How's that for using parentheses? I'm playing off the ad campaign by Cisco Systems... their slogan seems to take ANT and invert it, adding humans to what's understood as a network of non-human actants. This is just one digression that's emerged for me in the past few weeks while thinking about Latour. I'm interested in hearing what others might think about another of these digressions:
In the sociolinguistics course I'm in, we've been talking about concepts borrowed from sociology to explain how social networks influence linguistic usage--in any network, there's a relative degree of density and of muliplexity. Density refers to the extent to which members of a social network (actants) all interact with one another; if everybody knows in a network knows everyone else, then the network has a relatively high density. Multiplexity refers to the extent to which actants interact with each other in different social spheres: if the actants in a network work at the same place, live in the same neighborhood, attend the same church, spend free time with each other, etc., then the network is said to be multiplex; whereas a uniplex network consists of actors that interact with different people depending on the social sphere--their neighbors are not their co-workers, etc. This model has interesting implications in terms of class: lower class networks tend to be highly dense and multiplex, whereas middle class networks tend to exhibit relatively low density and are more uniplex. It seems to me that one can extrapolate how bringing the respective non-human actants that each class would typically interact with (factory machines--or now data entry technology--vs. other technologies, respective leisure activities, domestic sites, etc.) into the network would further illuminate these networks.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Name dropping
At the CCCC's conference in NYC last week, I went to a reception for the University of Illinois, where I met a graduate student who “loved” Latour and had just read Sharon Crowley's Toward a Civil Discourse. He didn't seem to see the disjuncture between Latour's preaching on the goals of sociology and Crowley's methods of rhetorical analysis of fundamentalism. I was pleased to see that Latour himself could almost be speaking specifically of Crowley's project when he asks: “Why is it that when faced with religion, we tend to limit our inquiry to its 'social dimensions' and take as a scientific virtue not to study religion itself?” (233) or later on “Why not take seriously what members are obstinately saying?” (235). Crowley, of course, might object that it's difficult to take seriously someone like Tim LaHaye . . . I also enjoyed Latour's plea for sociologists to “treat humans as things” (255).
Also, because my paper for this class is on autoethnography, I wonder what Latour might think of that research method. Would he label it as an instance of actors being able to speak for themselves?
Also, because my paper for this class is on autoethnography, I wonder what Latour might think of that research method. Would he label it as an instance of actors being able to speak for themselves?
subjectivation, or adding strings
The positive strain throughout Latour's work--his making good on the introductory promise to cast ANT as a means (not a theory, for God's sake, ANT is not a theory) of working beyond the skepticism of postructuralism--really becomes apparent in the second half. I was about to post on the near-absence of Bourdieu in places where we might expect to find him (like Foucault, Bourdieu's notion of the habitus seems relegated to footnotes or taken up by Mauss on pp 210-211); then, in the section I just mentioned, I came across a passage I liked for its sense of possibility:
"What I am trying to do here is simply show how the boundaries between sociology and psychology may be reshuffled for good. For this, there is only one solution: make every single entity populating the former insider come from the outside not as a negative constraint 'limiting subjectivity', but as a positive offer of subjectivation" (212-213).
Here Latour would seem to be taking on Foucault (on the subject of the "construction of human interior psyches") and Bourdieu, who would suggest that what seems interior, what seems like "second nature" or reflex, is embodiment of custom and comes from the exterior. The difference for Latour is that the exterior is not seen as a terminal terministic screen (a "negative constraint 'limiting subjectivity') as Bourdieu, some of Foucault, and certainly much of Baudrillard's work in the late 70's/early 80's might suggest. Relatedly, we're not described as "puppets manipulated, in spite of themselves, by so many invisible threads" so much as potential puppets (and potential puppeteers) more focused on the "something that happens along the strings that allows the marionettes to move" (213; 214). Or, a page later, Latour distills it down to "the outside is not a context 'made of' social forces and it doesn't 'determine' the inside" (215).
So, Latour offers interesting possibilities for relocating the idea of "agency" (partly the subject of my paper) and, potentially, for rethinking what the "end goals" are of "emancipating students" through the reading/writing tools of the social turn. An previous question we raised was, ok, so we put students through a Berlinesque semester, what do we hope to leave them with? Instead of a grimmer sense of "society is to blame and though we may never fully penetrate the infinite strata of mystification, we can at least read critically to warn others" (my imitation of myself, circa 1994), we have something like "being politically motivated now starts to take a different and more specific meaning: we look for ways to register the novelty of associations and explore how to assemble them in a satisfactory form."
"What I am trying to do here is simply show how the boundaries between sociology and psychology may be reshuffled for good. For this, there is only one solution: make every single entity populating the former insider come from the outside not as a negative constraint 'limiting subjectivity', but as a positive offer of subjectivation" (212-213).
Here Latour would seem to be taking on Foucault (on the subject of the "construction of human interior psyches") and Bourdieu, who would suggest that what seems interior, what seems like "second nature" or reflex, is embodiment of custom and comes from the exterior. The difference for Latour is that the exterior is not seen as a terminal terministic screen (a "negative constraint 'limiting subjectivity') as Bourdieu, some of Foucault, and certainly much of Baudrillard's work in the late 70's/early 80's might suggest. Relatedly, we're not described as "puppets manipulated, in spite of themselves, by so many invisible threads" so much as potential puppets (and potential puppeteers) more focused on the "something that happens along the strings that allows the marionettes to move" (213; 214). Or, a page later, Latour distills it down to "the outside is not a context 'made of' social forces and it doesn't 'determine' the inside" (215).
So, Latour offers interesting possibilities for relocating the idea of "agency" (partly the subject of my paper) and, potentially, for rethinking what the "end goals" are of "emancipating students" through the reading/writing tools of the social turn. An previous question we raised was, ok, so we put students through a Berlinesque semester, what do we hope to leave them with? Instead of a grimmer sense of "society is to blame and though we may never fully penetrate the infinite strata of mystification, we can at least read critically to warn others" (my imitation of myself, circa 1994), we have something like "being politically motivated now starts to take a different and more specific meaning: we look for ways to register the novelty of associations and explore how to assemble them in a satisfactory form."
Latour Goes to Nairobi
Actually, that title sounds like an action comedy, maybe costarring Bruno, Foucault as a disembodied voice that gives orders in his cell phone, and the sassy Chris Carter as sidekick. Sorry to disappoint anyone who might have been expecting that :).
I found myself thinking about ANT last week, on my trip to Nairobi. Honestly, what I found myself doing was shoving it to the back of my consciousness, as this glint of academia to stay segregated from the rugged reality around me. Said reality got the most rugged in Kibera, the slum on the edge of Nairobi that's the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa, containing somewhere between one and two million people (no one really knows). I always thought of a slum in the St. Louis sense, meaning rundown brick houses with unemployed residents hanging out on porches, and the ever-present, internal injunction to leave before it got dark.
Kibera is like a city imported from another planet, one where the streets are bare clay and raw sewage, shrinking from drive-able paths to alleys where you have to clamber down stones and the walls are close enough to catch you if you fall. Those walls are all either corrugated tin, clay fortified by sticks, or the rare concrete with fossilized oozes of mortar, and they bristle children's faces through the windows that are never glass, only holes. The children there clamber along, and grab your hand to be pulled wherever you might be going, and chirp "how are you?," the one phrase in English they may know. The adults sit in any kind of shade, some in tatters, some in bright suits, and I knew I was really through the looking glass when I saw a group of them standing around the back of a pickup truck, and my dad told me they'd been loading a body wrapped in a sheet.
Every once in awhile, as I was walking there, or teaching the kids at the school we visited how to make paper airplanes, or trying to breathe without letting in the everpresent smell of Kibera, I'd wonder how I could possibly relate all of this to ANT. What does post-social theory have to do with the girl slightly larger than a toddler, crammed behind a wooden desk, who is six and may get to college if she survives? Thinking about it more now, I can start to see connections: these are people whose society is taken for granted as asymmetrical, and resources are actors in their lives, and they live without the old sense of hierarchy--the chiefs that run different parts of Kibera seem to do so with the understanding that the people are really in charge.
Herbert, husband of the principal of the school, said that the government's attempts to make the slum less visible to the world, by bulldozing portions of it, or otherwise trying to reduce it in size, only has the effect of making people mad. They have some autonomy by virtue of having almost nothing. It's not an enviable position of luxurious anarchy; it does, however, make some of Latour's techniques make more sense. The focus on heterogeneity, on avoiding essentialism, becomes absolutely clear when, in the middle of this absolute poverty, you find a movie theater, built out of tin, without a door, with Bollywood music piping out to those walking through the alley outside.
Court's thoughts about Foucault, and how he relates to Latour, also help my thinking about Kibera. Latour could definitely see Foucault as overdetermined, as too much of a brand name to throw around, and want to create a new space for understanding the social. Likewise, my experience there, where there's little built-in bureaucracy and more a world of ephemeral connections, makes a reconceptualization of the social, past the Foucauldian emphasis on power as its own entity, absolutely necessary.
I found myself thinking about ANT last week, on my trip to Nairobi. Honestly, what I found myself doing was shoving it to the back of my consciousness, as this glint of academia to stay segregated from the rugged reality around me. Said reality got the most rugged in Kibera, the slum on the edge of Nairobi that's the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa, containing somewhere between one and two million people (no one really knows). I always thought of a slum in the St. Louis sense, meaning rundown brick houses with unemployed residents hanging out on porches, and the ever-present, internal injunction to leave before it got dark.
