This article challenges the urge within Actor-Network Theory, posthumanism, and the ontological turn in sociology and anthropology to dissolve analytical distinctions between subject and object, society and nature, and human and non-human. It argues that only by acknowledging such distinctions and applying a realist ontology can exploitative and unsustainable global power relations be exposed. The predicament of the Anthropocene should not prompt us to abandon distinctions between society and nature but to refine the analytical framework through which we can distinguish (...) between sentience and non-sentience and between the symbolic and non-symbolic. The incompatibility of posthumanist and Marxist approaches to the Anthropocene and the question of agency derives from ideological differences as well as different methodological proclivities. A central illustration of these differences is the understanding of fetishism, a concept viewed by posthumanists as condescending but by Marxists as emancipatory. (shrink)

Realist evaluation has gained prominence in the field of evaluation in recent years. Its theory-driven approach to explaining how and why programmes work or not makes it attractive to many novices, early career researchers, and organizations implementing various programmes globally and relevant to policymakers and programme implementers. While realist evaluation seeks to be pragmatic, adopting principles and methods that can be used to help focus an evaluation, its deep ontological and epistemological foundations make its application in real-life situations challenging. In (...) this paper, we seek to unpack the key tenets scaffolding the practical application of realist evaluation. Although Pawson and Tilley foreground realist evaluation in applied scientific realism, we argue that an amalgam of scientific and critical realist principles underpins realist evaluation. We unpack these principles and illustrate how they fit into each other to provide a cogent theoretical foundation for realist evaluation. (shrink)

This paper investigates how we can enact, collectively, affording food systems. Yet rather than asking simply what those assemblages might look like the author enquires as to how they might also feel. Building on existing literature that speaks to the radically relational, and deeply affective, nature of food the aims of this paper are multiple: to learn more about how moments of difference come about in otherwise seemingly banal encounters; to understand some of the processes by which novelty ripples out, (...) up, and through social bodies; to speak to, and suggest ways to resolve, ontological asymmetries within the agrifood literature pertaining to Cartesian dualisms; and to offer ways forward that allow agrifood scholars to talk about phenomena such as feelings and structures/barriers in the same sentence. The empirical flesh of the paper comes from an admittedly unconventional case study. On December 10, 2012, Amendment 64 was added to Colorado’s constitution making it legal for adults to consume marijuana for recreational purposes. The case examined is not about pot, however. The paper, rather, is about hopeful, hydroponic-inspired, agrifood futures; novel doings, feelings, and thinkings sparked by, among other things, food grown in basements and spare bedrooms. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper compares Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic critical realism and Michel Foucault’s implicit discursive realism. It argues that there is a surprisingly high degree of correspondence between the two social ontologies. Specifically, both ontologies suggest that there are three largely autonomous domains in operation: cultural, structural, and agentive. Yet, while each of these domains have a level of independence, yet they are also partially constituted by the content and form of the others. This paper discusses the potential to integrate the two (...) approaches in such a way as to overcome their respective short-comings, namely the underdevelopment of culture in Archer’s ontology, and the underdevelopment of social agency in Foucault’s ontology. (shrink)

The work of Bruno Latour has animated debates in sociology, anthropology and philosophy over several decades, while attracting criticisms of the ontological, epistemological and political implications of his focus on networks. This article takes a particular depth example – the case of the genetic condition of sickle cell – and, drawing upon anthropological, archaeological and sociological evidence of the sickle cell body in history, appraises early, and later, Latourian ideas. The article concludes that while methodologically useful in drawing attention to (...) the complicated links of humans, animals and things, concerns remain about Latourian ontological claims. Limitations include an empiricist failure to account for absence; an insufficiently robust conception of emergence; an unwarranted curtailment of counterfactual human knowledge; a lack of concern for serial ‘undeserving losers’; a tendency to accord excessive freedoms to human actors; and a lack of a conception of how things may be considered as agents rather than actants. (shrink)

This paper examines the challenges to critical realism posed by the ways in which the original postmodern sensibility has transformed into various forms of anti-humanism, trans-humanism, and post-humanism. These transformations, largely growing out of poststructuralism, are reinforced by developments in psychology and computer science but also incorporate a new turn toward ontology in alternate forms of realism such as Object-Oriented-Ontology. This paper identifies what is new and what is old in these trends and argues that, while there is something to (...) be learned from them, some of which implicitly and even explicitly borrow from CR, the humanist orientation of CR continues to deserve defense. (shrink)

Actor‐Network Theory is a research lens that has gained popularity in the nursing and health sciences domains. The perspective allows a researcher to describe the interaction of actors (both human and non‐human) within networked sociomaterial contexts, including complex practice environments where nurses and health technology operate. This study will describe Actor‐Network Theory and provide methodological considerations for researchers who are interested in using this sociotechnical lens within nursing and informatics‐related research. Considerations related to technology conceptualization, levels of analysis, and sampling (...) procedures in Actor‐Network Theory based research are addressed. Finally, implications for future nursing research within complex environments are highlighted. (shrink)

