1. [Range & Diversity]— (1) What topics and entities are brought into play (or are being talked about)? (2) Who is discussing them? (3) What hybrids are being formed between topics or entities? (4/2b) Who is forming (i.e., discussing) them?
Q. What is a hybrid?
A.
“Within a hybrid forum, networks of alliances ... can rise and fall according
to the emerging issues and to the arguments of the protagonists. They are
forums since they are made of debating actors and since in any moment new
actors can join. They are hybrids since the actors, the issues and the
mobilized resources are heterogeneous” – Callon and Rip (1992), “Humains,
non-humains: morale d’une coexistence”
2. [Fusions & Fissions]— (1) What
alliances and oppositions are forming and transforming? Between which actors?
Q. What are alliances and oppositions?
A. An alliance is a coalition of those on
the same side of the debate; and opposition is the relation between those on
opposite sides of the debate. E.g., polar bears, hydrogen cars, and
climatologists are allies in the global warming debate.
3. [De-simplification/Problematizations of
Simplifications] — (1) What are people saying “it’s not so simple”
about? Which simplifications are being
rejected or called into question? Which questions (and question terms) are
people problematizing (i.e., calling into question)? (2) Which new
simplifications are being proposed, accepted, or imposed?
Q. What is de-simplification?
A. Questioning or arguing about a question
or its terms. E.g., “Ask an easy question such as “is
world temperature increasing?” and actors will immediately start arguing about
what world means (some area of the world? The world average? The surface or the
atmosphere? Urban, rural or wild areas?), about what temperature means (how is
temperature measured? Which instruments are used? Which temperature scale is to
be considered?) and about what increasing means (is temperature augmenting or
fluctuating? On which time scale should variation be evaluated? Can past trends
suggest present and future evolution?).”
Q. What is simplification?
A. Offering a question to which an issue can
be reduced to.
4. [De-Grantification & Apparitions of the
Unexpected]— (1) What unexpected or taken-for-granted ideas and things are
being questioned and discussed?
E.g., “Before
the disputes on pollution and on global warming, few people considered economic
growth as something worth discussing. There might have been distinctions on how to foster economic growth, but
everyone more or less agreed on its desirability (at least in Western
countries). Today, we have hundreds of opposing definitions of what economic growth is and we are even
beginning to wonder if we shouldn’t de-grow
instead.”
5. [Stakeholders & Structures at Stake]
(1) Which worlds will be affected by this or that controversial outcome? IOW,
what is at stake? Which worlds, ways of
life, activities, etc. are at stake/does this controversy concern? (2) How will they be affected? (3) Which social orders-arrangements or
inequalities will be conserved or reversed or rearranged? How will power be
redistributed as a result of this controversy?
Q. What is a distribution of power?
A. It is the arrangement of abilities. “What
can this or that actor do?” Controversies can affect this arrangement. E.g.,
can women get abortions?; If they can, how late in pregnancy?; Can a business
seize the land of an indigenous people?; Can a business continue to sell a
poisonous product?; Can a population of people be spared being surveilled by
their own government?; Etc.
LENSES:
1. Map the web of references among
statements: (1) What other
statements or topics does this statement concern? Weave related statements into a "literature."
-- Three
connections to follow: 1) b/w semantic contents of statements (i.e.,
similar subject matter of statements in terms of meaning or topic), 2) b/w hyperlinked statements or documents, 3)
b/w cited or referenced statements
2. Map the actors & actions: (1) Does the presence or absence of this
entity make a difference in the debate? What is the difference that this entity’s presence or
absence makes? (1b) Is this difference
perceived by other actors? [If yes to
both, then this entity is an actor.]
Q. How can an analyst know if an entity is
perceived by other actors?
A. These other actors respond with speech
action (e.g., commenting) or non-speech action (e.g., protesting).
– Non-Intentional
actors: Remember, actors are not just human, they don’t require intention,
and all that is required of them is that they make a difference in the debate.
E.g., because the discussion of polar bears makes a difference to the global
warming controversy, polar bears are
actors. E.g., “Let’s go back to the GMO example: some ten years ago, no one suspected that
monarch butterflies could be actors in the biotech controversy. In 1999,
however, some scientists at Cornell University published the results of an
experiment suggesting that monarch caterpillars could be threatened by
transgenic crops (Losey et al., 1999). The news generated a wave of protests
against GM plants and several authorizations were blocked by the precautionary
principle. Suddenly, the humblest insect was turned into the representative of
biodiversity. Suddenly the presence of monarch butterflies (almost unnoticed
until then) started making a huge difference in the GMO debate—butterflies had
become actors of the controversy. This story is instructive because it invites
social cartographers to devote the greatest attention to all actors, no matter
if they are human, animals, artifacts or anything else.”
3. Map the networks: (1) Which worknets (or collective actions)
compose or produce this actor (as product)? Who or what makes this actor act?
Which other actors call or spur this actor into action? (2) Which worknets are partially composed or
produced by this actor (as component-producer)?
Who or what does this actor make act? Which other actors does this call
or spur into action?
E.g., “each
single transgenic seed is the result of the coordinated work of an extensive
network made up of scientific protocols, field trials, research investments,
technical instruments, industrial patents. At the same time, each little seed
contributes to a wider network which gathers global corporations, scientific
laboratories, non-governmental organizations, national and international legislation.”
4. Map the cosmoses: (1) What sort of stability or world does this
actor aspire to bring about? What kind
of world does this actor long for? What
is this actor’s picture of the society that they want to establish? What is this actor’s end game or goal? What is this actor’s vision of the world as
it should be? What orderly and harmonious world does this
actor work toward? What meaning does
this actor attribute to their actions, worknet relations, and statements?
E.g., “If
you set up a crusade against transgenic crops, it is probably because you long
for organic agriculture; if you fight modernization, chances are that you like
tradition; if you sabotage global systems, you are a potential partisan of
local communities. Even anarchists have pictures of the society they wish to
establish; even opportunists have utopias.”
Four “Networks”
to Follow:
1. Perspectives on/topicized/talked about work-nets: observe and follow
people’s comments about how things, statements, and actions are related;
collect talk about “what is happening” or “how does it work” (i.e., work nets)
spoken from situated and partial perspectives
...
...
2. Action nets/worknets: observe and follow how actors (i.e., accounts,
images, actions, etc.) provoke responses or actions from other actors; e.g., an
article is published and it generates a flood of responses or it generates
protests in the streets – this type of net can be completely redundant with
talked about work-nets, since in following actors accounts about an action net,
analysts come to indirectly study this action net, but redundancies between
accounts and observations (or between multiple accounts) is not a bad thing
...
...
3. Reference net/cite net: observe and follow the non-hyperlinked references or
citations made by commentators; explicit references are easy to follow, but
implicit (or vague) ones are difficult or impossible to follow
...
...
4. Link net/hyperlink net: observe and follow the hyperlinks that
commentators make
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