Kibera is like a city imported from another planet, one where the streets are bare clay and raw sewage, shrinking from drive-able paths to alleys where you have to clamber down stones and the walls are close enough to catch you if you fall. Those walls are all either corrugated tin, clay fortified by sticks, or the rare concrete with fossilized oozes of mortar, and they bristle children's faces through the windows that are never glass, only holes. The children there clamber along, and grab your hand to be pulled wherever you might be going, and chirp "how are you?," the one phrase in English they may know. The adults sit in any kind of shade, some in tatters, some in bright suits, and I knew I was really through the looking glass when I saw a group of them standing around the back of a pickup truck, and my dad told me they'd been loading a body wrapped in a sheet.
Every once in awhile, as I was walking there, or teaching the kids at the school we visited how to make paper airplanes, or trying to breathe without letting in the everpresent smell of Kibera, I'd wonder how I could possibly relate all of this to ANT. What does post-social theory have to do with the girl slightly larger than a toddler, crammed behind a wooden desk, who is six and may get to college if she survives? Thinking about it more now, I can start to see connections: these are people whose society is taken for granted as asymmetrical, and resources are actors in their lives, and they live without the old sense of hierarchy--the chiefs that run different parts of Kibera seem to do so with the understanding that the people are really in charge.
Herbert, husband of the principal of the school, said that the government's attempts to make the slum less visible to the world, by bulldozing portions of it, or otherwise trying to reduce it in size, only has the effect of making people mad. They have some autonomy by virtue of having almost nothing. It's not an enviable position of luxurious anarchy; it does, however, make some of Latour's techniques make more sense. The focus on heterogeneity, on avoiding essentialism, becomes absolutely clear when, in the middle of this absolute poverty, you find a movie theater, built out of tin, without a door, with Bollywood music piping out to those walking through the alley outside.
Court's thoughts about Foucault, and how he relates to Latour, also help my thinking about Kibera. Latour could definitely see Foucault as overdetermined, as too much of a brand name to throw around, and want to create a new space for understanding the social. Likewise, my experience there, where there's little built-in bureaucracy and more a world of ephemeral connections, makes a reconceptualization of the social, past the Foucauldian emphasis on power as its own entity, absolutely necessary.
Actors, fluidity, context and Latour
Latour speaks of social theorists stating that they admit that, "society is a virtual reality." However, I wonder if that is true. I agree that what we call society is a "decaying monster" and that it does need to be rethought, but I'm not sure if it is a fiction. I argue this because I don't believe that something does NOT exist simply because it cannot be touched, felt, etc.
When Latour goes on to talk about keeping the social flat is a good way to put it. Rather than simply reassembling the social, he wants to create a new way to understanding the "very topography" of the social. He states, "As I have said earlier, action is always dislocated, articulated, delegated, translated. Thus, if any observer is faithful to the direction suggested by this overflow, she will be led away from any given interaction to some other places, other times, and other agencies that appear to have molded them into shape. This is, in fact, the act of tracing networks. However, despite his explanations I see this as being an extraordinary feat. Not only one that is complex, but one that is without end. He states later that ANT is simply that social theory which has turned "the Big Problem" of social science from a resource into a topic to solve it. But, I think it is still a "Big Topic." Perhaps I'm a pessimist and am making too much of the vastness of what Latour suggests. I don't know.
Of course, my whole point of view may have been skewered by trying to read this book while sitting on the deck of a ship. Made it more fun, though!
When Latour goes on to talk about keeping the social flat is a good way to put it. Rather than simply reassembling the social, he wants to create a new way to understanding the "very topography" of the social. He states, "As I have said earlier, action is always dislocated, articulated, delegated, translated. Thus, if any observer is faithful to the direction suggested by this overflow, she will be led away from any given interaction to some other places, other times, and other agencies that appear to have molded them into shape. This is, in fact, the act of tracing networks. However, despite his explanations I see this as being an extraordinary feat. Not only one that is complex, but one that is without end. He states later that ANT is simply that social theory which has turned "the Big Problem" of social science from a resource into a topic to solve it. But, I think it is still a "Big Topic." Perhaps I'm a pessimist and am making too much of the vastness of what Latour suggests. I don't know.
Of course, my whole point of view may have been skewered by trying to read this book while sitting on the deck of a ship. Made it more fun, though!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Context
I am becoming a big fan of Latour – not only of his ideas, but also his wit, clever phrasing, examples, and use of exclamation points. Working through my thesis while reading this book has also given me a lots to think about in terms of the sociological dimension of my project.
Most saliently in this section, Latour discusses how sociologists place actors in Contexts. As he says in his typically deadpan tone: “At Context, there is no place to park” (167). When I first began reading for my thesis, I questioned why a researcher my choose to focus on the specific composing processes of a small number of students (such as in Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater's Academic Literacies). It seemed difficult to say something significant from such a small sample. But I found that in choosing to focus my study on a type of writing, I often had to elide the unique stories of individual students, focusing instead on Trends, Patterns, Themes, and indeed Contexts. And if I had to do the whole thing over again, I might just choose one or two students to focus on. I wonder if my impulse to do so stems from a resistance, similar to Latour's, of assigning actors to a context.
Still, the reason I chose not to focus on those individual stories is that at the end of the day, I wanted to find out something useful to my teaching. (I think this is the goal of much ethnographic writing research). My same concern remains for Latour: Generalizations may be artificial, but they are also helpful.
I'm also wondering about how avoiding Context keeps us from cynicism (which may be bred by an approach like Berlin's). If we stop seeing people as “products” of a context, does the lead to a more optimistic assessment of them? Or is this all a superfluous exercise in (Hairston alert!) “celebrating diversity”?
Interestingly, one of my student interviewees objected to a writing assignment, not unlike Berlin's, that asked her to research the larger social and historical context of one of her favorite articles of clothing. She's 19, but she sounds very Latourian, or maybe like one of Latour's Actors, desperate to be understood on her own terms. I quote her eloquent and significant argument here because it so clearly epitomizes the struggle that arises between the personal and the academic: students feel that the academic research alters the existing personal meaning.
Most saliently in this section, Latour discusses how sociologists place actors in Contexts. As he says in his typically deadpan tone: “At Context, there is no place to park” (167). When I first began reading for my thesis, I questioned why a researcher my choose to focus on the specific composing processes of a small number of students (such as in Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater's Academic Literacies). It seemed difficult to say something significant from such a small sample. But I found that in choosing to focus my study on a type of writing, I often had to elide the unique stories of individual students, focusing instead on Trends, Patterns, Themes, and indeed Contexts. And if I had to do the whole thing over again, I might just choose one or two students to focus on. I wonder if my impulse to do so stems from a resistance, similar to Latour's, of assigning actors to a context.
Still, the reason I chose not to focus on those individual stories is that at the end of the day, I wanted to find out something useful to my teaching. (I think this is the goal of much ethnographic writing research). My same concern remains for Latour: Generalizations may be artificial, but they are also helpful.
I'm also wondering about how avoiding Context keeps us from cynicism (which may be bred by an approach like Berlin's). If we stop seeing people as “products” of a context, does the lead to a more optimistic assessment of them? Or is this all a superfluous exercise in (Hairston alert!) “celebrating diversity”?
Interestingly, one of my student interviewees objected to a writing assignment, not unlike Berlin's, that asked her to research the larger social and historical context of one of her favorite articles of clothing. She's 19, but she sounds very Latourian, or maybe like one of Latour's Actors, desperate to be understood on her own terms. I quote her eloquent and significant argument here because it so clearly epitomizes the struggle that arises between the personal and the academic: students feel that the academic research alters the existing personal meaning.
Each garment has its own history for me, and I know the story of the garment and
I know the very specific cultural context of that garment because I wore it. And
for this paper I had to draw out and almost remove the personal aspect of it and
look for broad historical and broad cultural context which in some ways is
artificial . . . and so I just knew that a lot of things I was saying in this
paper, I was putting someone else's opinion on it and it wasn't necessarily
true.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Foucault/Latour judo
I had the same reaction that Chad had to the absence of Foucault in the work of one so concerned with mapping associations--especially when reading We Have Never Been Modern. There Foucault is nary mentioned at all there, whereas in Reassembling he is regulated to footnotes, though at least still present. Latour seems to acknowledge Foucault's influence, his brilliance and his absence, in a way, in the footnote on 86. The footnote is to the following: "To the studied and modifiable skein of means to achieve powers, sociology, and especially critical sociology, has too often substituted an invisible, unmovable, and homogenous world of power for itself"; and the footnote reads:
It seems as if Latour does not bring Foucault directly in because Latour feels that Foucault's work has been so overdetermined, in a way--that it has so much baggage associated with it is a more honest way of saying it--that to bring in Foucault explicitly runs the risk of bringing in these associations which would lead many down the wrong path, so to speak. I think Latour acknowledges Foucault's influence however--and it seems to me that he does a bit of judo, to extend Chad's metaphor, in letting the reader go through his own work without bringing in Foucault except as in these digressive, suggestive footnotes. I hope so, any way, as Foucault is on my cmap for next week.
