I just read this article from John Law that basically confirms what I talked about in my prior post on theory in anthropology. Essentially he argues that theory is tied up with practice. He uses an example from his own work of salmon farms in Norway to explore what this means for Science and Technology Studies, Actor-Network Theory and its successors in particular, but I feel that the insights apply equally to anthropology and other empirical social sciences. Here are some quotes:
“This paper [Callon's 1986 paper on Scallops in Saint Brieuc Bay] is immensely popular and this is partly because Callon had the bare-faced effrontery to treat scallops and people symmetrically – that is to say, in the same terms. His argument was methodological. It was that if there are differences between people and scallops (and obviously there are) then these are an effect of the relations in which they are embedded – relations which work to enact their differences. The implication is that if we are to understand this process – how it is that entities such as fishermen or scallops take shape – we need so far as possible to explore how this happens without making prior assumptions about the character or form of what is being generated. Scallops, fishermen, and scientists – all are generated in the relations that develop between them.”
“Nevertheless, Callon’s ‘scallops’ piece is perhaps the first and clearest STS methodological and empirical statement of resistance to human exceptionalism. And, as is obvious, the move was thoroughly theoretical as well. It showed what happens if we attend to how it is that objects – or realities – are generated in relations, and to how those relations are done in practices. Crucially, it showed that it is possible to dissolve a-priori divisions between nature and culture and explore how these are put together – and separated – in practice.”
“Two points. First, it is wise to be a little careful when you go fishing for philosophical resources. These indeed have their own context, and sheer eclecticism is pretty risky. This is because it is difficult to know when you are getting yourself in to unless you exercise suitable caution. So that is one argument and it needs to be taken seriously. On the other hand it also pays to be somewhat disrespectful. Philosophy has a tendency to present itself as foundational – or as a ground-clearing exercise necessarily undertaken before particular disciplines can get to work. But this is not how it is in practice, at least most of the time. It turns out that anthropology, or indeed physics, prosper perfectly well in the absence of philosophical clarification. So it is in this spirit that I want to suggest that for our purposes philosophy is best thought of as a source of possible insights. Indeed, if we look at it in this way, then it is not very far removed from fieldwork materials. It becomes a set of specificities, a collection of possible resources, an aid to thinking, and a set of sensitising suggestions.”
“There are many stories to be told about what a salmon is, but if I am to talk about this from an STS point of view then I need to weave together the three kinds of answers that I have rehearsed above.
- First it is important to tell stories that undo the obviousness and the taken-for-granted of the solid; it is necessary to tell stories about the dispersed and heterogeneous networks of practices that generate the possibility of being a salmon. This is old ANT.
- Second, (more old ANT) it then becomes important to talk about modes of assembling – about how the salmon puts itself back together again once it has been taken apart and distributed into practices.
- But then, and third, it is necessary to address the issue of excess. STS in its ANT mode needs to say something about the moments when the beast slips out from the edges of our human practices; about the moments that hint at fishy heterotopias. It becomes important to note those moments and to try characterise them. And then, and as part of this, it becomes necessary to acknowledge that it, the salmon, goes to places where people cannot follow; to places that people do not know.”
“[Theory] informs how we see whatever it is that we are looking it, and it is something, a set of propensities and sensibilities, that shapes what we look at and poses questions, issues, possibilities of whatever it is that we come into contact with.”
That last quote is what I was trying to say with my previous post, but may or may not have conveyed sufficiently. It’s nice and concise – an excellent definition of theory, in my opinion.