It is hard to overstate the growing impact of the works of Andreas Reckwitz and Hartmut Rosa on contemporary social theory. Given the quality and originality of their intellectual contributions, it is no accident that they can be regarded as two towering figures of contemporary German social theory. The far-reaching significance of their respective approaches is reflected not only in their numerous publications but also in the fast-evolving secondary literature engaging with their writings. All of this should be reason enough (...) to take note of their collaborative work, which, most recently, has culminated in the publication of their co-authored book Spätmoderne in der Krise: Was leistet die Gesellschaftstheorie? (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2021). The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the latest exchange between Reckwitz and Rosa contains valuable insights into recent and ongoing trends in society in general and social theory in particular. The first part comprises an outline of the central matters at stake in, and the core lessons learnt from, the constructive dialogue between Reckwitz’s critical analytics and Rosa’s critical theory, before moving, in the second part, to an assessment of the most significant limitations of their respective views and propositions. (shrink)

It has generally been recognized that while Bruno Latour’s and Martin Heidegger’s respective philosophies of technology converge on key points there is also a significant difference of attitudes towards the themes discussed. To better appreciate the similarities and differences, I suggest that we seek to understand both Latour and Heidegger as philosophers of the event, who seek to rescue the novel emergence of beings from the sedimentation of reductive, explanatory frameworks. I take up this line of thought and compare Latour’s (...) and Heidegger’s theories of things and the types of experiences they presume. Latour’s metaphysics of the actant ensures that no actant’s activity is ever reduced to being the passive effect of another. Yet while the actant can be ‘applied’ to any entity, from a Heideggerian standpoint this strength is precisely its weakness. Latour’s metaphysics provides a horizon of thought that blocks an original experience of things that Heidegger’s thought points towards. By stepping back from the horizonal experience Latour’s metaphysical blueprint for entities imposes, one can enter into an original opening that stems neither from humans nor nonhumans, but an ineradicable mystery at the origin of being. This mystery is nothing more than the inability to give ultimate reasons for the presence of beings. While Latour’s actant as _Ding_ is simply an actant with innumerable relations, Heidegger’s _das Ding_ is the concrete experience of the dissolution of metaphysical reasons, first and last causes. Precisely because Heidegger’s _das Ding_ emerges from a prior mystery that suspends any overarching causal or purposive schema, things can more freely presence from themselves. (shrink)

Bruno Latour, one of the architects of actor-network theory, has now enfolded this approach within a larger project: An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. Framed as an empirical inquiry into the onto...

Research communication in interdisciplinary research projects requires a way of demarcation of theory and knowledge that is easy to communicate, is inconsequential for the framework of concepts, results, and procedures within existing scientific disciplines, and abstains from trying to resolve the dispute between (neo)positivists and constructivists. A simple way of demarcation starts from the notion of language-independent and language-dependent reality. Currently, what passes for knowledge (“news”) and myth (“fake news”) depends, besides on sheer volume and frequency of the messages, increasingly (...) on the internal consistency of (computer) language-dependent reality and decreasingly on language-independent reality. All language is instruction, and knowledge is to know which instructions (that is, theory) are predictive of a result, state, or situation in language-independent reality. Any theory that doesn’t reduce outcome space, or contains one or more empirically/physically impossible instructions, or produces wrong predictions, or falls short of demonstration is not knowledge. (shrink)

Despite decades of development, Actor-Network Theory continues to be characterized by a good deal of ambiguities and internal tensions. This situation has led to a suggestion that instead of one ANT it may be meaningful to speak of ‘the ANT multiple’. Following this line of reasoning, this article aims to create a map of the variety of positions riding under the ANT banner. Based on an in-depth reading of ANT literature, seven different interpretations of ANT are identified and subjected to (...) critical analysis while accommodating for the concerns of ANT proponents about the way ANT has been previously criticized. The results of the analysis serve to increase the reflexivity of both sides of the debate about their underlying assumptions, and provide suggestions how ANT could be employed, developed and criticized more productively in the future. (shrink)

Despite decades of development, Actor-Network Theory continues to be characterized by a good deal of ambiguities and internal tensions. This situation has led to a suggestion that instead of one ANT it may be meaningful to speak of ‘the ANT multiple’. Following this line of reasoning, this article aims to create a map of the variety of positions riding under the ANT banner. Based on an in-depth reading of ANT literature, seven different interpretations of ANT are identified and subjected to (...) critical analysis; it also accommodates for the concerns of ANT proponents about the way ANT has been previously criticized. The results of the analysis serve to increase the reflexivity of both sides of the debate about their underlying assumptions, and provide suggestions how ANT could be employed, developed and criticized more productively in the future. (shrink)

New materialist applications in ‘dirty work’ studies have rightly emphasised the importance of materiality alongside symbolism. However, these approaches have neglected important themes irreducible to the material world, such as temporality, reflexivity and social structure. This article develops an alternative critical realist perspective on socio-materiality in dirty work which emphasises these themes. It draws on 2016-2017 ethnographic data on the work of clinical photographers of wounds in a UK specialist outpatient wound healing clinic. First, it shows how photographers’ reflexivity mediates (...) the relationship between their embodied materiality and their agency in the physical domain. Second, it highlights the temporal dynamics between reflexive agents, their material environment, and the context of their operation. Finally, it emphasises the non-conflationary relationship between the social structures of the medical hierarchy and photographers’ agency in dirty work. Together, these contributions highlight the utility of an emergent, realist ontology in understanding the dynamics of dirty work. (shrink)