That this lesson is easy to forget is shown dramatically by the transatlantic destiny of Michel Foucault. No one was more precise in his analytical decomposition of the tiny ingredients from which power is made and no one was more critical of social explanations. And yet, as soon as Foucault was translated, he was immediately turned into the one who had 'revealed' power relations _behind_ every innocuous activity: madness, natural history, sex, administration, etc. This proves again with what energy the notion of social explanation should be fought: even the genius of Foucault could not prevent such a total inversion.
It seems as if Latour does not bring Foucault directly in because Latour feels that Foucault's work has been so overdetermined, in a way--that it has so much baggage associated with it is a more honest way of saying it--that to bring in Foucault explicitly runs the risk of bringing in these associations which would lead many down the wrong path, so to speak. I think Latour acknowledges Foucault's influence however--and it seems to me that he does a bit of judo, to extend Chad's metaphor, in letting the reader go through his own work without bringing in Foucault except as in these digressive, suggestive footnotes. I hope so, any way, as Foucault is on my cmap for next week.
LaTour in Practice?
Recent comp/rhet theorists, working against (somewhat) the expressivist approach of the 1970s, have sought to deconstruct the privileging of the "I" in the traditional essay. Thus, I see some similar goals in LaTour's de-centering. I do see how the LaTour reading fits 8040 nicely: we have been examining the social turn, so why not look at a text that questions the very notions of "social."
I did wonder if we find some sort of practical use in LaTour's book. How might LaTour's restructuring of the social help us as composition instructors? Does LaTour's work have any benefit for the first-year comp classroom? I'm tempted to leave that question hanging in the air, but I guess that I should take a stab at answering it.
In terms of what comp teachers can come away with, I think there's value in being challenged to rethink one's seemingly "natural" foundations. LaTour, by causing us to question what is the social, also causes us to question other issues, such as making the student the center of the essay. Progressive instructors, for instance, have designed assignments where students do not write from their point of view; in fact, they are encouraged to write from the point of view of someone entirely different from themselves. Collaborative assignments--not just busy work in small groups--can also helps students see value in writing that doesn't privilege the "I." In technical writing, for instance, this is common.
Regarding the first-year comp classroom, I wonder if there's a way to design an assignment inspired by LaTour's ideas. No mention of LaTour would ever occur in the class, of course, but perhaps there's a way to present a case study or example where students clearly see that what they assumed was the social is in fact much more complex. They then could be encouraged to make their own connections out in the world. This, in some ways, is a twist on Berlin's assignments in Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures. But instead of examining texts (readings, films, television) as a way to comment on, for instance, class issues, the examination of texts would force students to reconsider their ideas about sociality. Or do you think this is all over the typical freshman head?
I did wonder if we find some sort of practical use in LaTour's book. How might LaTour's restructuring of the social help us as composition instructors? Does LaTour's work have any benefit for the first-year comp classroom? I'm tempted to leave that question hanging in the air, but I guess that I should take a stab at answering it.
In terms of what comp teachers can come away with, I think there's value in being challenged to rethink one's seemingly "natural" foundations. LaTour, by causing us to question what is the social, also causes us to question other issues, such as making the student the center of the essay. Progressive instructors, for instance, have designed assignments where students do not write from their point of view; in fact, they are encouraged to write from the point of view of someone entirely different from themselves. Collaborative assignments--not just busy work in small groups--can also helps students see value in writing that doesn't privilege the "I." In technical writing, for instance, this is common.
Regarding the first-year comp classroom, I wonder if there's a way to design an assignment inspired by LaTour's ideas. No mention of LaTour would ever occur in the class, of course, but perhaps there's a way to present a case study or example where students clearly see that what they assumed was the social is in fact much more complex. They then could be encouraged to make their own connections out in the world. This, in some ways, is a twist on Berlin's assignments in Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures. But instead of examining texts (readings, films, television) as a way to comment on, for instance, class issues, the examination of texts would force students to reconsider their ideas about sociality. Or do you think this is all over the typical freshman head?
Foucault as Latour's Mr. Miyagi?
One of the interesting parts of reading Latour has been to see his way of incorporating other scholarship. In Reassembling the Social, he's careful to acknowledge some of his influences, which include an eclectic range, Tarde and Diderot and many more, but he includes fewer names than, say, LeFevre. This becomes even more interesting when he defines a text that renders a network as one that, basically, shows its sources. He seems to do that less than some, but to wield his mentioning of others as a sign of ANT authenticity--not in an inauthentic way, at all, just as a special kind of mention. Instead of the normal parenthetical citations and quotes, he sets his sources off in boxes and footnotes.
This leads me to wonder who his primary influences might be, and to wonder about the presence of Foucault. My knowledge of Foucault's influence on ANT extends mostly to Law's use of him, in the one essay I've read, but some of Foucault's broad contributions seem to ghost the ANT project: his problematization of traditional systems of power, his persistent representation of complexity, and his refusal to essentialize or totalize. I could see Foucault teaching Latour how to fragment traditional sociology's practices, and represent that in writing--the post-structuralist equivalent of catching a fly with chopsticks . . . except, as Donna very helpfully pointed out last night, the post-structuralist project of applying broad terms to define things is one of ANT's main bugaboos.
If anyone has any thoughts, or would like to extend this to other martial arts metaphors :), I'd be grateful.
This leads me to wonder who his primary influences might be, and to wonder about the presence of Foucault. My knowledge of Foucault's influence on ANT extends mostly to Law's use of him, in the one essay I've read, but some of Foucault's broad contributions seem to ghost the ANT project: his problematization of traditional systems of power, his persistent representation of complexity, and his refusal to essentialize or totalize. I could see Foucault teaching Latour how to fragment traditional sociology's practices, and represent that in writing--the post-structuralist equivalent of catching a fly with chopsticks . . . except, as Donna very helpfully pointed out last night, the post-structuralist project of applying broad terms to define things is one of ANT's main bugaboos.
If anyone has any thoughts, or would like to extend this to other martial arts metaphors :), I'd be grateful.
Thought collectives and notebooks
Wow, there’s some good insight in the writings this week. Well, there probably always is, and I just miss it. Anyway. . .
On page 112-113 Latour talks about Fleck and Wasserman, and within that marked off reading I found something I though was very interesting. He quotes Fleck stating, ‘Truth is not ‘relative’ and certainly not ‘subjective’ in the popular sense of the word. It is always, or almost always, completely determined within a thought style. One can never say that the same thought is true for A and false for B. If A and B belong to the same thought collective, the thought will either be true or false for both. But if they belong to different thought collectives, it will just not be the same thought’ (113-14). What this quote did was bring me back to our discussion of Crowley, and the fact that were such different readings of her work. There is a difference in our “thought collectives” and this is why we read it differently. No form of logic, reason, or affective rhetoric can change these different readings, because our thoughts on the matter are from different collectives. What I would like to know, is if this is a real reason for different readings of different situations, is how or if “thought collectives” can be combined, changed, or whatever. Is a thought collective the same as a “social” group, (I know bad word), or is a thought collective a part of a larger collective. It’s an interesting concept, and one I wouldn’t mind exploring more thoroughly.
My second thought is about the notebooks Latour suggests that be used when examining the social. He states, “By contrast, it seems too often that sociologist of the social are simply trying to ‘fix a world on paper’ as if this activity was never in risk of failing” (127). However, further on he talks about getting back to basics, and maintaining four different notebooks during research. I have no doubt that everything is data, and by keeping track of everything one would accumulate good sources. But his notebook idea is very complex, and the only seemingly basic component is the fact he’s using paper instead of bites.
Did anybody else think the notebooks were a bit much?
On page 112-113 Latour talks about Fleck and Wasserman, and within that marked off reading I found something I though was very interesting. He quotes Fleck stating, ‘Truth is not ‘relative’ and certainly not ‘subjective’ in the popular sense of the word. It is always, or almost always, completely determined within a thought style. One can never say that the same thought is true for A and false for B. If A and B belong to the same thought collective, the thought will either be true or false for both. But if they belong to different thought collectives, it will just not be the same thought’ (113-14). What this quote did was bring me back to our discussion of Crowley, and the fact that were such different readings of her work. There is a difference in our “thought collectives” and this is why we read it differently. No form of logic, reason, or affective rhetoric can change these different readings, because our thoughts on the matter are from different collectives. What I would like to know, is if this is a real reason for different readings of different situations, is how or if “thought collectives” can be combined, changed, or whatever. Is a thought collective the same as a “social” group, (I know bad word), or is a thought collective a part of a larger collective. It’s an interesting concept, and one I wouldn’t mind exploring more thoroughly.
My second thought is about the notebooks Latour suggests that be used when examining the social. He states, “By contrast, it seems too often that sociologist of the social are simply trying to ‘fix a world on paper’ as if this activity was never in risk of failing” (127). However, further on he talks about getting back to basics, and maintaining four different notebooks during research. I have no doubt that everything is data, and by keeping track of everything one would accumulate good sources. But his notebook idea is very complex, and the only seemingly basic component is the fact he’s using paper instead of bites.
Did anybody else think the notebooks were a bit much?
Latour, LeFevre, Scott
Going into this reading, I was pretty convinced that I’d wind up throwing away everything in Reinventing the Social. I figured that it would contradict what I already believed about the social. I assumed that it would raise some interesting points, but that I would ultimately have little use for it in my own work. It turns out, I was wrong. Perhaps I’ve unjustly colonized/appropriated/co-opted Reinventing the Social for my own purposes, but I now see it as completely compatible with works such as Invention as a Social Act and "Rhetoric as Epistemic”.
