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research overview |
<h5>General Approach</h5><p>I'm interdisciplinary in inclination. Part sociologist
and part from STS (science, technology and society), I've worked with sociologists,
philosophers, engineers, medical practitioners, geographers and students of STS. The
world is interdisciplinary, and it demands an interdisciplinary approach of the kind
being developed in CRESC.</p><p>I assume that the world is materially heterogeneous,
a mix of the social, economic, material, human,'natural', and technical. We
need rigorous ways of thinking and studying these heterogeneous processes. That's
why I've worked with actor-network theory and its successor'material-semiotic'
projects. ANT isn't the only way of thinking about heterogeneity. Different approaches
are needed, and this is another CRESC strength. But, suitably modulated, material-semiotics
is a useful toolkit (certainly not a theory!) for catching some of the important processes
of social life.</p><p>I take it that the world is discursively heterogeneous. I'm
fascinated and horrified by the exclusions of the social. Systems both depend on and
Other the people, collectivities and realities that fail to fit. If there's an
enemy here in addition to injustice then it is hubris. This means that in my research
I go looking for gaps, aporias, and subaltern realities. Parts of my work draw on
postcolonial sensibilities to imagine alternative knowledge spaces.</p><p>Finally,
I'm concerned with the performativity of method. In different ways CRESC members
are exploring the character of research methods in domains ranging from financialisation,
to the digital modelling of cities, and the remaking of social science methods. There's
a performative argument here. This is that methods tend to produce– though often
in unanticipated and contradictory ways– the worlds they claim to be describing.
This is why I'm so excited about the CRESC'social life of method' SLOM
theme. This is a space for debating methods and the social in a wide-ranging interdisciplinary
forum. I'm hoping that STS work will add to this conversation.</p><h5>Collaborations</h5><p>I'm
lucky enough to work closely with colleagues in a range of disciplines and locations
and I'm starting to work with new OU and CRESC colleagues. People I've worked
with in the recent past include: Michel Callon (Paris CSI), Marianne Lien (Oslo),
Wen-yuan Lin (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Annemarie Mol (Amsterdam), Ingunn Moser (Oslo), Vicky
Singleton (Lancaster), John Urry (Lancaster), and Helen Verran (Melbourne).</p><h5><strong>Current
Research Projects</strong></h5><p><strong>Non-coherent methods</strong>: If the world
is non-coherent, then what are the methods we need to know it, to enact it, and to
live well in it? This is my core question in a continuing series of substantive projects.</p><p><strong>People,
technologies and animals</strong>: With anthropologists Marianne Lien and Gro Ween
(University of Oslo) I'm working ethnographically on salmon farming on a project
called'Newcomers to the Farm'. How do animals and people interact? How are
those interactions mediated by technologies? How are human beings and animals being
remade? These are our core questions.</p><p><strong>Biosecurity, agriculture and disaster</strong>:
I continue to work on foot and mouth disease, and the UK response to the disease outbreak
of 2001. What are the vulnerabilities of agricultural systems? And how can and such
complex and (in the end) ramshackle systems be understood and controlled? These are
my key questions.</p><p><strong>Alternative knowledge spaces</strong>: This is work
with Wen-yuan Lin (Tsing-hua University, Taiwan). What are the alternatives to systems
of hegemonic knowledge? And how can we detect the Othering that goes with hegemony?
These are our central questions.</p><h5>Non-coherent method</h5><p>John Law (forthcoming,
2010),'Collateral Realities', Fernando Domínguez Rubio and Patrick
Baert (eds), The Politics of Knowledge, London, Routledge.</p><p>John Law (2009),'Assembling
the World by Survey: Performativity and Politics',<em>Cultural Sociology</em>,
3, 2, 239-256.</p><p>John Law (2007),'Making a Mess with Method', in William
Outhwaite and Stephen P. Turner (eds),<em>The Sage Handbook of Social Science Methodology</em>,
Sage: Beverly Hills and London, pp 595-606.</p><p>John Law, (2007)'Pinboards and
Books: Learning, Materiality and Juxtaposition', in David Kritt and Lucien T.
