ANT: from methodological principles to concrete strategies for managing the in-between

This PhD-course, September 20-23 2010, is hosted by Ursula Plesner & Maja Horst at the Department of Organization at CBS

Guest faculty: Anne Beaulieu, Virtual Knowledge Studio, Amsterdam, Mike Michael, Goldsmiths, University of London, Barbara Czarniawska, University of Gothenburg.

Course aims: The aim this course is to interrogate how we might devise concrete research strategies based on Actor-Network-Theory’s material semiotic approach, in particular the principles of symmetry and agnosticism. A premise underlying the concept of actor-networks is that we should not strive for the reconciliation of dualities (between, for instance, subject/object, material/symbolic, virtual/real), but completely dissolve them and follow how heterogeneous actants are interwoven in complex assemblages that both comprise and transcend such categories. Now, while ANT scholars have argued theoretically for the dissolution of dualities and offered countless empirical stories of heterogeneous networks, the ANT literature is rarely particularly articulate about what we could call middle-range methodological issues regarding, for instance, casing, delineation, etc. Hence, although theoretical discussions and empirical examples are part of this course, it will give priority to discussions about challenges arising from concrete research designs. If we consider ANT a methodology of the in-between of ‘the virtual and the real’, ‘the immaterial and the material’, ‘the social and the technical’, we might ask how we turn this type of methodological sensibility into concrete strategies.

More information about the course can be found here