I think each work problematizes the idea of authorship. Invention as a Social Act, by LeFevre suggests that all invention (especially the kind supported by Durkheim) is a result of social processes. Each and every writer or actor is capable of influencing and being influenced by every other actor. “Rhetoric as Epistemic,” by Scott, similarly argues that ideas and knowledge are created through the symbolic interaction of human beings.
While I have little doubt that Latour would take exception with much of the language in these two texts, I think he actually has a lot in common with them. He clearly appreciates the idea that any particular text is a result of a multitude of actors who are connected in very complex ways. For instance, he says that a quality text highlights “the ability of each actor to make other actors do unexpected things” (p. 129). He calls a text, “a test on how many actors the writer is able to treat as mediators and how far he or she is able to achieve the social” (p. 128-129). In other words, a connection to other authors and actors is a necessity that ought to be recognized and encouraged.
Here’s the thing: I don’t really know if I’m right about all this, but if I really follow Latour it might not matter. He probably didn’t expect me to compare him to LeFevre and Scott. How about that for movement and energy? Anyway, I’d really like to know if people think I’ve misappropriated and misinterpreted Latour here. Sometimes I can’t tell whether this guy is really enthusiastic about a point in which he believes or is just using hyperbole to show me how silly something is so that he can refute it.
I think each work problematizes the idea of authorship. Invention as a Social Act, by LeFevre suggests that all invention (especially the kind supported by Durkheim) is a result of social processes. Each and every writer or actor is capable of influencing and being influenced by every other actor. “Rhetoric as Epistemic,” by Scott, similarly argues that ideas and knowledge are created through the symbolic interaction of human beings.
While I have little doubt that Latour would take exception with much of the language in these two texts, I think he actually has a lot in common with them. He clearly appreciates the idea that any particular text is a result of a multitude of actors who are connected in very complex ways. For instance, he says that a quality text highlights “the ability of each actor to make other actors do unexpected things” (p. 129). He calls a text, “a test on how many actors the writer is able to treat as mediators and how far he or she is able to achieve the social” (p. 128-129). In other words, a connection to other authors and actors is a necessity that ought to be recognized and encouraged.
Here’s the thing: I don’t really know if I’m right about all this, but if I really follow Latour it might not matter. He probably didn’t expect me to compare him to LeFevre and Scott. How about that for movement and energy? Anyway, I’d really like to know if people think I’ve misappropriated and misinterpreted Latour here. Sometimes I can’t tell whether this guy is really enthusiastic about a point in which he believes or is just using hyperbole to show me how silly something is so that he can refute it.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Latour vs. Lefevre and Berlin
An early question of the semester was to consider how Latour would trouble, if not overhaul, the other social rhetoricians who would have mainly banked on what he would call the “sociology of the social” as opposed to the “sociology of associations.” When Latour suggests that “if you still believe groupings exist ‘by themselves,’ for instance the ‘individual,’ just try to remember how much labor had to be done before each of you could ‘take your life into your own hands,’” he seems to be treading close to our previous understanding of the social turn in rhetoric and composition (32). Why should we privilege one author as the author of a text? Is it just ego and tradition and a preference for sole credit that makes us refuse to acknowledge the vast network of collaboration that accounts for a published work? Latour poses considerations that mirror these and others we generated early in the semester: “How many admonitions from parents, teachers, bosses, partners, and colleagues before we learned that we had better be a group of our own (the ego)? And how quickly we forgot that lesson” (32).
However, as Latour begins to outline his five uncertainties (1. no pre-established groups; 2. actions and agency are uncertain and must be newly explored since we cannot attribute either to the social; 3. objects have agency or at least play a role beyond mere symbolic projection; 4. based on the previous three, agencies must never be introduced as matters of fact so much as matters of concern; and 5. as we move to “deployment not critique” and making the “social” first vanish in order to trace a network, we must undertake the writing of “risky accounts” that may often fail), we see that we are far from the comfort zone of Lefevre, Berlin, etc. Likewise, when Latour describes action as that “which is not fully transparent” (perhaps an understatement where the traces and uncertainties head) and that he wishes to “render them visible again” with his “odd expression” actor-network theory, we see that there is much in previous social-epistemic rhetoric that would be made to vanish so that something else—some network, trace, or reassembled association of the social—could become visible again. (44).
For a slightly more specific example, we could glance back at Berlin’s rhetoric. In his “Postmodern Predicament” section, after discussing Scholes’ “Textual Power” and Burke’s terministic screens (all language is ideological, all language “serves as a terministic screen”), Berlin argues that
“no single person is in control of language. Language is a social construction that shapes us as much as we shape it. In other words, language is a product of social relations and so is ineluctably involved in power and politics. Language constitutes arenas in which ideological battles are continually fought. The different language practices of different social groups are inscribed with ideological prescriptions, interpretations of experience that reinforce conceptions of what really exists, what is really good, and what is politically possible” (Berlin 92-93).
Latour would seem to agree that “no single person is in control of language,” but he would likely counter Berlin’s follow-up that “language is a product of social relations” and how “ineluctably involved” we can then say language is in “power and politics” (92). Latour might say that language produces the “social relations” and the constructs or figurations of “power and politics” as entities that then inform and shape what we’re trained to look for in language (trained, perhaps, by Berlin). Still, Latour might like the phrase about “interpretations of experience that reinforce conceptions of what really exists” to the extent that this opens the debate about ANT theorists “forgetting ‘power relations’ and ‘social inequalities’” (86).
Lefevre would be even more problematized by a Latourian analysis, as she privileges an a priori understanding of the social. Even as she examines a social perspective of rhetorical invention that seeks to overturn the long history of “composition” being “rooted in radical individualism,” she still suggests that the social act of writing is “one in which individuals interact with society and culture in a distinctive way to create something” and, in so doing, Lefevre seems guilty of the move Latour decries in social theory: the one where social theorists “never seem to tire in designating one entity as real, solid, proven, or entrenched while others are criticized as being artificial, imaginary, transitional” (Lefevre 121; Latour 28). Lefevre, and inevitably a Marxist such as Berlin, cannot avoid discourse that privileges either the “society” (in which individuals must “create”) or an already existing base and superstructure. Latour would seem to lead both theorists (and their students) to where the controversies arise in assuming a fixed, stable, identifiable notion of “society” or “late multi-national capitalist logic” and then ask that their associations be retraced without these “invisible hands.” Latour would also ask that students further disassemble the traces and previous associations before arriving at a (teacher-pleasing?) conclusion as to how “our society” has constructed inequalities within the judiciary or has only “fixed” racism by burying it deeper into the subsurface. He asks instead that we merely “leave aside all underlying frameworks” as the professor suggests to the Ph.D student in the “interlude” dialogue (156).
However, as Latour begins to outline his five uncertainties (1. no pre-established groups; 2. actions and agency are uncertain and must be newly explored since we cannot attribute either to the social; 3. objects have agency or at least play a role beyond mere symbolic projection; 4. based on the previous three, agencies must never be introduced as matters of fact so much as matters of concern; and 5. as we move to “deployment not critique” and making the “social” first vanish in order to trace a network, we must undertake the writing of “risky accounts” that may often fail), we see that we are far from the comfort zone of Lefevre, Berlin, etc. Likewise, when Latour describes action as that “which is not fully transparent” (perhaps an understatement where the traces and uncertainties head) and that he wishes to “render them visible again” with his “odd expression” actor-network theory, we see that there is much in previous social-epistemic rhetoric that would be made to vanish so that something else—some network, trace, or reassembled association of the social—could become visible again. (44).
For a slightly more specific example, we could glance back at Berlin’s rhetoric. In his “Postmodern Predicament” section, after discussing Scholes’ “Textual Power” and Burke’s terministic screens (all language is ideological, all language “serves as a terministic screen”), Berlin argues that
“no single person is in control of language. Language is a social construction that shapes us as much as we shape it. In other words, language is a product of social relations and so is ineluctably involved in power and politics. Language constitutes arenas in which ideological battles are continually fought. The different language practices of different social groups are inscribed with ideological prescriptions, interpretations of experience that reinforce conceptions of what really exists, what is really good, and what is politically possible” (Berlin 92-93).
Latour would seem to agree that “no single person is in control of language,” but he would likely counter Berlin’s follow-up that “language is a product of social relations” and how “ineluctably involved” we can then say language is in “power and politics” (92). Latour might say that language produces the “social relations” and the constructs or figurations of “power and politics” as entities that then inform and shape what we’re trained to look for in language (trained, perhaps, by Berlin). Still, Latour might like the phrase about “interpretations of experience that reinforce conceptions of what really exists” to the extent that this opens the debate about ANT theorists “forgetting ‘power relations’ and ‘social inequalities’” (86).
