What has become of critique? Reassembling sociology after Latour

Bibliographic Data

ID5614829
AuthorsTom Mills (0000-0003-1389-7577, Aston University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume69
Issue2
Pages286-305
Publication date2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-1315 • E-ISSN: 1468-4446
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1468-4446.12306
PMID28876450
OpenAlexW2751797676
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited40

This paper offers a defence of sociology through an engagement with Actor Network Theory (ANT) and particularly the critique of 'critical' and politically engaged social science developed by Bruno Latour. It argues that ANT identifies some weaknesses in more conventional sociology and social theory, and suggests that 'critical' and 'public' orientated sociologists can learn from the analytical precision and ethnographic sensibilities that characterize ANT as a framework of analysis and a research programme. It argues, however, that Latour et al. have too hastily dispensed with 'critique' in favour of a value neutral descriptive sociology, and that the symmetrical and horizontalist approach adopted in ANT is particularly ill-suited to the development of scientific knowledge about social structures. It argues that a more straightforwardly realist sociology would share many of the strengths of ANT whilst being better able to interrogate, empirically and normatively, the centres of contemporary social power

Epistemology · Sociology · Critical Realism in Sociology · Management and Organizational Studies · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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