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Method as intervention: Intervening in practice through quantitative and mixed methodologies

Method as intervention: Intervening in practice through quantitative and mixed methodologies
Method as intervention: Intervening in practice through quantitative and mixed methodologies
As Law and Urry ( 2004 ) reflect, methods matter. The enactment of methodology is inherently one of performance – we make (multiple) realities, we make those realities real or less real, and as such intervene in political and social worlds. This chapter reflects on how expanding the range of methods used to actualise theories of practice can be a form of interference and intervention. By using new methods to disturb the relatively unexamined way that ‘consumers’ and their resource consumption is represented in policy worlds, research methods not only disturb what is ‘known’, but also reveal new political realities and possibilities. This process of revealing the multiplicity of ways of representing social phenomena, and then enacting different ways of knowing into a political space, is what is referred to as ontological politics (Mol 1999 ). In this chapter we argue that the use of quantitative and mixed methodologies that reflect practices (as performance, and as entities) disturbs the dominant way that the resource industries and related political spaces represent the consumer. However, we also argue that such a use of research methods creates an alternative politics about, and instrumentation of, processes of consumption as represented through theories of practice.
179-195
Routledge
Browne, Alison
a136380b-870a-436d-8b09-d3d830bf3d58
Medd, Will
303a4814-7dd9-4f54-b8f2-e1939138986f
Anderson, Ben
01e98bbd-b402-48b0-b83e-142341a39b2d
Pullinger, Martin
2214983c-8b79-4a98-85f9-16f2fd04ba8f
Strengers, Yolande
Maller, Cecily
Browne, Alison
a136380b-870a-436d-8b09-d3d830bf3d58
Medd, Will
303a4814-7dd9-4f54-b8f2-e1939138986f
Anderson, Ben
01e98bbd-b402-48b0-b83e-142341a39b2d
Pullinger, Martin
2214983c-8b79-4a98-85f9-16f2fd04ba8f
Strengers, Yolande
Maller, Cecily

Browne, Alison, Medd, Will, Anderson, Ben and Pullinger, Martin (2014) Method as intervention: Intervening in practice through quantitative and mixed methodologies. In, Strengers, Yolande and Maller, Cecily (eds.) Social Practices, Intervention and Sustainability: Beyond Behaviour Change. London. Routledge, pp. 179-195. (doi:10.4324/9781315816494).

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

As Law and Urry ( 2004 ) reflect, methods matter. The enactment of methodology is inherently one of performance – we make (multiple) realities, we make those realities real or less real, and as such intervene in political and social worlds. This chapter reflects on how expanding the range of methods used to actualise theories of practice can be a form of interference and intervention. By using new methods to disturb the relatively unexamined way that ‘consumers’ and their resource consumption is represented in policy worlds, research methods not only disturb what is ‘known’, but also reveal new political realities and possibilities. This process of revealing the multiplicity of ways of representing social phenomena, and then enacting different ways of knowing into a political space, is what is referred to as ontological politics (Mol 1999 ). In this chapter we argue that the use of quantitative and mixed methodologies that reflect practices (as performance, and as entities) disturbs the dominant way that the resource industries and related political spaces represent the consumer. However, we also argue that such a use of research methods creates an alternative politics about, and instrumentation of, processes of consumption as represented through theories of practice.

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More information

Published date: 13 November 2014
Additional Information: Copyright: Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 453580
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/453580
PURE UUID: aeaf93f5-78f9-4f41-9a80-4fee3cd52744
ORCID for Ben Anderson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2092-4406

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Date deposited: 20 Jan 2022 17:31
Last modified: 05 Jun 2024 19:22

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Contributors

Author: Alison Browne
Author: Will Medd
Author: Ben Anderson ORCID iD
Author: Martin Pullinger
Editor: Yolande Strengers
Editor: Cecily Maller

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