New Empiricisms and the Challenge to Methodological Orthodoxy: Rethinking the Relationship Between Concept and Method

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The goal for this session is to explore the power of philosophical concepts as generative devices operating within the realm of the empirical. Such a shift prizes the power of philosophy within the social sciences, not simply as a practice of reflection or interpretation, but as the art of concept creation, mutation, and intervention. Concepts are thus not dematerialized abstractions, but immanent within the field of experience. Unlike grounded theory, where concepts tend to be extracted from the empirical field, the presenters in this session track concepts as ontogenetic and emergent. We use the term “emergent” to signify the way that concepts modulate and contract rather than transcend matter. This session develops concept as method.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Qualitative Research

Chair

• Lisa A. Mazzei, University of Oregon

Papers

• An Ontology of a Backflip - Alecia Youngblood Jackson, Appalachian State University

• Force, Speed, Quanta: Concepts as Ontogenetic Empirical Devices - Elizabeth De Freitas, Manchester Metropolitan University

• Inquiry as Mapping Space-Time Entanglements - Lisa A. Mazzei, University of Oregon

Discussants

• Mindy Blaise, Victoria University - Melbourne

• Jerry L. Rosiek, University of Oregon