"Experimentalism and Sociology" (Habilitation)

My study explores the notions of inquiry, practice and knowledge, and their productive effects on each other from a pragmatist perspective. More specifically, I am aiming to clarify the concept of inquiry in relation to the works of John Dewey, and its consequences for contemporary social theory. As a point of departure, I assume a similarity between the epistemological impact of the Industrial Revolution around 1900 and the digital and political Revolutions in the 1990s on the dynamics of knowledge. The pragmatists translated these technological, cultural, political and scientific dynamics into an empirically grounded knowledge theory, which again is highly relevant today. It was especially Dewey’s pragmatism, establishing the foundations of a social theory, that I call “experimental,” with the idea to connect two levels of experimentation: experience and trial (or “test”): a) the material-ontological experience of the actor, and b) the empirical experience of the researcher. From an epistemological point of view, within the German sociological tradition these two levels have so far not been related one to another. However, the international and transdisciplinary “studies” (as, for instance, science and technology studies or cultural studies) and “turns” (as the practice turn or the pragmatic turn) have provided methodologies to do that more systematically. The rediscovery of pragmatism in French (B. Latour, L. Boltanski & L. Thévenot) and Anglosaxon academia indicates a good moment to theorize these methodologies. But even in Germany, experimental practices – may they involve political, economic, scientific or critical resources – are discussed by their productive or potentially harmful consequences for society. An “experimental social theory” would also involve the limits of Western modes of ordering and reflect concepts of the social beyond the classical dichotomies of “nature vs. culture” (P. Descola), comprehending European thought just as one possibility, a “province” of thought (D. Chakrabarty). Description, rather than normativity, would be privileged. My study will investigate these issues through aforementioned two levels of experimentation by sketching several fields of inquiry: work, science, economy, and politics. A related fieldsite will be examined: The emergence of new public problems and their interaction with sociological methods (N. Marres, J. Law).

At the Centre Marc Bloch I am heading, together with my colleagues Camille Roth and Jérémie Gauthier, a working group on current debates in comparative social analysis. During the upcoming winter term 2014/15, we'll join scholars from France, Germany and the UK on the topics of political ethnography and network-analysis. The program will be available soon.