Lefevre would be even more problematized by a Latourian analysis, as she privileges an a priori understanding of the social. Even as she examines a social perspective of rhetorical invention that seeks to overturn the long history of “composition” being “rooted in radical individualism,” she still suggests that the social act of writing is “one in which individuals interact with society and culture in a distinctive way to create something” and, in so doing, Lefevre seems guilty of the move Latour decries in social theory: the one where social theorists “never seem to tire in designating one entity as real, solid, proven, or entrenched while others are criticized as being artificial, imaginary, transitional” (Lefevre 121; Latour 28). Lefevre, and inevitably a Marxist such as Berlin, cannot avoid discourse that privileges either the “society” (in which individuals must “create”) or an already existing base and superstructure. Latour would seem to lead both theorists (and their students) to where the controversies arise in assuming a fixed, stable, identifiable notion of “society” or “late multi-national capitalist logic” and then ask that their associations be retraced without these “invisible hands.” Latour would also ask that students further disassemble the traces and previous associations before arriving at a (teacher-pleasing?) conclusion as to how “our society” has constructed inequalities within the judiciary or has only “fixed” racism by burying it deeper into the subsurface. He asks instead that we merely “leave aside all underlying frameworks” as the professor suggests to the Ph.D student in the “interlude” dialogue (156).
Latour pt. 1
I wrote a paper on Latour a couple of years ago--and I used Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia for it, so I really enjoyed reading Chad's post. The main text of Latour's that I wrote about is We Have Never Been Modern, which I've referenced a couple of times before and which I think could be a productive text to bring in alongside Reassembling the Social, as I think the former really informs the latter. I had written out a long post comparing the two texts, finding ways "in" to Reassembling through We Have Never, but as I was about to post it, I thought better of it. I've been sitting on it for a couple of days now and I think I'll instead wait until next week--when I'll be facilitating the discussion on the second half of the book--to go ahead with it. I'm not sure if everyone will agree that it's necessary to bring it in, as I do, and I don't want divert *any* attention from the excellent work that Chad has done in directing the trajectory for this week.
I do want to say a bit about it in terms of where Latour himself brings in We Have Never along with something Faith commented on in her great post. Faith talked about the affinities she sees between what Latour is advocating and ethnography, and that speaks to an affinity I see as well and that Latour himself comments on a few times. Anthropology was one of my majors as an undergrad because, as I took courses that were cross-listed between English and Anthro (usually with a focus on Linguistics--my third major--or Folklore Studies), I saw how useful anthropology's use and development of the concept of culture could be in what I myself wanted to do. Latour sees this, as well, I think, and he uses it as a way to get into what ANT can become in terms of an alternative to modernism (including sociology). In Reassembling, he observes that ANT is "nothing but the recasting of the central hopes of social science" and that the latter has suffered from "a sort of confusion of duties... that their job was to define what the social world is made of... the task of politics" (40); and that "some sociologists, tired of the revolutionary period, found a way to shortcut the slow and painful process of composition and decided to sort out by themselves what were the most relevant units of society" (41). Latour goes on to comment on what he sees as the prime significance of this moment:
Here Latour goes on to contrast sociology's "first source of uncertainty" with the approach of anthropology, which did not suffer from this mistake as
Latour then explicitly connects this sentiment to his work in We Have Never, asserting that, "If, as I claim, 'we have never been modern,' sociology could finally become as good as anthropology."
In We Have Never, Latour sets up what he sees as society's tripartition of networks into "facts, power and discourse" which he believes anthropology has successfully negotiated and rightly sees as interconnected, a feat he wishes for ACT. He begins by asserting (on page 7) that
Rather than taking an approach of naturalization, socialization, or deconstruction, ANT sees networks as being all three: "Is it our fault," Latour asks,"if the networks are simultaneously real, like nature, narrated, like discourse, and collective, like society?" (ibid).
Latour then credits anthropology with having offered a way through the crisis of the tripartation:
Latour goes on to make the move that in order to do such an ethnography of the modern world, the word "modern" itself has to be renegotiated (hence the title of the work). I'll save all of that for next week--I just wanted to bring in the part of We Have Never that I see as relevant to what Latour is discussing in terms of anthropology in this part of Reassmbling.
I do want to say a bit about it in terms of where Latour himself brings in We Have Never along with something Faith commented on in her great post. Faith talked about the affinities she sees between what Latour is advocating and ethnography, and that speaks to an affinity I see as well and that Latour himself comments on a few times. Anthropology was one of my majors as an undergrad because, as I took courses that were cross-listed between English and Anthro (usually with a focus on Linguistics--my third major--or Folklore Studies), I saw how useful anthropology's use and development of the concept of culture could be in what I myself wanted to do. Latour sees this, as well, I think, and he uses it as a way to get into what ANT can become in terms of an alternative to modernism (including sociology). In Reassembling, he observes that ANT is "nothing but the recasting of the central hopes of social science" and that the latter has suffered from "a sort of confusion of duties... that their job was to define what the social world is made of... the task of politics" (40); and that "some sociologists, tired of the revolutionary period, found a way to shortcut the slow and painful process of composition and decided to sort out by themselves what were the most relevant units of society" (41). Latour goes on to comment on what he sees as the prime significance of this moment:
The simplest way was to get rid of the most extravagant and unpredictable ways in which actors themselves defined their own 'social context'. Social theorists began to play legislator, strongly encouraged in this endeavor by the state that was engaged in the ruthless task of modernizing. In addition, this gesture could pass for proof of scientific creativity as scientists since Kant have had to 'construct their own subject'. Human actors were reduced to mere informants simply answering the questions of the socilologist qua judge, thus supposedly producing a discipline as scientific as chemistry or physics. Without this strong obligation to play the legislating role, sociologists would not have limited the first obvious source of uncertainty, cutting all the links with the explicit and reflexive labor of the actors' own methods.
Here Latour goes on to contrast sociology's "first source of uncertainty" with the approach of anthropology, which did not suffer from this mistake as
Anthropologists, who had to deal with pre-moderns and were not requested as much to imitate natural sciences [I'd disagree with that, but that's another matter], were more fortunate and allowed their actors to deploy a much richer world. In many ways, ANT is simply an attempt to allow the members of contemporary society to have as much leeway in defining themselves as that offered by ethnographers.
Latour then explicitly connects this sentiment to his work in We Have Never, asserting that, "If, as I claim, 'we have never been modern,' sociology could finally become as good as anthropology."
In We Have Never, Latour sets up what he sees as society's tripartition of networks into "facts, power and discourse" which he believes anthropology has successfully negotiated and rightly sees as interconnected, a feat he wishes for ACT. He begins by asserting (on page 7) that
Either the networks my colleagues in science studies and I have traced do not really exist, and the critics are quite right to marginalize them or segment them into three distinct sets: facts, power and discourse; or the networks are as we have described them, and they do cross the borders of the great fiefdoms of criticism: even though they are real, and collective, and discursive.
Rather than taking an approach of naturalization, socialization, or deconstruction, ANT sees networks as being all three: "Is it our fault," Latour asks,"if the networks are simultaneously real, like nature, narrated, like discourse, and collective, like society?" (ibid).
Latour then credits anthropology with having offered a way through the crisis of the tripartation:
This would be a hopeless dilemma had anthropology not accustomed us to dealing calmly and straightforwardly with the seamless fabric of what I shall call 'nature-culture,' since it is a bit more and a bit less than a culture.... Once she has been sent into the field, even the most rationalist ethnographer is perfectly capable of bringing together in a single monograph the myths, ethnosciences, genealogies, political forms, techniques, religions, epics and rites of the people she is studying. Send her off to study the Arapesh or the Achuar, the Koreans or the Chinese, and you will get a single narrative that weaves together the way people regard the heavens and their ancestors, the way they build houses and the way they grow yams or manioc or rice, the way they construct their government and their cosmology. In works produced by anthropologists abroad, you will not find a single trait that is not simultaneously real, social and narrated.
If the analyst is subtle, she will retrace networks that look exactly like the sociotechnical imbroglios that we outline when we pursue microbes, missiles or fuel cells in our own Western societies. We too are afraid that the sky is falling. We too associate the tiny gesture of releasing an aerosol spray with taboos pertaining to the heavens. We too have to take laws, power and morality into account in order to understand what our sciences are telling us about the chemistry of the upper atmosphere.
Yes, but we are not savages; no anthropologist studies us that way, and it is impossible to do with our own culture—or should I say nature-culture?—what can be done elsewhere, with others. Why? Because we are modern. Our fabric is no longer seamless. Analytic continuity has become impossible. For traditional anthropologists, there is not, there cannot be, there should not—an anthropology of the modern world... The ethnosciences can be connected in part to society and to discourse...;science cannot. It is even because they remain incapable of studying themselves in this way that ethnographers are so critical, and so distant, when they go off to the tropics to study others. The critical tripartition protects them because it authorizes them to reestablish continuity among the communities of the premoderns. It is only because they separate at home that ethnographers make so bold as to unify abroad.
Latour goes on to make the move that in order to do such an ethnography of the modern world, the word "modern" itself has to be renegotiated (hence the title of the work). I'll save all of that for next week--I just wanted to bring in the part of We Have Never that I see as relevant to what Latour is discussing in terms of anthropology in this part of Reassmbling.
Action and Motion and more from Ted Kennedy
Perhaps I’ve developed a sort of trained incapacity where I see Kenneth Burke in everything I read, but I find it very difficult not to be reminded of Burke when I read Latour. When Latour talks about “actors” I’m recalling the distinction between action and motion that Burke has laid out, as well as his pentad as a means for understanding people’s motives or accounts of events.
This week in qualitative research methods over in the Communication Department we debated whether or not communication scholars ought to be considered scientists. I see this same discourse in Latour’s book. In class, I argued that we shouldn’t be considered scientists, nor should we want to be. For me, social sciences tend to reduce everything humans do to motion. The idea of motion seems divorced completely from that of free will, and would render all human action completely controllable and predictable. But Latour writes that when people “engage in providing controversial accounts for their actions as well as for those of others,” “traces become innumberable and no study will ever stop for lack of information on these controversies” (p. 47). This sounds to me like action. Burke too believed that human action was far more complex than social scientists might have us believe. I think it is absolutely crucial that we understand that actions require thought and motive, motion however does not. Human beings have incredibly complex reasons and purposes for acting as they do, and I feel that Latour is sufficiently appreciative of this idea.
When Latour talks about appreciating the accounts people provide for events in this world, it is hard not to think of Burke’s pentad (act, agent, agency, scene, purpose). These terms were suggested by Burke as a means for understanding the way people account for events and acts in our world. One excellent study that utilized Burke’s pentad described how when accounting for the death of his young female passenger at Chappaquiddick, Ted Kennedy privileged elements of the scene in order to minimize his own involvement or fault (here's the speech). But while Burke’s system would seem to compliment Latour’s philosophy, one must also heed Latour’s suggestion that “we have to resist the idea that there exists somewhere a dictionary where all the variegated words of the actors can be translated into the few words of the social vocabulary” (p. 48). Latour might very well object to using just five key words to explain any one individual’s account of an action. For that matter, it seems that Latour’s problem might lie more generally with the limitations put upon us by language itself.
In short, I like the way Latour appears to be privileging the perspectives of human beings. I also think he’s got something in common with Kenneth Burke. I think a lot of science attempts to impose our own perspectives and understandings on the world. Latour, with all his talk of uncertainties and controversies seems to advocate against this impulse. But this lease Latour to argue against all sorts of criticism and unfortunately, I still don’t think I’m ready to ditch the critical approach I’m so accustomed to. What if the associations we trace from people’s accounts appear to be harmful or destructive to themselves or others? Of course, there is way more at stake in a question like this than whether Ted Kennedy is a boozer and a womanizer.
Ling, D. A. (1970). A pentadic analysis of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s Address to the people
of Massachusetts, July 25, 1969. Central States Speech Journal, 21, 81-87.
This week in qualitative research methods over in the Communication Department we debated whether or not communication scholars ought to be considered scientists. I see this same discourse in Latour’s book. In class, I argued that we shouldn’t be considered scientists, nor should we want to be. For me, social sciences tend to reduce everything humans do to motion. The idea of motion seems divorced completely from that of free will, and would render all human action completely controllable and predictable. But Latour writes that when people “engage in providing controversial accounts for their actions as well as for those of others,” “traces become innumberable and no study will ever stop for lack of information on these controversies” (p. 47). This sounds to me like action. Burke too believed that human action was far more complex than social scientists might have us believe. I think it is absolutely crucial that we understand that actions require thought and motive, motion however does not. Human beings have incredibly complex reasons and purposes for acting as they do, and I feel that Latour is sufficiently appreciative of this idea.
When Latour talks about appreciating the accounts people provide for events in this world, it is hard not to think of Burke’s pentad (act, agent, agency, scene, purpose). These terms were suggested by Burke as a means for understanding the way people account for events and acts in our world. One excellent study that utilized Burke’s pentad described how when accounting for the death of his young female passenger at Chappaquiddick, Ted Kennedy privileged elements of the scene in order to minimize his own involvement or fault (here's the speech). But while Burke’s system would seem to compliment Latour’s philosophy, one must also heed Latour’s suggestion that “we have to resist the idea that there exists somewhere a dictionary where all the variegated words of the actors can be translated into the few words of the social vocabulary” (p. 48). Latour might very well object to using just five key words to explain any one individual’s account of an action. For that matter, it seems that Latour’s problem might lie more generally with the limitations put upon us by language itself.
In short, I like the way Latour appears to be privileging the perspectives of human beings. I also think he’s got something in common with Kenneth Burke. I think a lot of science attempts to impose our own perspectives and understandings on the world. Latour, with all his talk of uncertainties and controversies seems to advocate against this impulse. But this lease Latour to argue against all sorts of criticism and unfortunately, I still don’t think I’m ready to ditch the critical approach I’m so accustomed to. What if the associations we trace from people’s accounts appear to be harmful or destructive to themselves or others? Of course, there is way more at stake in a question like this than whether Ted Kennedy is a boozer and a womanizer.
Ling, D. A. (1970). A pentadic analysis of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s Address to the people
of Massachusetts, July 25, 1969. Central States Speech Journal, 21, 81-87.
LaTour and Readability
Maggie writes, "I must say my own understanding appears to come and go in various parts of the book."
I feel your pain, Maggie. On the one hand, I find LaTour's writing pretty reader friendly, given that he's A) a theory guy, and B) he's French! Usually, such a pairing makes for difficult reading, but LaTour often sounds down to earth ("If this looks like splitting hairs, well it is, but this is because the tiny difference in direction taken by the two sociologies is no larger than a hair's width" (39)), and his sometimes colloquial style is definitely reassuring--no real struggling to make sense out of long, twisting, convoluted sentences as in Derrida or Foucault.
Which reminds me. There's this Lydia Davis short story, "Foucualt and Pencil," where Davis, who is also a translator of French (she has a new translation of Proust's In Search of Lost Time which is supposed to be pretty good), pokes fun at the experience of reading Foucault:
"Short sentences easier to understand than long ones. Certain long ones understandable part by part, but so long, forgot beginning before reaching end. Went back to beginning, understood beginning, read on, and again forgot beginning before reaching end. Read on without going back and without understanding, without remembering, and without learning, pencil idle in hand. Came to sentence that was clear, made pencil mark in margin. Mark indicated understanding, indicated forward progress in book."
I thought some might enjoy the levity there! Plus, we're supposed to be looking for webs of meaning, and this whole discussion of LaTour and the readability of theory in general traced an association, in my mind, to the Davis story. Okay, back to the program...
On the other hand, I do find the LaTour rough going in that, as with most theory, I still find that I understand things at the surface level much more than at the detail level. Yes, LaTour's surface is friendlier and easier to read. There's little of the, as Davis pokes fun at, having to consistently go "back to beginning," but I still have that sort of "Okay, I understand the gist here, but could I really put this into practice?" feeling. I'm still making my way through Part I, however, and I assume that the book takes the reader through some more specific examples or case studies before it ends.
Overall, though, I find the LaTour reading much less ominous that I had feared (or that I had felt after reading his introduction weeks back).
I feel your pain, Maggie. On the one hand, I find LaTour's writing pretty reader friendly, given that he's A) a theory guy, and B) he's French! Usually, such a pairing makes for difficult reading, but LaTour often sounds down to earth ("If this looks like splitting hairs, well it is, but this is because the tiny difference in direction taken by the two sociologies is no larger than a hair's width" (39)), and his sometimes colloquial style is definitely reassuring--no real struggling to make sense out of long, twisting, convoluted sentences as in Derrida or Foucault.
Which reminds me. There's this Lydia Davis short story, "Foucualt and Pencil," where Davis, who is also a translator of French (she has a new translation of Proust's In Search of Lost Time which is supposed to be pretty good), pokes fun at the experience of reading Foucault:
"Short sentences easier to understand than long ones. Certain long ones understandable part by part, but so long, forgot beginning before reaching end. Went back to beginning, understood beginning, read on, and again forgot beginning before reaching end. Read on without going back and without understanding, without remembering, and without learning, pencil idle in hand. Came to sentence that was clear, made pencil mark in margin. Mark indicated understanding, indicated forward progress in book."
I thought some might enjoy the levity there! Plus, we're supposed to be looking for webs of meaning, and this whole discussion of LaTour and the readability of theory in general traced an association, in my mind, to the Davis story. Okay, back to the program...
On the other hand, I do find the LaTour rough going in that, as with most theory, I still find that I understand things at the surface level much more than at the detail level. Yes, LaTour's surface is friendlier and easier to read. There's little of the, as Davis pokes fun at, having to consistently go "back to beginning," but I still have that sort of "Okay, I understand the gist here, but could I really put this into practice?" feeling. I'm still making my way through Part I, however, and I assume that the book takes the reader through some more specific examples or case studies before it ends.
Overall, though, I find the LaTour reading much less ominous that I had feared (or that I had felt after reading his introduction weeks back).
Help with LaTour
If anyone's having difficulty making it through the first hundred or so pages of LaTour, you might want to skip to the section On the Difficulty of Being an Ant, where LaTour imagines a conversation between himself and a PhD student trying to understand ANT. I found it much easier to understand than the preceding sections. ANT's ideas seem to be most clearly expressed in the form of debate or conversation. Also, this section makes apparent the problems of ANT – that it's not really a theory and everybody (namely, thesis advisors) want a theory.
I could certainly see the influence of LaTour's ideas about social science in the methods textbooks I read to prepare for my thesis. His ideas of letting the actors speak for themselves become particularly relevant in ethnographic writing studies, where a teacher-researcher finds it much easier to be relevant by arguing “what's wrong” with student writing rather than understanding the students on their own terms. I liked his emphasis on writing and his appreciation of complexity – I think that the effort not to reach a resolution has gained a lot of ground in the field too. I wondered how he might feel about the use of academic discourse as a whole, not just that of social scientists, and the merit of teaching students to enter discourse communities. As with the halfway point of the Berlin book, I am interested to see if he'll attempt examples of what he's advocating for.
