Full Description
Across intellectual disciplines, the ontological turn is restructuring how we think about our relationships with the natural world. Influenced by the seemingly disparate realms of indigenous philosophy and quantum physics, the turn invites us to think about intra-actions and assemblages of human and nonhuman entities.
This raises epistemological questions about how we know about the world, and spotlights some of the problems with how we currently do conventional social science research. Diffractive Ethnography invites social scientists to consider alternate methodologies that account for the complexity of human behavior situated in larger environmental contexts.
For both novice and experienced researchers, this thought-provoking book opens new ways of thinking about methodology and raises questions about the ethical and justice orientations of our work.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: Engaging the Ontological Turn
Chapter 1. A Turn from What?
Chapter 2. An Overview of Vibrant Materialism
Chapter 3. Paradigm Changes
Part II: Methodological Contradictions in Social Science Inquiry
Chapter 4. Objectivity in Research
Chapter 5. Instruments of Measurement
Chapter 6. Beyond Cause and Effect
Chapter 7. Zombie Categories
Chapter 8. Data
Chapter 9. The Crisis of Representation
Chapter 10. Reflexivity and Its Discontents
Part III: Diffractive Ethnography
Chapter 11. A Brief Overview of Ethnography
Chapter 12. Thinking with Theory
Chapter 13. Assemblages and Entanglements
Chapter 14. Diffraction
Chapter 15. The Liveliness of Matter
Part IV: Becoming
Chapter 16. Healing the Nature/Culture Divide
Chapter 17. The Ethics of Entanglements
References
Index
