Sociography of a curious object

Descriptive research, the #OneLess refill pilot, and practices of hesitation

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3263156
AutoresNicole Vitellone (0000-0002-0826-5973, Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of Liverpool, UK, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume70
Fascículo4
Páginas666-685
Data de publicação2022-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00380261221109030
OpenAlexW4293574508
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas31

The implications of sociography for thinking with global environmental problems are foregrounded by Bruno Latour in Down to Earth . In order to deal with the metamorphosis of the world and take into account multiplying viewpoints, Latour argues sociologists must shift the focus of enquiry from theoretical analyses of environmental problems to descriptions of the existence of environmental issues in experimental settings, local shared spaces and common practices. Taking up Latour's challenge of description from the bottom up, this article examines London's #OneLess refill water fountain pilot project initiated in 2018 to reduce plastic water bottle consumption, as an example of how scientists are at the forefront of assembling the public existence of environmental problems in local settings. Addressing my participant observation in the refill experiment, the article highlights the methodological challenges the #OneLess pilot poses for generating descriptions of what it means to engage with environmental issues sociographically. By engaging description as a methodological problem, the article examines the strengths and limitations of existing descriptive approaches and develops a different way of deploying a sociographical imagination that attempts to make sense of hesitation as a transformative practice of environmental knowledge production

Business · Engineering ethics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Focus (optics) · Object (grammar) · Order (exchange) · Sociology · Transformative learning · Viewpoints · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Engineering · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism