At the centre of contemporary debates regarding the practice of sociological research are concerns about existing methods being out of step with an increasingly digital culture and failing to reflect shifts in social theory (Back and Puwar, 2012a). Back and Puwar (2012a, p. 6) describe this as ‘an unprecedented challenge and opportunity’ for sociology. Digital technologies bring new methods for conducting research in the form
of mass data collection or ‘big data’ (Murthy, 2008). These technologies, like the mobile digital device, also constitute new social practices that merit examination in their own right. Mobile digital devices sit in a particularly important position within these debates as both a significant site of data collection through their various sensors (Smith, 2016), as well as an emerging form of digital sociality that, as I have been arguing, highlights the limitations of how sociology has understood the empirical. It is not insignificant that it is because these devices generate new forms of intimacy with the user that they are especially rich sources of data. The question of how sociology responds to the digital world is one that is at the heart of this thesis.
Within the discipline, the rise of digital research practices has presented a considerable challenge for researchers. Some scholars have argued that while digital data collection presents an unprecedented opportunity for social analysis and insight, this opportunity also represents a threat to sociology’s claims of expertise over the social realm (Savage and Burrows, 2007). As Noortje Marres (2012) argues, digital practices transform what constitutes ‘research’, given the rise of habitual tracking through social media, blogging and other forms of recording. Given how much of daily life is now filtered through devices such as computers and mobile digital devices, a wealth of information about everyday activity can now be accessed and analysed. Big data has been seen to usher in a new era of untold insight into human behaviour. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier’s (2013, p. 19) description demonstrates this optimism, as they declare that ‘[b]ig data is all about seeing and understanding the relations within and among pieces of information that, until very recently, we struggled to fully grasp.’ What distinguishes big data from other forms of data collection, as danah boyd and Kate Crawford (2012, p. 663) explain, is the ‘capacity to search, aggregate, and cross- reference large data sets’. Working with this data also raises important ethical questions about privacy and the ethics of this data collection (Andrejevic and Burdon, 2015; boyd and Crawford 2012).
The capacities of smartphones and other internet enabled devices to collect data about their users have predominantly been taken up for commercial purposes, and this has led some sociologists to argue that the discipline is facing an increasing threat to its expertise from the private sector (Back, 2012). Marres (2012) argues that through big
data research practices, social research becomes distributed across actors, public and private spheres, and across both academic and non-academic contexts. Susan Halford, Catherine Pope and Mark Weal (2013) argue that sociologists must be either be prepared to work with computer scientists or acquire the necessary computational expertise to make use of this new data, otherwise we risk being left behind in these new research frontiers. Roger Burrows and Mike Savage (2014, p. 5) argue that this redistribution of data outside of the academy serves to ‘challenge the predominant authority of sociologists and social scientists more generally to define the nature of social knowledge’. Elsewhere, Savage and Burrows (2007, p. 896) diagnose a crisis in which sociology’s claim to expertise is under threat, and they urge a response that sees sociology take up these new tools ‘coupled with renewed critical reflection’. Savage and Burrows (2007) argue that the lack of methodological innovation in sociology has seen the discipline outstripped by private sector research practices, predominantly carried out for the purposes of profit. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are implicated in this shift, which they describe as the ‘age of knowing capitalism’ (2007, p. 885). In outlining a response to the crisis, Savage and Burrows (2007, p. 895) caution against ‘invoking our sophistication in relation to social theory’, insisting that sociologists be prepared to take up the new tools but with an eye to redirecting their focus more critically, beyond the mere pursuit of profit. Similarly, Linda Mckie and Louise Ryan (2012, p. 6) suggest that:
The challenge for us, as sociologists, is not only to develop and teach the necessary skills to utilise the new opportunities presented by knowing capitalism, public sociology and new social media, but also to maintain a healthy critique and reflexivity about how these construct and present social realities.
However, other scholars have emphasised the importance of theory in bringing about this critical approach to the analysis of big data. Ramine Tinati et al. (2014, p. 16) argue that sociological theories establish that ‘data are not naturally occurring or unmediated but are sociotechnically constructed’, a fact that many forms of computational analysis cannot account for. The question of precisely what sociology’s contribution to the analysis of big data will be remains to be settled, but, as Tinati et al. (2014, p. 16)
conclude, ‘the existing sociological repertoire of methods (and perhaps theories) will not be sufficient in this endeavour’.
While Burrows and Savage (2014) argue that the purpose of this intervention is for sociology to retain a voice in the debate about how the social is constituted, it is the question of what constitutes the social that goes unchallenged in this response. To put it another way, appropriating these new methods into existing sociological epistemologies fails to address precisely those conditions of contemporary social life that call for methodological innovation. In proposing a return to the familiar language of social construction, Burrows and Savage fail to address the question of what changes in the nature of the social in the digital age. Yet, the ‘empirical crisis’ in sociology need not be resolved through the reassertion of authority over disciplinary territory. Rather, the emerging forms of digital sociality associated with the production of big data might be seen as an invitation to front up to the limitations of familiar ways we of figuring the territory of the social itself.
As I have argued, contemporary academic debate has been dominated by questions that attempt to discern whether mobile digital devices have a negative impact on existing forms of social interaction (Lasén and Casado, 2012; Ling and Campbell, 2011; Ling, 2008; Licoppe, 2004; Katz and Aakhus, 2002). These analyses are concerned with a notion of the social as constituted by interaction between actors, and a form of sociological analysis that seeks to understand how society is possible (Lash, 2009). This is an understanding that has been increasingly called into question in sociology in recent years, on the basis that it is reductive of the complexity of social reality (Hynes, 2013, 2016; Gregg and Seigworth, 2010; Clough, 2009). The principle concern for scholars who seek to expand our understanding of the social is the limitations of the existing preoccupation with conscious and intentional action, which limits the scope of questions about the human to human intention. As I have argued, focusing analysis on conscious human experiences and on the interactions between human beings neglects that in- between or relational dimension of sociality, in which human subjects and ‘their’ objects have not yet asserted themselves as determining structures. In contrast, I have proposed an approach that is attuned to nonconscious relations and provides a way to consider those dimensions of the human-technology relationship that cannot be characterised as
deliberate. This perspective prioritises relations, practices, performances and doings, rather than the states of mind that have conventionally been the preoccupation of the social sciences (Vannini, 2015a). Habits and daily routines that form through repetition are difficult to theorise from a representational framework, which is far better placed to deal with conscious and intentional action. Yet these noncognitive processes warrant investigation, given the foundational role they play in facilitating a great deal of daily actions.
I argue for an expansion of what constitutes the empirical in sociology to consider forces prior to conscious awareness. In doing so, I am contributing to a growing body of methodological literature in sociology that has sought to stress the importance of attending to aspects of social life that have not been traditionally considered relevant to sociological discourse (Vannini, 2015b; Coleman and Ringrose, 2013a; Back and Puwar, 2012b; Lury and Wakeford, 2012b). What I argue for is not merely the adaptation of new methods for new empirical sites but rather a reimagining of sociological methodologies. If we acknowledge, as I have argued in the previous chapter, that the processual and multiple unfolding of relations is prior to distinct subjects and objects, it is a rethinking of what constitutes sociological questions that is needed, first and foremost. Increasingly, there is a need for research to go beyond the lenses of observation and conversation (Back, 2012), of sense-making practices, to expand existing understandings of what constitutes the social. As Back (2012, p. 29) puts it, ‘not being limited to what people say explicitly enables us to train a kind of attentiveness to tacit forms of coexistence’. More comfortable modes of thought can and must be challenged in order to shift the attentiveness of the researcher to be receptive to different practices.
Importantly, this is not merely a shift in focus to attend to a previously neglected aspect of social life but indeed a new ontology; namely, an ontology of difference. As I explored in the previous chapter, this ontology has an entirely different orientation towards understanding the social world. The orientation towards difference is a critical point here and one worth considering more closely. Repetition in research methods is more commonly associated with the production of universal truths and reproducible outcomes, which aid in establishing the legitimacy of a method to make claims about
empirical reality. However, the kind of repetition to which I suggest we need to attend does not appeal to the universal or identify principles that represent the whole. Rather, from the point of view of a different ontology, repetition is the engine of the production of change and novelty.
Given the shifts that I have outlined in the previous chapter, what constitutes the empirical ground of this thesis sits outside of what sociology has conventionally understood as ‘the social’. It is not simply a matter of developing new methods to ‘reveal’ these dimensions of social life, but rather requires a rethinking of the very nature of what constitutes the empirical in sociology. In order to approach problems in new ways, deeply held assumptions must be challenged and modes of thought critiqued. In proposing new questions and challenging long held values, the point is not to deny the productive capacity of more conventional sociological framings, but rather to disrupt their dominance and open space for new methodological approaches which have hitherto been unexplored. It is to this end that this thesis has drawn on thinkers such as Deleuze, Guattari, Spinoza, Bergson, and more recent scholarship associated with the ‘affective turn’ (Clough, 2007), as well as ideas on ‘live sociology’ and ‘nonrepresentational’ approaches in human geography. However, to be clear, I am not merely suggesting that such perspectives provide a different lens through which to examine existing problems, but rather critique what Deleuze (1994, p. 148) has called the ‘dogmatic image of thought’, which limits our capacity to think the social world beyond the terms of subjects and objects. While Deleuze speaks from this perspective of his discipline of philosophy, the implications of his critique of the dogmatic image are far broader in scope, pertaining to the constitution of the very activity of thinking as it has been conceived by the Western representational tradition.
For Deleuze (1994, pp. 129–167), there is a fundamental error in the presuppositions of our representational tradition, which pertains to its understanding of thought. The error arises when this philosophical image, in seeking to establish its concepts, interrogates a presupposition such as rationality, but fails to interrogate the presuppositions upon which such a ground is established. There is a dogmatic image of thought in operation, Deleuze (1994, p. 130) contends, that determines and limits our understanding of thought itself and of what it means to think:
Everybody knows, no one can deny, is the form of representation and the discourse of the representative. When philosophy rests its beginning upon such implicit or subjective presuppositions, it can claim innocence, since it has kept nothing back — except, of course, the essential — namely, the form of this discourse.
