1st Edition
Diffractive Ethnography Social Sciences and the Ontological Turn
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: Engaging the Ontological Turn
Chapter 1. A Turn from What?
Chapter 2. An Overview of Vibrant Materialism
Chapter 3. Paradigm Changes
Part II: Methodological Contradictions in Social Science Inquiry
Chapter 4. Objectivity in Research
Chapter 5. Instruments of Measurement
Chapter 6. Beyond Cause and Effect
Chapter 7. Zombie Categories
Chapter 8. Data
Chapter 9. The Crisis of Representation
Chapter 10. Reflexivity and Its Discontents
Part III: Diffractive Ethnography
Chapter 11. A Brief Overview of Ethnography
Chapter 12. Thinking with Theory
Chapter 13. Assemblages and Entanglements
Chapter 14. Diffraction
Chapter 15. The Liveliness of Matter
Part IV: Becoming
Chapter 16. Healing the Nature/Culture Divide
Chapter 17. The Ethics of Entanglements
References
Index
Biography
Jessica Smartt Gullion, PhD, is Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas Woman’s University, where she teaches courses in research methods and medical and environmental sociology. Her research focuses on qualitative methodology as a tool for social justice.
What would happen if social researchers de-centered themselves and humans? How do social scientists tackle important policy issues? These questions are deftly explored by Gullion in a fascinating and timely volume about the ontological turn in the social sciences. Diffractive Ethnography is for social scientists who want to be rid of hierarchies in order to engage deeply in social justice. It is for those of us who want to throw away the tool box, and see what creative new connections we can make across disciplines and ways of being. This is the most exciting book on methodology I have read in years.
Sandra L. Faulkner, Bowling Green State University, author of Real Women Run