Winegar (eds.) Education and Technology: Critical Perspectives, Possible Futures,
Lanham: Maryland, pp 125-150.</p><p>John Law (2004),'And if the Global Were Small
and Non-Coherent? Method, Complexity and the Baroque',<em>Society and Space</em>,
22, 13-26.</p><h5>People, technologies and animals</h5><p>Marianne Lien and John Law
(forthcoming 2010),'Emergent Aliens': On Salmon, Nature and Their Enactment',
Ethnos.</p><p>Law, John and Mol, Annemarie (forthcoming 2010),'Veterinary realities:
what is foot and mouth disease?' Sociologia Ruralis.</p><p>John Law (forthcoming,
2010),'Care and Killing: Tensions in Veterinary Practice', in Annemarie Mol,
Ingunn Moser and Jeannette Pols (eds), Care in Practice: on Tinkering in Clinics,
Homes and Farms, Transcript, Bielefeld, pp. 57-69.</p><p>John Law& Vicky Singleton
(2009),'A Further Species of Trouble?', Martin Doering& Brigitte Nerlich
(eds), From Mayhem to Meaning: The Cultural Meaning of the 2001 Outbreak of Foot and
Mouth Disease in the UK, Manchester, pp. 229-242.</p><p>John Law and Annemarie Mol
(2008),'The Actor-Enacted: Cumbrian Sheep in 2001' Lambros Malafouris&
Carl Knappett, Material Agency: Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Approach, Springer,
pp. 55-77.</p><p>Law, John (2008),'Practising Nature and Culture: an Essay for
Ted Benton', in Sandra Moog and Rob Shields (eds), Nature, Social Relations and
Human Needs: Essays in Honour of Ted Benton, London: Palgrave, pp 65-82.</p><h5>Biosecurity,
Agriculture and Disaster</h5><p>John Law and Annemarie Mol (2008),'Globalisation
in Practice: On the Politics of Boiling Pigswill',<em>Geoforum</em>, 39: (1),
133-143.</p><p>John Law (2008),'Culling, Catastrophe and Collectivity',<em>Distinktion</em>,
16, 61-76.</p><p>John Law (2006),'Disaster in Agriculture, or Foot and Mouth Mobilities',<em>Environment
and Planning</em>A, 38, 227-239.</p><p>Andrew Smith, Catherine Wild and John Law (2005),'The
Barrow-in-Furness legionnaires' outbreak: qualitative study of the hospital response
and the role of the major incident plan',<em>Emergency Medicine Journal</em>,
22 (2005), 251-255.</p><h5>Alternative knowledge spaces</h5><p>John Law and Wen-yuan
Lin (submitted),'Cultivating Disconcertment'.</p><h5>Other publications</h5><p>John
Law, (in press, 2010),'The Materials of STS', Dan Hicks& Mary Beaudry
(eds), The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, OUP, pp. 171-186.</p><p>John
Law (2008),'On STS and Sociology',<em>The Sociological Review</em>, 56, 4,
623-649.</p><p>John Law (2008),'Actor-Network Theory and Material Semiotics',
in Bryan S. Turner,<em>The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory 3rd Edition</em>,
Blackwell, pp. 141-158.</p><p>Michel Callon and John Law (2005),'On Qualculation,
Agency and Otherness',<em>Society and Space</em>, 23, 717-733.</p><p>John Law
and John Urry (2004),'Enacting the Social',<em>Economy and Society</em>, 33,
3, 390-410.</p><p>Annemarie Mol and John Law (2004),'Embodied Action, Enacted
Bodies. The Example of Hypoglycaemia',<em>The Body and Society</em>, 10, 2-3,
43-62.</p><p>A repository of research publications and other research outputs can
be viewed at The Open University's<a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/" title="Open
Research Online">Open Research Online</a>.</p> |