The Nonrepresentational Methodologist

• In Event: Methodologists, Who Needs 'Em?

Abstract

Objectives
In this presentation, I wonder about the functions and possibilities of the non-representational methodologist. How might it be possible to do the work of a methodologist without assuming a fixed and generalizable position and without performing a particular subjectivity? How might the non-representational methodologist work?

Perspective
Kuntz (2015) calls for a responsible methodologist who could reconceptualize her work while moving away from the technocratic toward an intervention, an ethical disruption of the norm, and an activist stance toward progressive social change. Inviting creativity and vision to the work of the methodologist, Kuntz also challenges methodologists to engage in risky truth-telling, radically changing the work of representational and “purely technical” methodologists.
Thrift (2008) proposed that “non-representational researchers are concerned with “novelty, extemporaneity, vitality, emergence, and experimental creativity” (p.11). A part of non-representational mode might be to think with concepts that are not applied to the world but concepts are created every time they are thought. “Concepts [e.g., methodologist] are put to work in a way that makes a difference to worlds but also, importantly, in a way that reshapes the concept, edging it with other kinds of potential” (McCormack, 2015, p. 100). For example, drawing from movement and onflow of everyday life, preindividual approaches, performance, and relational materialism experimental wonder could be practiced (see also Lorimer, 2005). Bodies and their affective capacities could enable aliveness, strangeness, and dissemblement of the non-representational methodologist.

Points of View
The naming of the methodologist is a part of the problem. Anderson and Ash (2015) propose that naming fixes the concept within a representational economy whereas non-representational scholars could engage in the persistent naming of the entities that cannot be named (i.e. multiplicities of methodologists). Maybe proliferating the name of methodologist could be one option or to continue using the label acknowledging the tensions it creates. What if the concept, practices, and subjectivities of “methodologist” are performed within multiple approaches, strategies, and theories that rub against each other, touch, and form a continuous relational contact. Naming and using the concept of methodologist creates both singularity and commonalities. Maybe these commonalities could be dealt with by continuously shifting among the practices of a methodologist-materialist, methodologist-practitioner, life-methodologist, and performance-methodologist and more.
Kuntz and Goyotte (2017) proposed that “there may be productive power in engagements with those activities that escape representation…One could render “playful, inconclusive articulations that, themselves, are never complete” (p. 2) One might think with practices that are not connected to particular traditions but they would be more fluid. Practices would be historically formed yet inventive and relational. Maybe Haraway’s (2016) tentacular thinking through attachments and detachments, cuts and knots, and weaved paths could help researchers to work through diverse practices of a methodologist.

Conclusions and Significance
Even though the label might be unnecessary, misleading, and even inaccurate, the work of the methodologist is still of importance and “responsible methodologists” are needed. At the same time, it may be productive to give up the representationalism associated with the concept and concentrate on the work they do.

Author

• Mirka E. Koro, Arizona State University