Saturday, April 11, 2009

The path less travelled

How my writing is informed by materiality and specificity.
In line with Nick Binghams exploration of this subject, I now have another way of conceptualising change in terms of how this and that get together, coexist and shape each other/or not. He explores the ideas of being together; of 'withness'. His own topic area involves GM and non-GM (as well as the presumptions that these might be able to co-exist). In this he describes the need for specifics, that the general is only known by the particular, and his approach (informed by ANT) he describes nicely as 'interrogating the parts'.

I like this turn of phrase. I have attempted to interrogate the peoples involved (counsellors, counsalees, and the techy peoples, as well as those with non voice carriers; the mobile phones, the computer software and hardware, as well as the artefacts of policy.
Nick Bingham also discusses the specfics in terms of how far from a source a thing might travel.
In change theory. or at least in innovation diffussion theory, the fragility of a thing and the bumpiness of the ride is given insufficient cognizance.
A 'general' cant be rolled out just anywhere...the particularities are important; the rolling out from general to local or from local to global is a questionable practice. Such paths are not given, but require work.
The mapping of such paths, with attendance to the minutae of detail fits well with the close to the ground ANT traveller.

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