I could certainly see the influence of LaTour's ideas about social science in the methods textbooks I read to prepare for my thesis. His ideas of letting the actors speak for themselves become particularly relevant in ethnographic writing studies, where a teacher-researcher finds it much easier to be relevant by arguing “what's wrong” with student writing rather than understanding the students on their own terms. I liked his emphasis on writing and his appreciation of complexity – I think that the effort not to reach a resolution has gained a lot of ground in the field too. I wondered how he might feel about the use of academic discourse as a whole, not just that of social scientists, and the merit of teaching students to enter discourse communities. As with the halfway point of the Berlin book, I am interested to see if he'll attempt examples of what he's advocating for.
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
I am impressed with Chad’s obvious understanding of ANT. I must say my own understanding appears to come and go in various parts of the book.
On page 22 LaTour gives five uncertainties: the nature of groups, the nature of actions, the nature of objects, the nature of facts, and the the type of studies done under the laboe of a science of the social. This is one of those things that actually makes sense to me, however, I’m unsure of how it is more salient when combined with ANT than when discussed under the term “sociology.” It is because there are such uncertainties within groupings of the populace that “social sciences” came into being, is it not? I probably misunderstood something.
Latour states,”The task of defining and ordering the social should be left to the actors themselves, not taken up by the analyst. This is why to regain some sense of order, the best solution is to trace connections between the controversies themselves rather than try to decide how to settle any given controversy” (23). I believe this to be very true, but then when I began to think about it I began to wonder which analyst had taken up what controversies to settle. I really can’t think of an example, which is my point, and I wondered if one of you braniacs out there could give me one.
He also states, “To use the word ‘actor’ means that it’s never clear who and what is acting when we act since an actor on stage is never alone in acting” (46). Some of me understands this, and parts of me don’t. (The left hand and the right big toe are the dissenters). Anyway, what I would like to know is if me means an individual does not know when he or she is acting of their own accord. Is everything we do a reaction to something or someone else? On the one hand I can buy that, but on the other I wonder if this is the case, is there ultimately the singular self? But then, perhaps that is the question at hand.
When talking about “The Third Source of Uncertainty” LaTour explains that objects can be actors, too. He describes this as an association between entities which are in no way recognizable as being social in the ordinary manner, except during the brief moment when they are reshuffled together” (65). These items have something social through the modifications made throughout the whole place in the organization of all the goods. These minute shifts reveal to the observer which new combinations are explored and which paths will be taken (65). I liked this example in that it made the term “network” very clear to me. It also made me wonder how in the world anyone would be able to trace a “complete” network of anything. It would wind up being an extraordinarily vast project.
Ah, well.
On page 22 LaTour gives five uncertainties: the nature of groups, the nature of actions, the nature of objects, the nature of facts, and the the type of studies done under the laboe of a science of the social. This is one of those things that actually makes sense to me, however, I’m unsure of how it is more salient when combined with ANT than when discussed under the term “sociology.” It is because there are such uncertainties within groupings of the populace that “social sciences” came into being, is it not? I probably misunderstood something.
Latour states,”The task of defining and ordering the social should be left to the actors themselves, not taken up by the analyst. This is why to regain some sense of order, the best solution is to trace connections between the controversies themselves rather than try to decide how to settle any given controversy” (23). I believe this to be very true, but then when I began to think about it I began to wonder which analyst had taken up what controversies to settle. I really can’t think of an example, which is my point, and I wondered if one of you braniacs out there could give me one.
He also states, “To use the word ‘actor’ means that it’s never clear who and what is acting when we act since an actor on stage is never alone in acting” (46). Some of me understands this, and parts of me don’t. (The left hand and the right big toe are the dissenters). Anyway, what I would like to know is if me means an individual does not know when he or she is acting of their own accord. Is everything we do a reaction to something or someone else? On the one hand I can buy that, but on the other I wonder if this is the case, is there ultimately the singular self? But then, perhaps that is the question at hand.
When talking about “The Third Source of Uncertainty” LaTour explains that objects can be actors, too. He describes this as an association between entities which are in no way recognizable as being social in the ordinary manner, except during the brief moment when they are reshuffled together” (65). These items have something social through the modifications made throughout the whole place in the organization of all the goods. These minute shifts reveal to the observer which new combinations are explored and which paths will be taken (65). I liked this example in that it made the term “network” very clear to me. It also made me wonder how in the world anyone would be able to trace a “complete” network of anything. It would wind up being an extraordinarily vast project.
Ah, well.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Map, Essay, References
I have no good reason for why I didn't post this until now. But feedback is definitely welcome. It'll be called something like "Fantasy Theme Analysis and Invention as a Social Act." Maybe.
----------------------------
Symbolic convergence theory suggests that people come to share consciousness about their worlds by sharing symbolic material such as stories, jokes, analogies, etc. Shared meanings give a group its purpose and identity thereby allowing them to reach consensus and achieve true unity. In short, symbolic convergence allows people to share worldviews. Ernest Bormann first noticed and explicated the phenomena while examining small group communication but quickly expanded the theory to apply to rhetorical criticism. Bormann’s colleagues Donald Shields and John Cragan also made careers out of applying and expanding the concept. Scholarly research has demonstrated that fantasy-theme analysis, which is the primary means for studying symbolic convergence theory, is particularly useful for examining how group members communicate with each other and with those that they are trying to persuade.
Joshua Gunn is perhaps the most vocal opponents of symbolic convergence theory and fantasy theme analysis. He’s gone back and forth with Bormann and Bormann’s colleague’s on the pages of the Quarterly Journal of Speech about the merits and inadequacies of this particular communication theory. One of the aspects of the theory that is most often is disputed is the degree to which people actually share dramatized narratives (fantasies) and “chain” their ideas and experiences among one another. Some have gone so far as to question whether the existing examples of fantasy theme analysis are truly indicators of collective action, or just evidence of the work of a few individuals. These objections seriously question the integrity of symbolic convergence theory, which I believe still has plenty of potential for explaining human interaction. Therefore, I’d like to rescue the theory from its detractors.
In my paper I will strengthen symbolic convergence theory by introducing the idea of rhetorical invention, which ought to be familiar to any and all serious rhetoricians. Karen LeFevre has argued that invention is a social act. Writers such as George Herbert Mead and Emile Durkheim have suggested that all rhetorical invention is a result of social processes. Therefore, a theory of (social) invention can expand the way scholars think about symbolic convergence. Symbolic convergence happens in places other than just small groups. Anytime people share ideas, or ideas can be demonstrated to permeate the consciousness of a particular group of thinkers, I would argue that symbolic convergence has occurred. Definitions of symbolic convergence need to be expanded in order to accommodate important theories of rhetorical invention. Some types of convergence are perhaps less direct than what was originally posited, but they are nonetheless forms of convergence.
In conclusion, symbolic convergence theory was once an exciting new idea in communication and rhetorical studies. However, serious criticisms of its validity have injured the theory’s reputation. There is absolutely no doubt that fantasy theme analysis has fallen out of favor with communication scholars and rhetorical critics. These ideas are not used or published as often as they once were. However, an understanding of invention as a social act can significantly bolster a symbolic convergence theory by understanding the way the social is responsible for the creation of all knowledge and therefore all symbolic material. This can free up the theory and the primary means for studying the theory (fantasy theme analysis) for use once again.
Joshua Gunn is perhaps the most vocal opponents of symbolic convergence theory and fantasy theme analysis. He’s gone back and forth with Bormann and Bormann’s colleague’s on the pages of the Quarterly Journal of Speech about the merits and inadequacies of this particular communication theory. One of the aspects of the theory that is most often is disputed is the degree to which people actually share dramatized narratives (fantasies) and “chain” their ideas and experiences among one another. Some have gone so far as to question whether the existing examples of fantasy theme analysis are truly indicators of collective action, or just evidence of the work of a few individuals. These objections seriously question the integrity of symbolic convergence theory, which I believe still has plenty of potential for explaining human interaction. Therefore, I’d like to rescue the theory from its detractors.
In my paper I will strengthen symbolic convergence theory by introducing the idea of rhetorical invention, which ought to be familiar to any and all serious rhetoricians. Karen LeFevre has argued that invention is a social act. Writers such as George Herbert Mead and Emile Durkheim have suggested that all rhetorical invention is a result of social processes. Therefore, a theory of (social) invention can expand the way scholars think about symbolic convergence. Symbolic convergence happens in places other than just small groups. Anytime people share ideas, or ideas can be demonstrated to permeate the consciousness of a particular group of thinkers, I would argue that symbolic convergence has occurred. Definitions of symbolic convergence need to be expanded in order to accommodate important theories of rhetorical invention. Some types of convergence are perhaps less direct than what was originally posited, but they are nonetheless forms of convergence.
In conclusion, symbolic convergence theory was once an exciting new idea in communication and rhetorical studies. However, serious criticisms of its validity have injured the theory’s reputation. There is absolutely no doubt that fantasy theme analysis has fallen out of favor with communication scholars and rhetorical critics. These ideas are not used or published as often as they once were. However, an understanding of invention as a social act can significantly bolster a symbolic convergence theory by understanding the way the social is responsible for the creation of all knowledge and therefore all symbolic material. This can free up the theory and the primary means for studying the theory (fantasy theme analysis) for use once again.
Preliminary Bibliography
Benoit, W. L., Klyukovski, A. A., McHale, J. P., & Airne, D. (2001). A fantasy-theme analysis
of political cartoons on the Clinton-Lewinsky-Starr affair. Critical Studies in Media
Communication, 18(4), 377-394.
