are multi-sited, resulting from historical dynamics and amplifying social inequalities. If STS-scholars are to grasp those complexities rather than to reduce them, they need adequate methodologies for investigating transformations and the (possible) role of research for co-creating desired futures. Reflexivity is required regarding the politics of doing research and researchers’ positionality.
Pragmatist methodology, originating in early 20th century US-philosophy and currently experiencing a revival in European scholarship, is one strand of theorizing and empirical practice that offers heuristics to include multiperspectivity, processuality and heterogeneity into empirical analyses of social practices. Widely used empirical research styles draw significantly on pragmatist epistemology while proposing concrete strategies for rigorous empirical research. Designed to acknowledge complex relationships between scientific research practices and the respective fields of inquiry, those research styles consider reflexivity and positionality of researchers. Recent advancements in grounded theorizing proposed by situational analysis scholars (Clarke et al. 2018) suggest altered understandings of what constitutes 'good' empirical qualitative analyses, reconfiguring the role of theory for the practice of empirical methods as “theory/methods packages” (Clarke/Star 2008). Those newer developments in qualitative research also integrate different paradigms of social science theorizing, thus enhancing multiperspectivity of empirical research practices.
The panel invites to reflect on social scientific methods as ways of world-making, gathering STS researchers who are engaged in empirical research inspired by pragmatism. We aim to engage in STS discussions about theorizing and empirical analysis while exploring how the understanding of qualitative inquiry transforms. We invite contributors to reflect theoretically and methodologically on the practices of conducting pragmatism-inspired empirical research, its outcomes, the positioning of the researcher, and modes of relating to actors in the field. We aim to foster an understanding of commonalities and differences between different pragmatist research practices in STS.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Bettina Grimmer (Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich)
Short abstract:
This contribution discusses the concepts of order, situation, and boundary in American and French pragmatism. Focusing on sorting as a practice that deals with orders, I argue that different conceptions of order and boundaries have consequences for empirical research.
Long abstract:
Empirical studies that draw on pragmatist methodologies most often refer to American pragmatism in the tradition of Chicago school and symbolic interactionism (Strauss 1978, 1993; Clarke et al. 2018). In recent years, however, another variety of pragmatism has gained importance – namely French pragmatism with a more structuralist tradition (Boltanski & Thévenot 2006; Boltanski 2011).
In contrast to other social theories, pragmatism understands order as both a context of action and an outcome of action. It is interested in how people deal with orders as well as how they reshape and transform them. Consequently, from the perspective of pragmatism, there is not a single social or situational order, but a plurality of different and sometimes conflicting orders.
Focusing on sorting as a practice of dealing with orders, I argue that both pragmatist traditions share a similar and broad conception of situation as a relation of socio-material phenomena, but differ significantly in their conception of order. While American pragmatism focuses on how people enact and reshape orders through action, French pragmatism asks how people refer to different (existing) orders in different situations. I will highlight these differences with reference to sorting practices in American (Bowker & Star 1999) and French (Boltanski & Thévenot 1983; Lamont 2012) pragmatism, and discuss the consequence of the different relations of orders and boundaries (Star 2010; Lamont & Molnar 2002) for empirical research.
Sarah B. Evans-Jordan (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)) John-Arne Skolbekken (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU))
Short abstract:
We employ Strauss’ and Clarke’s social worlds work in our situational analysis of the evolution of newborn screening. We analysed threats and countermeasures to social world survival in a complex set of changing contingencies and argue that surviving as a social world involves transformative change.
Long abstract:
Anselm Strauss (1987) observed that changing contingencies can pose a threat to the survival of a social world, something we read as a warning against understanding social worlds as invulnerable and indissoluble. Clarke embraced this potential for precariousness in her incorporation and further development of Strauss’ theory in situational analysis (Clarke, 2005; Clarke, Friese, & Washburn, 2018). We used situational analysis to analyse how newborn screening activities in Norway arose and eventually evolved into what is now understood as an integral part of the Norwegian health services. In our study we saw Strauss’ observation play out at several crossroads and in a variety of forms over the history of the screening services. In this paper, we present our analysis of the various survival strategies employed by social worlds in response to threats to their activities and theorise about conditions both internal and external to the social world which serve as stabilising or destabilising influences upon them. We find that rather than being a straightforward matter of the defence of a social world and the maintenance of its integrity, a feature of the survival of social worlds is the ability to absorb transformational processes. We also see this paper, on theorising the survival of established social worlds, in dialogue with our theorisation of the earliest phases of cooperative work in our situation (Evans-Jordan & Skolbekken, in prep.) and reflect specifically on using the heuristics of situational analysis to theorise work at the boundaries of cooperation and of theory.
Anders Buch (VIA University College) ylva lindberg (Jönköping University)
Long abstract:
STS scholarship struggles to transcend traditional objectivist social science methodologies and articulate reflective approaches for engaged research. Situational Analysis (SA), with its inspiration from actor-network theory, discourse analysis, feminism, and pragmatism, has proposed an elaborate ‘theory-method-page’ that allows researchers to reflectively explore and map situations relationally; investigate the social worlds and arenas of actors; and traverse the discursive positions taken on issues in the situation.
In this paper, we discuss how SA, more specifically positional mapping, helps understand worldmaking in the domain of higher education. Through a range of studies, we have explored future(s)-oriented methodologies (speculative, anticipatory, and fictional) in postdigital education (Buch, Lindberg & Cerratto-Pargman 2024; Lindberg & Johansson 2022; Cerratto-Pargman, Lindberg & Buch 2023), and we suggest that positional mapping techniques help explore discursive enactments of futures.
