Method, Performativity and Politics

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Centre for Science StudiesLancaster University
Method, Performativityand Politics
John Law, Science Studies, Lancaster
All work is collaborative, so thanks to Adrian
Evans, Mara Miele (Cardiff) Endre Danyi, Vicky
Singleton (Lancaster) Nick Bingham, Steve
Hinchliffe (Open University) Kristin Asdal,
Marianne Lien, Ingunn Moser (Oslo) Emma Roe
(Southampton) Annemarie Mol (Twente)
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Introduction two views of knowledge

• Discovery? or
• Performativity!
• Not idealist
• Not (social constructivist)

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How do Knowledge Practices Work?

• Standard view knowledge
• Corresponds to reality
• Tool for handling reality (pragmatism)
• Non-standard view performativity Knowledge
  practices generate/enact
• Workable knowledge and
• Realities to match

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Real and Unreal Napoleons

• How?
• Making solid realitiesis
• Difficult!
• Has to be done inmanylocations/practices

http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11
/Napoleon_Bonaparte.jpg
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Summaryknowledge practices

• Enact truth claims
• Enact realities
• Do this with difficulty
• Within a hinterland of other practices

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Notes on the hinterland How much does it cost to
undo realities?

• Unsubstantiated hypotheses?
• Published papers?
• Embedded experimental techniques?

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The Consequences of Performativity 1

• We say that the laws of Newton may be found in
  Gabon and that this is quite remarkable since
  that is a long way from England. But I have seen
  Lepetit camemberts in the supermarkets of
  California. This is also quite remarkable, since
  Lisieux is a long way from Los Angeles. Either
  there are two miracles that have to be admired
  together in the same way, or there are none.
  (Bruno Latour, Irreductions, 227)

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The Consequences of Performativity 2

• Science and its truths only exist within networks
  of practice.Truth not universal.
• We can try to enact better versions of the
  realOntological politics

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The Consequences of Performativity 3Biology is
not Destiny

• Sex ? gender
• There are multiple biologies (multiple sexes)
• Which are to be preferred? A politics of the real
  (an ontological politics)

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So What do Surveys Do? An archaeology of the
Eurobarometer
http//www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/History/Arch
aeology/Techniques/Techniques-21.html
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Layer 1 the European Consumer

• Attitudes
• Opposed to Realities?
• Or just very specific?(Real but only in
  thecontext of attitudesurveys?)

?
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Layer 2 Politics in Europe

• Farm Animal welfare
• Creating European Political Project

http//www.animalactivism.org/documents/photos/med
_19672_battery-cages4.jpg
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Layer 3 Subjectivity and the Location of Politics

• Consumers
• Individual decision-makers
• Rational
• Ethical
• Under-informed
• Politics
• to be done in supermarkets at point of purchase?

The labelling of products would certainly help
the consumer to opt for a greater selectivity of
purchases in favour of animal welfare products.
. (EB 2007, 49)
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Layer 4 Europea Container filled with
Individuals

• set of individuals,
• measurable attributes,
• aggregated
• isomorphous
• homogeneous European collective space
• Representational assumptions on sample-population
  relations

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Layer 5 Collectivitya Statistical Collection
(Romanticism)

• Versions of Collectivity
• Romantic collective emergent homogeneous whole
  containing parts known (a) abstractly (b)
  explicitly, and (c) centrally
• Baroque collective inside, non-coherent,
  heterogeneous assemblage known(a)
  sensuously/specifically, (b) implicitly, and (c)
  resistant to overview

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Layer 6 the Citizen-Consumer
To make choices about purchasing animal
products it is crucial that the public has
information that enables them to determine the
welfare conditions that lie behind the products
they see on shelves. (EB 2007, 49)

• Consumers may request information but ...
• Citizens (and therefore polities) can demand it.
• Ontological politics enacting better versions
  of the real

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Layers in Eurobarometer?

• European Consumer
• European Politics
• Subjectivities and the Location of Politics
• Europe a container of individuals
• Collectivity as emergent statistical collection
  (romanticism)
• Citizen-consumer

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Performativity the implications

• Endless
• Enacted realities are non-coherent (practices are
  ramshackle)
• Reality is not destiny it is multiple
• When we describe we are also creating what do we
  think of the ontological politics of our
  reality-making machines?
• Enacting new realities is costly