Choosing a good controversy: questions and avoidances

“Although every collective phenomenon can be observed as a controversy, not every controversy makes a good object of study. Unfortunately, there are no exact instructions on how to choose a good controversy—all that we can provide are some recommendations to avoid bad ones: 

Questions for Finding Good Controversies: Where is the largest and most diverse assortment of actors involved? Where do alliances and oppositions transform recklessly? Where is nothing as simple as it seems? Where is everyone shouting and quarreling? Where do conflicts grow harshest?

Avoid cold controversies – Controversies are best observed when they reached the peak of their overheating. If there is no debate or the debate is lethargic, if all actors agree on the main questions and are willing to negotiate on the minor, then there is no authentic controversy and the resulting cartography will be either boring or partial. Good controversies are always hot: they may involve a limited number of actors, but there must be some action going on.

Avoid past controversies – Issues should be studied when they are both salient and unresolved once an agreement has been reached, a solution has been imposed with a discussion has been closed in some other way, controversies lose rapidly all their interest. Past issues can be investigated only if observation can be moved back to the moment when the controversy was being played out.

Avoid boundless controversies – Controversies are complex and, if they are lively and open, they tend to become more and more complex as they mobilize new actors and issues. When selecting your study case, be realistic and resource-aware. Mapping huge debates, such as global warming or genetically modified organisms, requires these amounts of time and work. As a general rule, the more a controversy is restricted to a specific subject matter, the easier will be its analysis.

Avoid underground controversies – for a controversy to be observable, it has to be, partially at least, open to public debates. Confidential or classified issues as well as sectarian or Masonic groups expose social cartography to the risk of drifting towards conspiracy theories. The problem is not that few actors are involved in these controversies, but that these actors have a secretive attitude. The cartography of controversies was developed to map public space and it performs poorly when applied to underground topics.

SOURCE:  Diving in Magma, Tommaso Venturini