Latour's empirical metaphysics

Hämäläinen, Nora; Lehtonen, Turo‐Kimmo

doi:10.1080/1600910x.2016.1154883

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Nor is this the only criticism that will need at some point to be addressed. For Hämäläinen and Lehtonen (2016), the modes of existence are characterised by a 'mind-boggling' heterogeneity. For Edward (2016), they take account of history but not geography.…”

Section: Points Of Departure: What Might We Ask Aime To Do?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher education, theory, and modes of existence: thinking about universities with Latour

Tummons

2020

Higher Education Research & Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article, I pick up established critical explorations of the role and use of theory in higher education research, focussing on the theoretical affordances of the work of Bruno Latour, one of the architects of actornetwork theory. Actor-network theory is increasingly widely used within education research, although Latour has moved away from it and has now folded it within a larger project: An Inquiry into Modes of Existence -AIME. Framed as an empirical inquiry into the ontological and epistemological conditions of modernity, Latour argues for a radical shift in how 'truth' or 'meaning' is established within the world. In this article I draw on AIME to illustrate how Latour's multi-realist ontology, augmenting and responding to criticisms of actornetwork theory, can be used to explore higher education through ethnographic research, addressing the call for the generation of theoretically coherent accounts of higher education whilst at the same time addressing the necessity of encompassing a heterogeneous range of social actors in order to construct accounts of higher education practice.

show abstract

Section: Points Of Departure: What Might We Ask Aime To Do?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher education, theory, and modes of existence: thinking about universities with Latour

Tummons

2020

Higher Education Research & Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For some commentators, the shift to AIME represents nothing more than both a recognition by Latour of the shortcomings of actor-network theory and an attempt to gather the different strands of his work into one investigation (Harman, 2016), characterised by a list of fifteen modes of existence that 'complete' actor-network theory but do not pretend in themselves to be definitive but simply pragmatic, allowing the inquiry to travel where Latour wishes it to travel -back to the unravelling of Modernism (Weber, 2016). However, for other commentators, these attempts by AIME to resolve the problems of ANT have served to resolve the insufficiencies of actor-network theory only through the generation of an entirely new series of conceptual and methodological difficulties: the modes of existence are characterised by a 'mind-boggling' heterogeneity (Hämäläinen and Lehtonen, 2016), take account of history but not geography (Edward, 2016), lack a sufficient concern for method or for the reflexivity of the anthropologist who is placed by Latour at the centre of the inquiry, and through their mobilization generate "malfunctions and adverse effects…fairly regularly" (Delchambre and Marquis, 2013: 571).…”

Section: Aime: An "Expansion Module" For Ant or A Concatenation Of "Malfunctions And Adverse Effects"?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ontological Pluralism, Modes of Existence, and Actor-Network Theory: Upgrading Latour with Latour

Tummons

2020

Social Epistemology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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 ontological and epistemological conditions of modernity, Latour argues for a radical shift in how 'objectified knowledge' is established within the world. In this article I draw on AIME in order to respond to criticisms of actor-network theory that derive from broader sociological and philosophical standpoints. I argue that actor-network theory should now only be understood as an integral aspect of Latour's newer inquiry, and ought no longer to be considered in isolation but instead as being integrated within a critical as well as pragmatic reading of Latour's AIME project.

show abstract

“…And the fourth is evident in the ways in which education is distinguished by buildings, by policy discourses, by visible signifiers of participation such as uniforms or identity badges, all of which help distinguish educational structures and institutions from, for example, legal ones. From these starting points, mindful not only of the pragmatism that underscores Latour's work (Hämäläinen and Lehtonen, 2016), but also of the rich empirical work that AIME rests on, it seems appropriate to augment some earlier conclusions (Tummons, 2019) and to describe education as being a distinct, recognizable phenomenon of the world, signified by people, objects, buildings, ways of being, of talking, and of argumentation, processes, and policies. It is a subject for conversation, for political exhortation, for lampooning in fiction, and for media coverage.…”

Section: Conclusion [Ii]: Education As a Mode Of Existencementioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnographies of Higher Education and Modes of Existence: Using Latour’s Philosophical Anthropology to Construct Faithful Accounts of Higher Education Practice

Tummons¹

2019

Theory and Method in Higher Education Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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-AIME. Framed as an empirical inquiry into the ontological and epistemological conditions of modernity, Latour argues for a radical shift in how 'objective truth', 'scientific fact' and 'meaning' are established within the world. In this chapter I draw on several elements of AIME to illustrate how Latour's ontology, building on, augmenting and responding to criticisms of actor-network theory, can be used to explore higher education, focussing on one episode derived from a larger ethnography of medical education. Introduction: reflections on places where people learn In May 2018, I was walking through different wards and rooms in a training hospital in Nova Scotia, Canada, with the other members of the research team of which I am a member. Our current project, Becoming a Professional Through Distributed Learning: a Sociomaterial Ethnography, is exploring distributed medical education (DME) in Canada. As we walked through the spaces where the students practice their clinical skills with medical simulation dummies or manikins, we discussed the relationship between these practices, and the real-life experiences that they would encounter when taking up their clerkships in geriatric or emergency medicine, discussions that we returned to as we watched video recordings of the students as they fitted Foley catheters to the manikins (a catheter is a flexible tube used to drain urine from the bladder, named after Frederic Foley who originally designed them). Many of our conversations focussed on the proliferation of material artefacts that the medical students were using: artefacts that had to be learned about so that they could be correctly and safely employed, but also artefacts that in themselves carried aspects of the medical curriculum, reified in particular forms. The students had to practice fitting Foley catheters correctly as a technical or mechanical skill, but also needed to know about Foley catheters: what they are and what they do, how they have come to be in the forms that they are, how they are adapted toand therefore how the students would have to learn through their practice to adapt todifferent physiologies. Our previous research into the same curriculum provision had focussed on the ways in which the curriculum is delivered across two sites, geographically distant from one another, but linked through a rich network of technologies, staff, students, and processes (

show abstract

Latour's empirical metaphysics

Cited by 14 publications

References 14 publications

Higher education, theory, and modes of existence: thinking about universities with Latour

Higher education, theory, and modes of existence: thinking about universities with Latour

Ontological Pluralism, Modes of Existence, and Actor-Network Theory: Upgrading Latour with Latour

Ethnographies of Higher Education and Modes of Existence: Using Latour’s Philosophical Anthropology to Construct Faithful Accounts of Higher Education Practice

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About