Toward a Sociology of Mediations: Impressionist Mapping and Some (Brief) Rules for a Sociological Method
This article presents an alternative way to approach social reality from a sociological perspective. It introduces a sociology of mediations, a methodological approach particularly influenced by actor-network theory. Using a notion of social reality as the articulation of heterogeneous elements, thi...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS)
2016-01-01
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| Series: | Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas (REIS) |
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| Online Access: | http://reis.cis.es/REIS/PDF/REIS_153_07_ENGLISH1452171320218.pdf |
| Summary: | This article presents an alternative way to approach social reality from a sociological perspective. It introduces a sociology of mediations, a methodological approach particularly influenced by actor-network theory. Using a notion of social reality as the articulation of heterogeneous elements, this approach is based on a conceptualisation of agency as the production of multiple and distributed transformations, and considers mediation as sociology?s unit of observation. The paper suggests a methodological tool: impressionist mapping. Combining the detailed work of mapping and the impressionist tradition of a formalist sociology, it is possible to construct a methodology that allows us to elaborate short or middle range sociological theories as well as to describe historically and locally situated cases. |
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| ISSN: | 0210-5233 1988-5903 |