Great expectations:méthodes quali-quantitative et analyse des réseaux sociaux

Depuis quelques années, les sciences sociales se retrouvent dans une situation tout à fait nouvelle. Relativement jeunes et encore précairement établies, ces sciences étaient loin de se doter des énormes machines à données des sciences naturelles. Contrairement aux physiciens jonglant avec des milliards de particules dans leurs accélérateurs ou aux biologistes cultivant des millions de microbes sous leurs microscopes, les sociologues ne pouvaient suivre que quelques centaines d’êtres humains et étaient condamnés à deviner la forme des phénomènes collectifs par ces aperçus partiels (...)

Building on faults:how to represent controversies with digital methods

In a previous article appeared in this journal, I introduced Bruno Latour’s cartography of controversies and I discussed half of it, namely how to observe techno-scientific controversies. In this article I will concentrate on the remaining half: how to represent the complexity of social debates in a legible form. In my previous paper, we learnt how to explore the richness of collective existence through Actor-Network Theory. In this one, I will discuss how to render such complexity through an original visualization device: the controversy-website. Capitalizing on the potential of digital technologies, the controversy-website has been developed as a multilayered toolkit to trace and aggregate information on public debates

Diving in magma:how to explore controversies with actor-network theory

The cartography of controversies is a set of techniques to explore and visualize issues. It was developed by Bruno Latour as a didactic version of Actor-Network Theory to train college students in the investigation of contemporary socio-technical debate. The scope and interest of such cartography, however, exceed its didactic origin. Adopted and developed in several universities in Europe and the US, the cartography of controversies is today a full research method, though, unfortunately, not a much documented one. To fill this lack of documentation, we draw on our experience as Latour’s teaching assistant, to introduce some of the main techniques of the social cartographer toolkit. In particular, in these pages we will focus on exploration, leaving the discussion of visualization tools to a further paper

Once Upon a Text: an ANT Tale in Text Analysis

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Intangible cultural heritage webs: Comparing national networks with digital methods

The 2003 Unesco Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is addressed to States and assigns them several tasks. No State, however, can accomplish all these tasks without mobilizing a wide network of institutions, associations and individuals. The national ICH policies intersect, overlap and often transform the existing relationships among these actors. This paper aims at comparing several national networks (France, Italy, Switzerland) involved in the implementation of the 2003 Unesco Convention in order to highlight national trends and specificities. The analysis will employ an innovative methodology based on digital methods and aimed at exploring the landscapes of websites dedicated to the intangible heritage. Analyzing the hyperlinking strategies of ICH actors, we will identify the specific web topology of each nation, showing which actors are central and peripheral, whether clusters or cliques are formed and who plays the roles of authority and hub

Visual Network Analysis: the Example of the Rio+20 Online Debate

In the last few years, a spirit has been haunting our academic and popular culture — the spirit of networks. Throughout social as well as natural sciences, more and more phenomena have come to be conceived as networks. Telecommunication networks, neural networks, social networks, epigenetic networks, ecological and economic networks , the very fabric of our existence seems to be made of lines and dots. More recently, the interest for graphs overflowed from science to popular culture and images of networks started to appear everywhere. They decorate buildings and objects; they are printed on t-shirts and furniture; they colonize the desktop of our computers and the walls of our airports. Networks have become the emblem of modernity, a way to show and tell our world’s complexity. Our growing fascination for networks is not unjustified. Networks are powerful conceptual tools, encapsulating in a single object multiple affordances for computation (networks as graphs), visualization (networks as maps) and manipulation of data (networks as interfaces)

Piccola introduzione alla cartografia delle controversie Introducing the cartography of controversies

International audienceThe cartography of controversies is a collection of techniques to observe and describe social issues developed by Bruno Latour as an applied version of Actor-Network Theory. Originally, it was used to guide college students in the exploration of scientific and technological debates. The scope and interest of such cartography, however, exceed its didactic origin. Adopted in several universities and developed by a number of international projects, the cartography of controversies is today a full research methodology. In this article, we draw on our experience as Latour's teaching assistant, to introduce some of the main ideas and techniques of the cartography of controversies. The purpose of this article is tracing the intellectual genealogy of this methodology, sketching its present articulation (in particular by comparing it with ethnographic methods) and to envisioning its future developments.La cartografia delle controversie nell'opera di Bruno Latour A uno sguardo superficiale, l'opera di Bruno Latour sembra seguire una traiettoria che va dall'osservazione più minuziosa e diretta delle pratiche sociali fino a una riflessione più teorica e astratta sullo spirito della modernità in una specie di metamorfosi dall'etnografia verso filosofia sociale. Per smentire quest'interpretazione basterebbe, in effetti, considerare con attenzione la bibliografia del pensatore francese. Se è vero che Latour ha cominciato la sua carriera con un lavoro strettamente etnografico sulle routine scientifiche (Laboratory Life, 1979) e che alcune delle sue ultime opere hanno un taglio decisamente più speculativo (Politics of Nature, 1999a, Reassembling the Social, 2005), è altrettanto vero che già nel 1984 egli pubblica una serie di riflessioni squisitamente teoriche (Irréductions) e che nel 2002 riprende i metodi etnografici applicandoli al Consiglio di Stato francese (La Fabrique du droit). Più ancora della cronologia delle pubblicazioni, è il senso stesso dell'opera latouriana a mettere in discussione la distinzione tra 'osservazione' e 'riflessione'. Tutte le opere di Latour nascono dall'idea che le grandi domande della filosofia occidentale trovino risposta che nell'osservazione delle pratiche sociali: così Latour esplora il lavoro dei laboratori di ricerc

Data Sprints: A Collaborative Format in Digital Controversy Mapping

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