A Critical Review on the Book After Method; Mess in Social Science Research

Sharifzadeh, Rahman

doi:10.30465/crtls.2021.35564.2191

A Critical Review on the Book After Method; Mess in Social Science Research

Document Type : Research

Author

Rahman Sharifzadeh

Assistant professor, faculty member of Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (Irandoc), Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.30465/crtls.2021.35564.2191

Abstract

The book “After Method; Mess in Social Science Research” written by English philosopher and sociologist John Law, is one of the few books which explores the method itself philosophically-sociologically. After Method explores and challenges the metaphysical assumptions and normativities of conventional methods and tries to provide an alternative approach toward method. The book also rethinks practices, purposes, and expression techniques of conventional methods through a variety of case studies. This book advances the discussion in the space of constructivism and actor-network theory; however, in the author's opinion, it goes beyond these two in several places, particularly in the discussions related to indefiniteness and multiplicity. In this article, we will lay out the most important claims and positions of this book and discuss also some of its shortcomings.

Keywords

Method

Method Assemblage

Multiplicity

Practice

Enactment

Subjects

Methodology

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