Paper long abstract:

This paper critically examines some of the methodological principles behind ANT's redefinition of social movements. Specifically, it explores the limits of agnosticism, one of the most celebrated principles of early ANT-oriented perspectives, as a guiding principle to release actors from modern reductionism(s). Whereas it is true that agnosticism has played a crucial role in redefining social movements, especially in releasing a too-purified unity of analysis from essentialist impulses, it is also true that it usually puts forward important limitations to the style of empirical research it promotes. As Isabelle Stengers (2006) pointed out, one of the main risks of the sceptical attitude of some STS scholars is to develop a style of speaking of actors where they are rendered as mere resources for the war against essential differences. Rather than considering what makes a difference to them, actors matter (basically) as arguments to debunk other approaches. To contest this, Stengers proposes a more diplomatic approach: to develop a style of speaking well of actors. To speak well, according to Stengers, means much more than simply defining what an actor is. It means to be engaged by it as something not appropriable either by the analyst or the actors involved but whose becoming concerns everyone involved both politically and vitally (López, 2012). To illustrate what entails to speak well of social movements, I will discuss fragments of my fieldwork with disability rights activists Spain and the UK.