The methodological dilemmas of an actor-network approach to historical heterogeneities

Visit the Realities website (link below) for a recording (audio plus images) of this presentation, given at Methods in Dialogue: Researching Nature.

Most social science methods still rely for their rationale upon a sharp distinction between nature and society. Actor-network theory radically problematizes this distinction, suggesting that modern knowledge-practices actually inscribe this dichotomy upon the heterogeneous and hybrid phenomena which they seek to render knowable. Yet ANT has no specific methodological approach of its own, despite a close but by no means unproblematic relationship with ethnography. In this presentation I explore the dilemmas and opportunities which this presents, with reference to my own historical research on the socio-materiality of dairy milk in the UK.