John Law - Böcker

Shaping Technology / Building Society

Studies in Sociotechnical Change

AvWiebe E. Bijker,John Law

Häftad, Engelska, 1994

838 kr

Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar

Science for Social Scientists

AvJohn Law,Peter Lodge

Häftad, Engelska, 1984

508 kr

Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar

After Method

Mess in Social Science Research

AvJohn Law

Inbunden, Engelska, 2004

2 306 kr

Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar

John Law argues that methods don't just describe social realities but are also involved in creating them. The implications of this argument are highly significant. If this is the case, methods are always political, and it raises the question of what kinds of social realities we want to create.Most current methods look for clarity and precision. It is usually said that only poor research produces messy findings, and the idea that things in the world might be fluid, elusive, or multiple is unthinkable. Law's startling argument is that this is wrong and it is time for a new approach. Many realities, he says, are vague and ephemeral. If methods want to know and help to shape the world, then they need to reinvent themselves and their politics to deal with mess. That is the challenge. Nothing less will do.

After Method

Mess in Social Science Research

AvJohn Law

Häftad, Engelska, 2004

812 kr

Skickas inom 10-15 vardagar

John Law argues that methods don't just describe social realities but are also involved in creating them. The implications of this argument are highly significant. If this is the case, methods are always political, and it raises the question of what kinds of social realities we want to create.Most current methods look for clarity and precision. It is usually said that only poor research produces messy findings, and the idea that things in the world might be fluid, elusive, or multiple is unthinkable. Law's startling argument is that this is wrong and it is time for a new approach. Many realities, he says, are vague and ephemeral. If methods want to know and help to shape the world, then they need to reinvent themselves and their politics to deal with mess. That is the challenge. Nothing less will do.

Organising Modernity

Social Ordering and Social Theory

AvJohn Law

Häftad, Engelska, 1993

511 kr

Skickas inom 7-10 vardagar

In this important theoretical and empirical statement John Law argues against the purity of post-enlightenment political and social theory, and offers an alternative post-modern sociology. Arguing in favor of a sociology of verbs, he suggests that power, organizations, mind-body dualisms, and macro-micro distinctions may all be understood as the local performance of recursive modes of social ordering. Drawing on a range of theoretical traditions including actor-network theory, verstehende sociology, and the writing of Michel Foucault, he explores the production of materials - including agents and architectures - and their importance for these modes of ordering. The book, which draws on organizational ethnography to develop its argument, is essential reading for all those interested in social theory, materialism, or the sociology of organizations at the end of the era of high modernity.

End of the Experiment?

From Competition to the Foundational Economy

AvAndrew Bowman,Julie Froudm. fl.

Häftad, Engelska, 2014

218 kr

Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar

For thirty years, the British economy has repeated the same old experiment of subjecting everything to competition and market because that is what works in the imagination of central government. This book demonstrates the repeated failure of that experiment by detailed examination of three sectors: broadband, food supply and retail banking. The book argues for a new experiment in social licensing whereby the right to trade in foundational activities would be dependent on the discharge of social obligations in the form of sourcing, training and living wages.Written by a team of researchers and policy advocates based at the Centre for Research on Socio Cultural Change, this book combines rigour and readability, and will be relevant to practitioners, policy makers, academics and engaged citizens.

Aircraft Stories

Decentering the Object in Technoscience

AvJohn Law

Inbunden, Engelska, 2002

1 476 kr

Skickas inom 7-10 vardagar

In Aircraft Stories noted sociologist of technoscience John Law tells “stories” about a British attempt to build a military aircraft-the TSR2. The intertwining of these stories demonstrates the ways in which particular technological projects can be understood in a world of complex contexts. Law works to upset the binary between the modernist concept of knowledge, subjects, and objects as having centered and concrete essences and the postmodernist notion that all is fragmented and centerless. The structure and content of Aircraft Stories reflect Law’s contention that knowledge, subjects, and-particularly- objects are “fractionally coherent”: that is, they are drawn together without necessarily being centered. In studying the process of this particular aircraft’s design, construction, and eventual cancellation, Law develops a range of metaphors to describe both its fractional character and the ways its various aspects interact with each other. Offering numerous insights into the way we theorize the working of systems, he explores the overlaps between singularity and multiplicity and reveals rich new meaning in such concepts as oscillation, interference, fractionality, and rhizomatic networks.The methodology and insights of Aircraft Stories will be invaluable to students in science and technology studies and will engage others who are interested in the ways that contemporary paradigms have limited our ability to see objects in their true complexity.

Aircraft Stories

Decentering the Object in Technoscience

AvJohn Law

Häftad, Engelska, 2002

540 kr

Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar

In Aircraft Stories noted sociologist of technoscience John Law tells “stories” about a British attempt to build a military aircraft-the TSR2. The intertwining of these stories demonstrates the ways in which particular technological projects can be understood in a world of complex contexts. Law works to upset the binary between the modernist concept of knowledge, subjects, and objects as having centered and concrete essences and the postmodernist notion that all is fragmented and centerless. The structure and content of Aircraft Stories reflect Law’s contention that knowledge, subjects, and-particularly- objects are “fractionally coherent”: that is, they are drawn together without necessarily being centered. In studying the process of this particular aircraft’s design, construction, and eventual cancellation, Law develops a range of metaphors to describe both its fractional character and the ways its various aspects interact with each other. Offering numerous insights into the way we theorize the working of systems, he explores the overlaps between singularity and multiplicity and reveals rich new meaning in such concepts as oscillation, interference, fractionality, and rhizomatic networks.The methodology and insights of Aircraft Stories will be invaluable to students in science and technology studies and will engage others who are interested in the ways that contemporary paradigms have limited our ability to see objects in their true complexity.

Complexities

Social Studies of Knowledge Practices

AvJohn Law,Annemarie Mol

Häftad, Engelska, 2002

359 kr

Skickas

Although much recent social science and humanities work has been a revolt against simplification, this volume explores the contrast between simplicity and complexity to reveal that this dichotomy, itself, is too simplistic. John Law and Annemarie Mol have gathered a distinguished panel of contributors to offer-particularly within the field of science studies-approaches to a theory of complexity, and at the same time a theoretical introduction to the topic. Indeed, they examine not only ways of relating to complexity but complexity in practice.Individual essays study complexity from a variety of perspectives, addressing market behavior, medical interventions, aeronautical design, the governing of supranational states, ecology, roadbuilding, meteorology, the science of complexity itself, and the psychology of childhood trauma. Other topics include complex wholes (holism) in the sciences, moral complexity in seemingly amoral endeavors, and issues relating to the protection of African elephants. With a focus on such concepts as multiplicity, partial connections, and ebbs and flows, the collection includes narratives from Kenya, Great Britain, Papua New Guinea, the Netherlands, France, and the meetings of the European Commission, written by anthropologists, economists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and scholars of science, technology, and society.Contributors. Andrew Barry, Steven D. Brown, Michel Callon, Chunglin Kwa, John Law, Nick Lee, Annemarie Mol, Marilyn Strathern, Laurent ThÉvenot, Charis Thompson