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that defiinition of theory aint too different from the celine quote i gave. celine joined up wit the naais as a frenchman in occupoied franced in ww2.
you can have it.
i guess this is why we are supporsed to worry about student debt and teachers/academia. maybe shut it down.
ps that was kind of negative.
i think what set me off was seeing a new acronym (ANT). Sortuh like a Naomi Klein Logo. Too often this is just a way of branding something, which is not that profound, yet then becomes a status symbol, an academic discipline, etc. I wonder if there is anything in ANT that is very new. (I guess my view is look it up on wikipedia and follow the links to other theories rather than use it).
to me the question is ‘what might be the best or most general theory, or is there one’. i do tend to reduce everything, or translate it, into math and physics terms. (one can look at the philosophy of science archive on line for thousands of discussions of this kind of idea—or the fqxi website). eg is everything math, or information? or is math actually reducible to physics. perhaps semiotics (theory of signs) is most general, which i think leads to deconstructionist kinds of views (texts are objects, or artifacts, not neccesarily semantically referring to an external world. (studies of brazilian indigenous cultures use of language and number sortuh go into this as well. or child development of such skills).
h. white’s book ‘metahistory’ takes the linguistic approach to historical theories. levi-strauss’ structuralism in a sense follows this line, and some attempted to mathematize it via group theory. (what i have seen of lacan and derrida along this line i don’t understand, but like some people i susupect it may be bogus or alternatively ‘poetry’ and hence beyond logic.)
there are also discussion of a ‘science of science’—ie trying to predict the trajectory of scientific theories.
at present there are tons of theories. i suspect many are redundant, the way different religions have the golden rule yet many claim to be the true religion, often for economic types of reasons.
on one hand i like to try to prove or find equivalence (like translating languages) but on the other hand, following the logic of preserving biodiversity, linguistic diversity, etc. maybe it would be better to preserve different theories, ways of seeing (john berger), etc. (especially if one is sympathetic to sapir-whorf view, which has some revised support though not as extreme as they likely imagined).
but then one ends up possibly with a tower of babble, like many ‘unique’ brands of potato chips, right wing talk radio hosts, cults, optimal diets, rituals etc. which have their own support networks, of questionable value.
one paper i read tody argued there really are no universal theories, by a physicist, and one by a mathematician said math does not really describe physical reality.
The name Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has been around since the 1980s, according to Law. He talks a little about it’s creation in the article – the coining of the phrase by Michel Callon and the popularization of it. So, no there isn’t anything new in ANT – it’s fairly old hat by now. Some still use it, but most have moved on including Law himself who defines his approach as “heterogeneities” or “material-semiotic.” In fact, in the article he mentions that ANT became reified and hypostasized. He critiques it, but also builds upon the theoretical basis that it provides – notably it’s the first theoretical approach to take seriously the agency of nonhumans. Now everyone’s doing that, so it’s not that novel anymore, but all of these approaches owe a little gratitude to ANT.
yeah. i looked at law’s website–he’s at open u uk which i’m sure you know. that sounds like a good place–sortuh a free u. i looked up ant at wikipedia. i am familiar with this stuff—i once talked with both e fox keller and donna haraway about doing STS studieds(or check out brian martin in australia) but i couldn’t decide. ‘if you can do it tomorrow why do it today?’
i did have a slight issue with latour’s view of networks—he says some things aren’t networks. well, in my view, everything can be put into a network framework (simplical complex if i recall) assuming you take a discrete approach (ie not a continuum). it may be a very complex network (ie in n dimensions) but its still a network. you can put anything in there—even god can have a role in the play if s/He can act right or wrong.
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there are some (eg louis kauffman, on wikipedia) who might even say its all just knots—only slighlty 3-d.
any way
I don’t know much about Open U except that Law is there and that it’s sort of a correspondence university, right? It sounds very interesting – I came across it when I was looking for PhD schools because I thought Law might be someone I’d like to work with. I’ll look more into it, though.
Actually, I think Latour’s critique of networks derives from Donna Haraway’s critique of ANT. I think the point is that “network” – as in lines and nodes – is kind of a phallocentric metaphor. Some – especially Tim Morton – talk about meshworks, and other metaphors. Also, Latour is saying that certain things map out nicely as networks – train routes, for example – other things don’t literally map out as networks, so network becomes a sort of metaphor or a way of making things sensible. I read somewhere recently that he would have called ANT Actor-Rhizome Theory (following Deleuze’s concept) if it wasn’t so cumbersome. I personally think that there are lots of different metaphors and analytic tools we can use – they all have their benefits and drawbacks.
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