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- Convenors:
-
Johannes Paßmann
(Ruhr University Bochum)
Ronja Trischler (Technische Universität Dortmund)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract
This panel bridges pre-digital methodologies with post-digital challenges. We ask how qualitative inquiry can handle AI as an "informant" by re-grounding inquiry in core principles (symmetry, iteration, interpretation). We invite conceptual papers on this dialogue.
Description
The rise of Generative AI presents a fundamental challenge to pre-digital methodologies. Large Language Models are rapidly shifting from mere objects of study to active participants—or "non-human informants"—within the research process. This development challenges the human-centric foundations of our established methods: How do we conduct inquiry when our counterparts lack human intentionality yet produce eloquent statements?
This panel argues against framing this as an exceptional "digital" problem. Such exceptionalism creates a false binary, obscuring the deep methodological expertise our qualitative traditions in STS (and beyond) already possess.
We propose a "post-digital methodology" that explicitly re-grounds digital inquiry in pre-digital principles . By applying methodological "symmetry," we use a consistent analytical vocabulary for all actors. This symmetry does not equate human and machine; it foregrounds the unique agency and accountability of the human researcher in orchestrating, interpreting, and taking responsibility for the contributions of these opaque "informants". The "opacity" of AI is not new; qualitative methods have always been the premier tool for interpreting the "black boxes" of unreliable informants by analyzing their external practices.
We seek contributions that theorize the future of qualitative methods by placing them in dialogue with their pre-digital foundations. We invite papers that move beyond case studies to offer conceptual syntheses. We are interested in: (1) Applying core pre-digital principles (adequacy, iteration, crystallization/triangulation) to these new assemblages; (2) Reflecting on researcher accountability and agency when working with non-human informants; (3) Tracing the genealogies of post-digital methods back to established traditions (GTM, ethnomethodology, etc.). This panel will enhance our methodological "futures literacy" for a resilient STS.