Inward, Outward, Onward: Autoethnography of a Dissertation in (Qualitative) Transitional Space

This article presents the connection of a personal dissertation process to the wider world of qualitative research. Using the concept of transitional space as a metaphor, the author chronicles her theoretical transition from critical race theory to poststructural theory to emerging questions about material feminism. This transition is mapped to three major qualitative research moments within the field: modernist, crisis of representation, and the future. Autoethnography and found text are used to present the micro and macro telling of the dissertation process. White racial identity development among Christian teacher educators at a religious university was the original dissertation focus. Ethical dilemmas emerged during the data collection process, presenting the researcher with a theoretical crisis that needed to be addressed

Review Essay: Adventures in Financeland

An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets by Donald MacKenzie. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2006, ISBN 0262134608. Pages: 377. 25.95 (hbk) Out of the Pits: Traders and Technology from Chicago to London by Caitlin Zaloom. Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN 0226978133. Pages: 224. 18.50 (hbk) Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics by Donald MacKenzie, Fabian Muniesa and Lucia Siu. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2007. ISBN 0691130163. Pages: 373. 35.00 (hbk

Combining Luhmann and Actor-Network Theory to see Farm Enterprises as Self-organizing Systems

From a rural, sociological point of view no social theories have so far been able to grasp the ontological complexity and special character of a farm enterprise as an entity in a really satisfying way. The contention of this paper is that a combination of Luhmann’s theory of social systems and actor-network theory (ANT) of Latour, Callon, and Law offers a new and radical framework for understanding a farm as a self-organizing, heterogeneous system. Luhmann’s theory offers an approach to understand a farm as a self-organizing system (operating in meaning) that must produce and reproduce itself through demarcation from the surrounding world by selection of meaning. The meaning of the system is expressed through the goals, values, and the logic of the farming processes. His theory, however, is less useful when studying the heterogeneous character of a farm as a mixture of biology, sociology, technology, and economy. ANT offers an approach to focus on the heterogeneous network of interactions of human and non-human actors such as knowledge, technology, money, farmland, animals, plants, etc., and as to how these interactions depend on both the quality of the actors and the network context of interaction, but the theory is weak when it comes to explaining the self-organizing character of a farm enterprise

Combining Luhmann and Actor-Network Theory to see Farm Enterprises as Self-organizing Systems

From a rural, sociological point of view no social theories have so far been able to grasp the ontological complexity and special character of a farm enterprise as an entity in a really satisfying way. The contention of this paper is that a combination of Luhmann’s theory of social systems and the actor-network theory (ANT) of Latour, Callon, and Law offers a new and radical framework for understanding a farm as a self-organizing, heterogeneous system. Luhmann’s theory offers an approach to understand a farm as a self-organizing system (operating in meaning) that must produce and reproduce itself through demarcation from the surrounding world by selection of meaning. The meaning of the system is expressed through the goals, values, and logic of the farming processes. This theory is, however, less useful when studying the heterogeneous character of a farm as a mixture of biology, sociology, technology, and economy. ANT offers an approach to focus on the heterogeneous network of interactions of human and non-human actors, such as knowledge, technology, money, farmland, animals, plants, etc., and how these interactions depend on both the quality of the actors and the network context of interaction. But the theory is weak when it comes to explaining the self-organizing character of a farm enterprise. Using Peirce’s general semiotics as a platform, the two theories in combination open a new and radical framework for multidisciplinary studies of farm enterprises that may serve as a platform for communication between the different disciplines and approaches

THE SEMANTIC WEB AND TURNS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

This research is a theoretical investigation of the semantic Web in light of the turns of social science. Social science has experienced several turns to have better understandings of social realities. If it is consistent with the turns, then the semantic Web is expected to have better representation of social realities than the conventional information systems. There are two major languages in the semantic Web: RDF and OWL. It is revealed that describing concepts by RDF conforms to the idea of phenomenology. Since RDF and OWL are based on the open-world assumption, the semantic Web is considered to be consistent with the linguistic turn. With the high consistency with social science, the semantic Web can be a good candidate of IS research topics. IS research is expected to contribute to the development of the semantic web, and the development of methodology in particula

Digital archives, cultural identity and diversity, meaning economy.: Some general ideas.

International audienceIn this short speech, I develop some general ideas concerning possible evolutions of digital archives in relation, on the one hand, to cultural identity and diversity and, on the other hand, to what sometimes is called a "meaning economy"

Inhabiting - landscapes and natures

About the book: The Handbook of Cultural Geography presents a state of the art assessment of the key questions informing cultural geography. Emphasizing the intellectual diversity of the discipline, the Handbook presents a comprehensive statement of the relationship between the cultural imagination and the geographical imagination while also looking at resonances between cultural geography and other disciplines. The work is cross-referenced throughout and presents a completely integrated overview of cultural geography. This will be an essential reference for any inquiry into how culture is spatially constituted and, equally, how geography is culturally constructed

Humanities: State and prospects

Humanities: State and prospect