Benoit, W. L., Klyukovski, A. A., McHale, J. P., & Airne, D. (2001). A fantasy-theme analysis
of political cartoons on the Clinton-Lewinsky-Starr affair. Critical Studies in Media
Communication, 18(4), 377-394.
Bormann, E. G., Cragan, J. F., & Shields, D. C. (2003). Defending symbolic convergence theory
from an imaginary Gunn. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 89(4), 366-372.
Bormann, G., Knutson, R. (2002). Why do people share fantasies? An empirical investigation of
a basic tenet of the symbolic. Communication Studies, 48(3), 254-276.
Bormann, E. G., Cragan, J. F., & Shields, D. C. (1996). An expansion of the rhetorical vision
component of the symbolic convergence theory: The cold war paradigm case.
Communication Monographs, 63, 1-28.
Bormann, E., Cragan, J., & Shields, D. (1994). In defense of symbolic convergence theory: A
look at the theory and its criticisms after two decades. Communication Theory, 4, 259-
294.
Bormann, E. G. (1985a). The force of fantasy: Restoring the American dream. Illinois:
Southern Illinois University Press.
Bormann, E. (1985). Symbolic convergence Theory: A communication formulation. Journal of
Communication, 35(4), 128-138.
Bormann, E. G. (1982). Fantasy and rhetorical vision: Ten years later. Quarterly Journal of
Speech, 68, 288-305.
Buber, M. (1970). I and thou. New York, NY: Charles Scribners’ Sons.
Durkheim, E. (1954). The elementary forms of religious life. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Durkheim, E. (1966). The rules of sociological method. New York, NY: The Free Press.
Fisher, Walter R. (1984) Narration as human communication paradigm: The case of public
moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51(1), 1-22.
Foss, K. & Littejohn, W. (1986). The day after: Rhetorical vision in an ironic frame. Critical
Studies in Mass Communication, 3, 317-336.
Gunn, J. (2003a). Refiguring fantasy: Imagination and its decline in U.S. rhetorical studies.
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 89(1), 41-59.
Gunn, J. (2003b). Response. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 89(4), 373-373.
Knuepper, C. & Anderson, F. (1980). Uniting wisdom and eloquence: the need for rhetorical
invention. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 66(3), 313-326.
Larson, R. (1972). Some techniques for teaching rhetorical invention. Speech Teacher, 21(3),
303-309.
LeFevre, K. (1987). Invention as a social act. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Mead, G. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Putnam, L., Van Hoeven, S., Bullis, C. (1991). The role of rituals and fantasy themes in teachers’
bargaining. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 55, 85-103.
St.Antoine, T. J., Althouse, M. T., & Ball, M. A. (2005). Fantasy-theme criticism. In J. A.
Kuypers (Ed.), The art of rhetorical criticism. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Friday, March 16, 2007
ANT against itself
I wanted to contextualize the Latour reading for this week with some basic facts about actor-network theory (ANT), maybe selfishly :), since you guys should not feel obligated to read a giant blog post about it. These definitions draw on Latour's remarks in the intro and first part, and also add those of ANT's other founders and scholars. Our discussion of the social in Latour got me interested in ANT, the theory for which the book is meant to serve as an introduction. My discussion of his part 1 on Monday night may draw on some of the same material I'm offering here, so apologies for any repetition.
The most basic fact about ANT is that it doesn't exist, according to Latour's essay, "On recalling ANT." He problematizes it systematically, showing why it's not a theory, why the uses of the terms "actor" and "network" are inaccurate, and even why the hyphen between them doesn't make sense. The proper term, as he has insisted over the years, is "actant rhizome ontology," and he actually says, in the essay, that ANT has stayed in currency, as a term, because it sounds better than ARO.
Since we're reading an introduction to ANT, written by him almost a decade after that essay, the term clearly shows something of a comfortable fit, but Latour's ambiguity points back to one of the basic aspects of ANT, in the little that I've read: the documents tend to marvellously imitate the networks that they describe, reversing their conclusions, striving for complexity. The most consistent conclusion in the essay mirrors the one in the part of "Reassembling the Social" that we're reading for Monday: ANT functions, not as a theory, but as an ontology, or way of describing being, that critiques traditional notions of the social.
John Law, the other key figure in ANT (according to Jeff Rice), offers similar
caveats about ANT: it can't be essentialized, since complexity is one of its key features; it can't really be seen as a theory, since that would imply some fixed idea that might take away from its emphasis on fluidity; and it should not exist, as a term, but does for the sake of convenience. Again, this approach to ANT really metarhetoricizes the ANT conception of the network: it doesn't hold a consistent reality, and any motion toward a stable idea is a convenience.
As in Latour's essay, though, Law offers a couple of key features of ANT. First, it emphasizes "relational materiality." This means a couple of things, from what I can gather. First, these guys draw on Foucault's idea that relationality, the idea that we're defined by each othher, applies to much more than just language. In ANT terms, this extends further--they see the networks that we live in being defined by things other than language, but also other than individuals. Second, ANT emphasizes "performativity." That means that relationality is defined by performance--there is no static network of connections that we exist in; the network is performed. Law, and other ANT theorists, don't see the individual as a fixed site of social construction, but as something much more dynamic.
Aside from Foucault, the thinkers who seem to have clearly influenced ANT are DeLeuze and Guattari. Their ideas about social structure have given rise to ANT's conception of the network, and to the "actant-rhizome" idea. That idea basically says that society can be seen in two ways: as arboreal, meaning hierarchical and beaureaucratic; or as rhizomatic, meaning indeterminate, acentric, and dynamic. Latour's references to them show his continuing sense of debt.
If ANT is perplexing at all to you, as it has been to me in reading "Reassembling the Social," it may help a tad to know that that perplexity is part of its mission. It doesn't so much offer a set of tidy ideas as do the postmodern thang of problematizing long-standing ones, and offering hints of revolutionary alternative. ANT's influence seems to have been pretty intense in the quarter century that it's existed, possibly mostly in sociology, and in contributing to our understanding of networks. However, Latour stresses the difference between ANT's sense of network and the computer network that has so informed popular understanding. The network that they talk about is transformative, dynamic, fluid, and holds none of the illusion of fixity commonly ascribed to the virtual world.
My understanding of ANT is definitely teeny, and please feel free to chime in, add, or correct any bogus info above.
The most basic fact about ANT is that it doesn't exist, according to Latour's essay, "On recalling ANT." He problematizes it systematically, showing why it's not a theory, why the uses of the terms "actor" and "network" are inaccurate, and even why the hyphen between them doesn't make sense. The proper term, as he has insisted over the years, is "actant rhizome ontology," and he actually says, in the essay, that ANT has stayed in currency, as a term, because it sounds better than ARO.
Since we're reading an introduction to ANT, written by him almost a decade after that essay, the term clearly shows something of a comfortable fit, but Latour's ambiguity points back to one of the basic aspects of ANT, in the little that I've read: the documents tend to marvellously imitate the networks that they describe, reversing their conclusions, striving for complexity. The most consistent conclusion in the essay mirrors the one in the part of "Reassembling the Social" that we're reading for Monday: ANT functions, not as a theory, but as an ontology, or way of describing being, that critiques traditional notions of the social.
John Law, the other key figure in ANT (according to Jeff Rice), offers similar
caveats about ANT: it can't be essentialized, since complexity is one of its key features; it can't really be seen as a theory, since that would imply some fixed idea that might take away from its emphasis on fluidity; and it should not exist, as a term, but does for the sake of convenience. Again, this approach to ANT really metarhetoricizes the ANT conception of the network: it doesn't hold a consistent reality, and any motion toward a stable idea is a convenience.
As in Latour's essay, though, Law offers a couple of key features of ANT. First, it emphasizes "relational materiality." This means a couple of things, from what I can gather. First, these guys draw on Foucault's idea that relationality, the idea that we're defined by each othher, applies to much more than just language. In ANT terms, this extends further--they see the networks that we live in being defined by things other than language, but also other than individuals. Second, ANT emphasizes "performativity." That means that relationality is defined by performance--there is no static network of connections that we exist in; the network is performed. Law, and other ANT theorists, don't see the individual as a fixed site of social construction, but as something much more dynamic.
Aside from Foucault, the thinkers who seem to have clearly influenced ANT are DeLeuze and Guattari. Their ideas about social structure have given rise to ANT's conception of the network, and to the "actant-rhizome" idea. That idea basically says that society can be seen in two ways: as arboreal, meaning hierarchical and beaureaucratic; or as rhizomatic, meaning indeterminate, acentric, and dynamic. Latour's references to them show his continuing sense of debt.
If ANT is perplexing at all to you, as it has been to me in reading "Reassembling the Social," it may help a tad to know that that perplexity is part of its mission. It doesn't so much offer a set of tidy ideas as do the postmodern thang of problematizing long-standing ones, and offering hints of revolutionary alternative. ANT's influence seems to have been pretty intense in the quarter century that it's existed, possibly mostly in sociology, and in contributing to our understanding of networks. However, Latour stresses the difference between ANT's sense of network and the computer network that has so informed popular understanding. The network that they talk about is transformative, dynamic, fluid, and holds none of the illusion of fixity commonly ascribed to the virtual world.
My understanding of ANT is definitely teeny, and please feel free to chime in, add, or correct any bogus info above.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
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