Imitación, oposición e innovación de las formas sociales: Finitud e infinitud en Las Leyes Sociales de Gabriel Tarde

En este texto presento una selección de fragmentos del libro "Las leyes sociales" de Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904), publicado originalmente en 1898, y traducido en castellano a principios del siglo XX. Después de un largo olvido Tarde ha sido revigorizado para el panteón de las ciencias sociales, llegando a ser convertido en un autor muy relevante para la teoría del actor-red (incluso siendo mencionado por Bruno Latour como su antepasado). Pero creo discusiones más interesantes que las de una nueva mítica de las figuras ancestrales. En esta introducción abogo más bien por una aproximación directa a la propia obra de Tarde, lo que nos permitiría ir más allá de cualquier uso presentista de una figura histórica para apuntalar una teoría precocinada para el consumo de masas. Es por esto que propongo nos centremos críticamente en los propios argumentos de Tarde, que describe "las leyes" de la vida social, hecha de formas potencialmente infinitesimales que se repiten y se diferencian (a lo que él se refiere como procesos de imitación, oposición e innovación). Y mencionaré a tal efecto algunas consideraciones críticas contemporáneas que ha recibido esta formulación en términos de leyes o su tratamiento sobre la escala de lo social, haciendo especial hincapié en la relación que establece entre la finitud y la infinitud de las formas socialesIn this text I present a selection of fragments of the book 'The social laws' by Gabriel Tarde (1843- 1904), published originally in 1898 and translated into Spanish at the beginning of the 20th century. After a long time condemned to oblivion Gabriel Tarde has been reinvigorated in recent decades for the pantheon of social sciences, even reaching the point of becoming a very relevant author for Actor-Network Theory (no less than Bruno Latour has turned him into 'ANT's ancestor'). However, I believe that the recuperation of Tarde's works could lead us to far more interesting discussions than a new mythic of ancestral figures. In this introduction I press for a more direct approach to Tarde's writings, something which might allow us to go beyond any presentist use of a historical figure to prop up a ready-made theory for mass-consumption. For this reason, I would like to propose to focus on Tarde's very own descriptions of the 'laws' of social life, made out of -potentially infinitesimal- social forms which repeat and differentiate -something he refers as the processes of imitation, opposition and innovation-. In that vein, I would like to mention some contemporary critical appraisals of those formulations in terms of 'laws' or Tarde's treatments of the scale of the social -where special attention is put on the relation he establishe

Pensar infraestructuralmente

Ensayo celebratorio de la publicación del libro de Mongili, A. y Pellegrino, G., eds., 2014. Information Infrastructure(s): Boundaries, Ecologies, Multiplicity. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars

DIY anthropology: Disciplinary knowledge in crisis

This is an account of the transformations in our anthropological practice derived from working in the many interstitial spaces that opened up in the wake of the recent Spanish economic crisis. Ambulating in void spaces of Madrid and Barcelona, our anthropological practice was there re-built in ways that blurred our disciplinary boundaries. What there emerged was anthropology not as a disciplinary field, but as a field of experimental collaborations. A practice that re-learnt its ways treating counterparts as true epistemic partners, and setting up distinct ambiances of care with them: not only to care for one another in situations of great difficulty, but mostly to care for our different forms of inquiry, addressing the very situations we were under. An anthropology done together with others, assembling from scratch a conceptual body, caring for the mundane issues that are very often forgotten and rendered invisible by disciplinary fields: A DIY anthropology?Questo è un resoconto delle trasformazioni nella nostra pratica antropologica derivate dal lavoro nei tanti spazi interstiziali che si sono aperti sulla scia della recente crisi economica spagnola. Deambulando negli spazi vuoti di Madrid e Barcellona, la nostra pratica antropologica è stata ricostruita in modi che ne hanno sfumato i confini disciplinari. L’antropologia non è emersa come campo disciplinare, ma come campo di collaborazioni sperimentali. Una pratica che ha ri-appreso il suo modo di trattare le controparti come veri partner epistemici, e di costituire con loro ambienti di cura distinti: non solo per prendersi cura l’uno dell’altro in situazioni di grande difficoltà, ma soprattutto per interessarsi alle nostre diverse forme di indagine, affrontando le specifiche situazioni in cui ci trovavamo. Una antropologia fatta insieme ad altri, assemblando da zero un corpo concettuale, prestando attenzione alle questioni mondane che molto spesso sono dimenticate e rese invisibili dai campi disciplinari: Un’antropologia fai da te

Functional Diversity as a Politics of Design?

