Recently we had humour as a research method, now we have piratic methods, which apparently we have to resist. Anyone want to defend Long John Silver?
Apparently this is not just a cognitive project but also an ethical imperative:
"The present ethical project to broaden sociology into global connected sociologies written from multiple epistemic positions should also be reflected in a similar revisionist project to constantly scrutinise the ethics of method."
One wonders how all these sociologists with their multiple epistemic positions are going to understand each other? And what is to be done with the epistemic position that regards some of these positions as bullshit? Presumably a consistent logic demands that this also be accepted into the fold? Or is consistency to be regarded as part of the old bad colonial way of thinking?
Still, I'm told that something even grander is slated for publication in our leading journal. Do you find Mahler a little overblown and Bruckner a trifle tedious? Have no fear, it won't be long until symphonic social science is here! I'm assured there will be Big Data including information vegetable, animal and mineral. I'm off before somebody passes me the black spot...
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Thanks for sharing these! Is there an end, I wonder? I was going to suggest the equivalent to Cage's 4'33", but that's already been done (though not in the name of sociology): Upper, Dennis. 1974. ‘The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case Of “writer’s Block”’. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 7 (3): 497. doi:10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a.
Hang on, symphonic social science? They suggest that we "[draw] together descriptive assemblages of data drawn from multiple and asymmetric data sources to make claims about deep causal relationships". So we pick whatever data we want to support our argument, and the science consists of making claims... isn't this (sadly) what much of today's sociology already is (often called "theory")?
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