Thus, the presuppositions that ground the dominant image of thought itself are never challenged. In this respect, Deleuze identifies a series of assumptions that limit our capacity to think difference, before it is captured within what Deleuze calls the ‘four pillars’ of representation; namely, identity, opposition, analogy and resemblance, which work together to reduce difference to a merely secondary effect of a more primary identity. In this respect, Deleuze’s critique of the dogmatic image recalls Nietzsche’s (1990) polemical argument that the process of reasoning and seeking truth through which philosophy reaches its conclusions is one that relies far more on desires and drives than it discloses. For Nietzsche (1990), true understanding requires a revaluation of that mode of thinking that, while claiming to be based upon reason, betrays a commitment to inherited notions of good and evil, truth and untruth; thus, essentially, a commitment to the moral image of thought. For Deleuze, if we are to truly think difference, these implicit assumptions about the nature of thought itself must be undermined and interrogated, to determine precisely what they conceal and protect, and at what expense they do so.
It is important to examine carefully the impact of this image of thought and the persistence of such assumptions in contemporary sociological scholarship on the mobile digital device and more broadly. To this end, I have argued for three shifts in thinking, outlined in the previous chapter, which seek to challenge this image of thought. Firstly, I have argued for an understanding of repetition as the production of difference rather than of sameness, with an eye to understanding the generative capacities of habits. Secondly, I have argued for consciousness to be understood not as the origin of action but rather as the register of these actions, which can offer only limited insight into their cause. Thirdly, I have urged that attention be paid to the impersonal and preindividual forces prior to the formation of distinct subjects or objects, rather than attending only
to the reduction of these forces as perceived by conscious awareness. These shifts respond to the dogmatic image of thinking that prevails in existing discourse.
Deleuze (1994) argues that the presuppositions that limit our understanding of thought are moral ones, as it is only morality that proposes such an affinity between thought and truth. Again, the affinities with and influence of Nietzschean thought are noteworthy. In
Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche (1990) challenges foundational and naturalised evaluations and considers what potential an unravelling of such presuppositions might hold for thought. Beginning with the valorisation of truth above untruth and certainty above uncertainty, he argues that these concepts are far less antithetical than we hold them to be. The unquestioning maintenance of these distinctions has become enfolded into our evaluative moral systems. These systems are far from natural, though they are experienced as such, but merely confirm their own values, whilst claiming a kind of innocent connection to reason and truth:
What in us really wills the truth? In fact, we paused for a long time before the question of the cause of this will — until we finally came to a complete standstill in front of an even more fundamental question. We asked about the value of this will. Granted, we will the truth: why not untruth instead?
And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth came before us, — or was it we who came before the problem? (Nietzsche, 1990, p. 5)
Nietzsche (1990) argues that morality is based not on any kind of truth or understanding of the world, but rather on what he considers to be the fundamental misunderstandings that underpin philosophical thought and thought in general. Nietzsche challenges our naturalization of evaluations like the preference for truth over untruth, certainty over uncertainty, arguing that these valorised values like truth and certainty are far more intermingled, and indeed similar to, the antithetical values we condemn.
This naturalisation of thought’s relationship to truth founds the common sense assumption of the dogmatic image of thought. In his critique of established modes of thought, Deleuze (1994, pp. 129–166) explores these habits of thinking in the form of
in the image of thought, as two halves of the whole. Common sense refers to the ‘norm of identity from the point of the view of the pure Self and the form of the unspecified object which corresponds to it’ (Deleuze, 1994, p. 133). Deleuze argues that common sense is the bringing together of different senses in the form of a unified conscious subject and stresses that the dogmatic image of thought does not consider sense beyond this subject (Somers-Hall, 2013). Good sense, which reinforces common sense, is concerned with the judgement of the proper order of things and the creation of hierarchies (Williams, 2003). Whilst common sense relates to the unification of sense, good sense relates to the normative distribution of sense (Deleuze, 1994, p. 134). Common sense, according to Deleuze (1994, p. 226), is defined by ‘the process of recognition’. Recognition involves a reliance on sameness, in that we recognise any present encounter through similarities to the past and use that recognition to deduce truths about the present moment. Deleuze (1994) argues that our capacities are inhibited by our desire for sameness and an absolute, universal sense of what is good, rendering us incapable of thinking the difference and complexity which truly characterises our world. In addition to their inability to think radical difference, these concepts remain unchallenged assumptions within the dominant image of thought. Indeed, Deleuze argued that philosophy ‘flatters’ itself to have rediscovered these ideas, which are embedded in the first instance in its common sense presumptions.
The dogmatic, moral image of thought founds itself on the forms of representation and recognition, and relies on the presumption of a thinking subject who, through the harmonious union of the subjective faculties on the object, naturally seeks truth in the act of thinking. Deleuze (1994) has the Kantian theory of the faculties in view when he argues that the reduction of thought to the act of recognition is understood to be an