IRMA-International.org: Creator of Knowledge
Information Resources Management Association
Advancing the Concepts & Practices of Information Resources Management in Modern Organizations

Talking about Associations and Descriptions or a Short Story about Associology

Talking about Associations and Descriptions or a Short Story about Associology
View Sample PDF
Author(s): Beate Ochsner (University of Konstanz, Germany)
Copyright: 2017
Pages: 14
Source title: Applying the Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Markus Spöhrer (University of Konstanz, Germany)and Beate Ochsner (University of Konstanz, Germany)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0616-4.ch013

Purchase

View Talking about Associations and Descriptions or a Short Story about Associology on the publisher's website for pricing and purchasing information.

Abstract

In 1999, Bruno Latour advocated for “abandoning what was wrong with ANT, that is ‘actor,' ‘network,' ‘theory' without forgetting the hyphen.” However, it seems that the “hyphen,” which brings with it the operation of hyphenating or connecting, was abandoned too quickly. If one investigates what something is by asking what it is meant as well as how it emerges, by (re-)tracing the strategy in materials in situated practices and sets of relations, and, by bypassing the distinction between agency and structure, one shifts from studying “what causes what” to describing “how things happen.” This perspective not only makes it necessary for us to clarify the changing positions and displacements of human and non-human actors in the assemblage, but, also question the role (the enrolment) of the researcher him/herself: What kind of “relation” connects the researcher to his/her research and associates him/her with the subject, how to prevent (or not) his/her own involvement, and, to what degree s/he ignores the relationality of his/her writing in a “sociology of association?”

Related Content

Emre Meriç, Zindan Çakıcı. © 2024. 23 pages.
Nemanja Milošević. © 2024. 22 pages.
Övünç Ege. © 2024. 13 pages.
Serkan Karatay, Başak Gezmen. © 2024. 19 pages.
Ceren Saran. © 2024. 31 pages.
Maria Roberta Novielli. © 2024. 13 pages.
Hasan Gürkan, Aslı Güngör-Eral. © 2024. 17 pages.
Body Bottom