I am using ANT approach to study a local community and am proposing interviews and participant observation to identify network elements and associations etc., My concern relates to the influence I may end up having on the network under study.
In what ways can the analyst mitigate his/her/their influence whilst engaging with the network elements?
Dear Ali,
Rather than a framework, as suggested by previous commentator, ANT theorist proposed a different ontology of the social, one that does not preassume the relevance of any given relationship nor the type of agent performing them. Therefore the social flows through the association of different agents (actants) that are constantly recreating the world in novel associations. And here is when the role of the researcher is so (politcally) relevant. The researcher is another agent that through his/her description contributes to fix (temporarily) a studied network. "The social" in this case IS the network and is extended as far as the researcher can trace it. This does not mean that "the social" is limites to the researcher role and capacities to describe a given reality, but it does recognize the limititations of the social sciences to re-enact and represent all aspects of life. Nothing better to humourously understand the role of the researcher in ANT than Latour fabule-chapter "On the Difficulty of Being an ANT: An Interlude in
the Form of a Dialog" that you can find in his book Reassembling the Social.
Hi! good question! you might look at my article on researcher reflexivity
Bettany, S.M.M. and Woodruffe-Burton, H. 2009. Working the limits of method: The possibilities of critical reflexive practice in marketing and consumer research. Journal of Marketing Management, 25: 661–679. [Taylor & Francis Online]
In it we directly address different positions invoked through different theories including ANT
Shona :)
Hi Ali,
The researcher is indeed another actor in the actor-network. This reflects ANT's ontological heritage, specifically the notion of "assemblage" (after Deleuze) which is a dynamic ensemble of agents, and it changes/evolves as agents are either removed or added. The researcher is merely another agent from this perspective; it is literally true that you cannot "freeze" the actor-network, and the one you research is not the same as the one you don't, or to paraphrase a much earlier thinker, you cannot step into the same actor-network (originally "river") twice.
Dave
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Teaching