This article is an inquiry into the activism around ‘functional diversity’ after the public square occupations of the Spanish 15-M movement; and, more specifically, how, in them, ‘functional diversity’ developed into a repertoire for the politicisation of design (notably, the market of technical aids and accessible environments created according to the social model of disability). To underpin the particular reading of the politics of design —in the sense developed by political philosopher Jacques Rancière— that appears there, I will describe a small collaborative project put together by the Barcelona-based open design collective En torno a la silla

For a Speculative Aesthetics of Description: Interview with Alex Wilkie

Alex Wilkie is Director of Research in the Department of Design at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he is also Director of the Mphil/PhD program in Design Studies and co-director of the Centre for Invention and Social Process. Wilkie has combined design and science and technology studies (STS) since the late ’90s, exploring inventive methods and research through design. He co-edited with M. Savransky and M. Rosengarten Speculative Research: The Lure of Possible Futures (Routledge, 2017) and with I. Farías Studio Studies: Operations, Topologies & Displacements (Routledge, 2016). In this interview he speaks about his relation to STS and his understanding of pedagogy, theory, politics of design, and speculative methods

Re-learning Design: Pedagogical Experiments with STS in Design Studio Courses

In the last decades, design disciplines have been encountering the social sciences and humanities in inventive modes. These new collaborations entail partial redefinitions of the disciplines involved therein. On the one hand, contemporary strands of social and cultural theory – especially in the field of science and technology studies (STS), but also in anthropology – have made design much more than a mere research object. On the other hand, design disciplines have incorporated not only social research methods and ethnography, but also the type of conceptual work characteristic of social and cultural theory. This has led to a series of redefinitions of current design practices beyond the ‘problem-solving’ of user-centered design, design thinking or co-design approaches. In contrast to these current trends, some designers are increasingly describing their tasks as forms of ‘problem-making’

Co-laborations, Entrapments, Intraventions: Pedagogical Approaches to Technical Democracy in Architectural Design

A review of a series of pedagogical experiments in our work as science and technology studies (STS) scholars in a Department of Architecture is presented. Our exploration had a central conceptual concern: exploring the meaning and prospects of one of STS’s central aspirations, ‘technical democracy’, for the education of the future design professionals. Hence, after briefly summarizing the conceptual history of the term, we will then pay specific attention to a series of studio design projects at an MA level. We show our transition from an initially ‘predicative’ pedagogical mode – where the main works on technical democracy were read and explained, hoping this to have an impact on our students’ architectural practice – to a series of more ‘experiential’ ones, where the challenge of technical democracy was repurposed in three ways: as (1) co-laboration, (2) entrapment, and (3) intravention

The Critical Experience of Making: Interview with Matt Ratto. Interviewers: I. Farías & T. Sánchez Criado

Matt Ratto is Director of the Critical Making Lab in the Faculty of In­formation at the University of Toronto. Ratto coined the term “critical making” to describe hands-on activities to explore the relationship between technology and society. In this interview, the author of DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media (MIT Press, 2014) speaks about the need to develop situations in order to experiment critically with matter, in order to develop newer understandings of the politics of technology

For a Speculative Aesthetics of Description: Interview with Alex Wilkie. Interviewers: I. Farías, & T. Sánchez Criado

Alex Wilkie is Director of Research in the Department of Design at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he is also Director of the Mphil/PhD program in Design Studies and co-director of the Centre for Invention and Social Process. Wilkie has combined design and science and technology studies (STS) since the late ’90s, exploring inventive methods and research through design. He co-edited with M. Savransky and M. Rosengarten Speculative Research: The Lure of Possible Futures (Routledge, 2017) and with I. Farías Studio Studies: Operations, Topologies & Displacements (Routledge, 2016). In this interview he speaks about his relation to STS and his understanding of pedagogy, theory, politics of design, and speculative methods