A01=John Law
Aboriginal Cosmology
absence
alcoholic
Alcoholic Liver Disease
Ankle Arm Index
assemblage
Author_John Law
Castle Street
Category=JHBC
Cervical Screening Programme
disease
epistemic multiplicity
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
fluid realities
Follow
Gravity Waves
Inscription Devices
Intermittent Claudication
laboratory
Ladbroke Grove
limb
liver
London Yearly Meeting
lower
Lower Limb Atheroscleroses
manifest
Manifest Absence
Method Assemblage
ontological politics
Partial Connection
politics of scientific methods
qualitative inquiry
research reflexivity
salk
Salk Laboratory
Smooth
social research methodology
Social Science Research
STS
Train Collisions
Trf
UK Rail Network
Vicky Singleton
Wo
Product details
- ISBN 9780415341752
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 12 Aug 2004
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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John Law argues that methods don't just describe social realities but are also involved in creating them. The implications of this argument are highly significant. If this is the case, methods are always political, and it raises the question of what kinds of social realities we want to create.
Most current methods look for clarity and precision. It is usually said that only poor research produces messy findings, and the idea that things in the world might be fluid, elusive, or multiple is unthinkable. Law's startling argument is that this is wrong and it is time for a new approach. Many realities, he says, are vague and ephemeral. If methods want to know and help to shape the world, then they need to reinvent themselves and their politics to deal with mess. That is the challenge. Nothing less will do.
John Law is Professor of Sociology and STS (Science and Technology Studies) at Lancaster University. He has written widely on the sociology of science and technology, organisation, health-care, disasters, and social theory and methods, where his continuing concern has been with the materiality and spatiality of complexity.
