Tuesday, February 10

3 – 4:30pm

LHTS 340 – Gay Becker Conference Room

ON THE (RE)TURN TO THE SOCIAL IN SOCIAL THEORY AND QUALITATIVE METHODS:

Focus on Theoretical Roots of Situational Analysis

Professor Emerita Adele Clarke

What I call the (re)turn toward or reconfiguration of the social in social theory since c1970 largely takes aspects of poststructuralisms into account. It has coalesced around a number of metaphoric and often overlapping and/or hybrid approaches to the social. Significantly, these approaches have been taken up vis-à-vis an array of qualitative methods, expanding the traditional focus from subjects who speak to more collective and relational forms of analysis. Many emerged from and/or are lively in science and technology studies. These include (in the order of their chronological emergence):

• Pragmatist Interactionist social worlds/arenas theory (1970s)

• Bourdieusian practice and field theories (1970s)

• Foucauldian discourse theory and the dispositif or apparatus

• Actor-network theory (ANT) (1980s)

• Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage theory and rhizomic analysis (1980s/90s)

• Situational analysis (2000s)

The session will frame the (re)turn toward the social and focus on theoretical roots of situational analysis.

Optional reading list and pdfs will be circulated closer to the date.

Followed by a wine and cheese reception.