Drawing from John Dewey’s processual and relational ontology, a ‘situation’ is a contextual whole that is dynamically (re)constructed through transactions in the present – connecting past experiences and the future potentials in the present situation. Positional mapping of the discursive enactments of present situations is thus helpful for critically reflecting on the ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’ (Jasanoff & Kim 2015) that are shaping practices, and for exploring the power struggles among actors.
Our methodological reflections on the role of SA in exploring discursive enactments in education are discussed with reference to the empirical material presented in Buch, Ramsay & Løje (2022) on how engineering education is enacted discursively.
Suzette Kahlert Peter Kahlert (European New School of Digital Studies (European University Viadrina))
Long abstract:
All methods make and happen in worlds, which are not necessarily the same. Pragmatism is relationalism, and thus a proto-methodology of social science. Its metholologies are outstandingly sensitive about identities, meaning, and practice in their relations. We contribute another focus and (meta-)methodological distinction to the discussion concerning the methodological dis/continuities between Grounded Theory and Situational Analysis, which do share a relational epistemology, even though their imaginations and (self-)interpreation may differ.
We suggest, in reference to Henri Bergson, to distinguish relationality in terms of: spatiality, temporality, linearity, and concurrency. This scheme goes beyond the distinction of a sequentialist textuality with Grounded Theory coding and multiperspectivism of mappings. Like sequentialized texts exhibit qualities of durée in practices of reading and a fragile linearity that can easily be scrambled, maps are works of concurrent relations, but in their spatialization still carves its differences from absent thirds. Bringing such 'différance' into play means to leave the grounds of writing and whatever a strict sense of methodology would dictate. We claim that this distinction deepens our understanding of each 'theory/method package', its operational level concerning practices, discourses, or phenomenological foundations of analytical perception and intelligibility themselves - sharpening epistemological and critical reflection and Meadian 'self'-awareness concerning constructive acts performed by research.
Abel Guerra (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Long abstract:
This contribution is based on an ongoing research incorporating Situational Analysis’ (SA) theory-method package to articulate a multi-perspective study on different ways of knowing urban space mobilised by Uber and its infiltration in particular contexts. My research engages with these more-or-less platformised epistemologies through three main entry points: 1)Uber’s engineering teams’ techno-corporate discourse; 2)External experts and researchers who, in different levels, engage with Uber’s and similar platforms’ data, software, and digital infrastructures; and 3)Uber drivers. These are explored through interpretive analysis of engineering blog posts, research papers, social media posts and interviews with external experts and drivers.
This paper aims to provide an overview of the research process and preliminary findings and address challenges encountered when tracing and articulating disparate knowledge ecologies within acute power asymmetries. While such disparities can be illustrated by the contrast between Uber’s data-fueled knowledge production and drivers’ grounded experiences in the city, they also extend to the collection and construction of research data itself: while Uber’s and experts’ knowledge is pre-packaged as such, both in the form of posts and papers and the partially formatted discourse found in interviews, drivers knowledge practices are discursively entangled in messier assemblages and emerge alongside embodied experiences of work, tiredness, hope, ambition, and vulnerability. Challenges also arise in trying to analytically bring together social worlds that, while actively engaging with different facets of the city and platforms, do not seem to interact with or think about each other very often.
Mariana Garcia Medina (Wageningen University (KTI)) fleur kilwinger Conny Almekinders (Wageningen University & Research)
Long abstract:
Science and technology studies can make important contributions to (re)imagine and (re)construct sustainable and inclusive agricultural development. In this session we explore what we perceive as our own scholarly position in and potential contributions to different pragmatic research of different disciplines: agronomy, crop breeding, economy and sociology scholars that focus on smallholder farming in the Global South. Inspired by STS studies, a core aspect of our work is the exploration of various research methods, reflecting of the different ‘realities’ they depict. Being in close contact with researchers from different disciplines, we reflect on the complexity of technology development, i.e. the construction of seeds and varieties, aiming at making these ‘realities’ visible and understandable to different audiences, and to strengthen counter-narratives. We will present studies in which we purposively used methods in relation to seed and variety questions. We furthermore draw inspirations from STS studies to better understand the research practices within these disciplines to explore their limitations and challenges while navigating genetic and social challenges. In our discussion we want to explore the opportunities of our positionality and the associated challenges of having impact.
Tanja Bogusz
Long abstract:
Pragmatist scholars and STS grapple with the epistemic preconditions that hold societies together. In my talk, I propose to rethink STS approaches to pragmatist political analysis through the lenses of “pragmatogony”, “matters of concern” (Latour), the “engaged program” (Sismondo), as well as “issue making” and “participation” (Marres) through some empirical findings of our FIELDS project (DFG BO 3268/4-1). FIELDS, e.g., "Experiencing Nature and Society. A Multi-Sited Inquiry into Marine and Ethnographic Field Sciences" studies different modes of enacting “fields” as generators of experience-based knowledge through an inter- and transdisciplinary lens. We explore practices and understandings of ethnographic and marine biology concepts of doing field research (e.g., oceanic campaigns and expeditions, marine biological stations) through an experimental framework in which nature and society, humans and non-humans, meet. "FIELDS" is an assemblage term where disciplinary fragmented empirical approaches and actors research ‘in situ’ within determined places. Sparring with Grounded Theory, I propose a methodological ‘ground truthing’ (marine biologist term) through such heterogeneous cooperations across socially and epistemically different marine participants and sectors. Here, translating world-making is examined via actors’ capacities for organizing social cohesion through mutualization practices based on cooperation without consensus (Star). Furthermore, I discuss the political dimension of these practices through an analysis of their situated expertise and implicit knowledge. I conclude my talk with some open questions on the entanglement between epistemic ‘ground truthing’ and public engagement inspired by Dewey’s “democratic experimentalism”.