{"id":389,"date":"2010-05-25T15:24:56","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T19:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/?p=389"},"modified":"2011-07-29T22:59:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T02:59:29","slug":"digital-research-methods-23-provocations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/archives\/389","title":{"rendered":"Digital Research Methods: 23 Provocations"},"content":{"rendered":"

(or: Methods Quotes Without Any Context<\/strong>)<\/em><\/p>\n

I recently participated in an invigorating conversation about the future of research methods and digital media<\/strong>. \u00a0As an experiment, instead of my usual note-taking at this event I wrote down complete quotations that I thought were interesting and compiled them into the list below. \u00a0As a form of note-taking it’s a little strange as it lacks all context–but still I enjoyed reading through these again after the event. \u00a0Maybe you will, too. I found that my notes ended up being a kind of list of provocations about research methods<\/strong>. \u00a0Thanks to those quoted for giving me permission to quote.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n[Rainbow over Vierwaldst\u00e4ttersee;
\nphoto by <\/em>silvertje on flickr<\/a>, click to enlarge]<\/em><\/p>\n

Our conversation was so successful it may have caused this rainbow<\/strong> outside the window of the room where we were meeting. \u00a0Before the provocations, two brief notes:<\/p>\n

First, in case you like this sort of thing, I have also archived four more pages of interesting quotes<\/strong><\/a> about research methods<\/strong> by Einstein, Tarde, \u00a0Camus, Feyerabend, and people like that elsewhere on\u00a0mismethodology.info<\/a> (pardon the strange Drupal theme of that site — it needs UI work). \u00a0I may move some or all of these over there at some point.<\/p>\n

Second, I’m using quotation marks here because I tried for accurate quotations and I checked with the people quoted after the fact, but indeed I could still have misquoted someone<\/strong> as I was trying to write this stuff down very fast.<\/p>\n

My co-presenter at this event, Anne Helmond,\u00a0also blogged about this<\/a> in a more normal prose style.<\/p>\n

And now, to the provocations!<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

23 Provocations About Digital Research Methods<\/h2>\n

#1: \u201cthinking about method is the schizophrenic period in the patient,\u00a0science.\u201d \u2013Herbert Burkert<\/a><\/p>\n

#2:\u00a0\u201cin the digital space the cartographers have claimed to be\u00a0geographers, or they have claimed that no geography is needed.\u201d \u00a0–Rob\u00a0Faris<\/a><\/p>\n

#3: \u201cobjectivity is a useful subjectivity.\u201d \u2013Christian Sandvig<\/a><\/p>\n

#4: \u201cScientists are between action and reflection at all times. Some\u00a0people do and some reflect on what others are doing.\u201d \u2013Gerhard Buurman<\/a><\/p>\n

#5: \u201cthe challenge here is to see the invisible institutional conditions\u00a0that separate disciplines in the first place.\u201d \u2013Jean Nicolas Druey<\/a><\/p>\n

#6: \u201cis digital media an evolution of\u00a0methods\u00a0or a revolution?\u201d \u2013Herbert Burkert<\/a><\/p>\n

#7: \u201cOne of the fascinating things about the law is that it kills the\u00a0new.\u201d \u2013Herbert Burkert<\/a><\/p>\n

#8: \u201cYou can arrange digital research\u00a0methods\u00a0on a spectrum of niceness.\u00a0On the one hand you use the industry-provided API. \u00a0On the other you\u00a0scrape Facebook for all it is worth.\u201d \u2013Anne Helmond<\/a><\/p>\n

#9: \u201cLarge sets of data pollute disciplines. When we know so much we are\u00a0tempted to make use of it.\u201d \u2013Gerhard Buurman<\/a><\/p>\n

#10: \u201cRemember that disciplines are a hierarchy and not a democracy. If a\u00a0methodological bandit is one who steals a method from another\u00a0discipline, just as in real banditry, notice that the weak often steal\u00a0from the powerful.\u201d \u2013Jean Nicolas Druey<\/a><\/p>\n

#11: \u201cOn the Internet the need is not just for new\u00a0methods\u00a0but new\u00a0flexibility. We need plastic\u00a0methods.\u201d \u2013Martina Merz<\/a><\/p>\n

#12: \u201cthe search engines are the imperfect maps that align the Web to\u00a0physical places.\u201d \u2013Anne Helmond<\/a><\/p>\n

#13: \u201cThe second wave of Internet censorship is new in that it is episodic\u00a0and of much greater complexity.\u201d \u2013John Palfrey<\/a><\/p>\n

#14: \u201cInternet\u00a0methods\u00a0are incessantly volatile due to the update culture\u00a0of the Internet itself.\u201d \u2013Anne Helmond<\/a><\/p>\n

#15: \u201cas people who usually have to generate our own data, digital research\u00a0methods\u00a0are profoundly seductive.\u201d \u2013Martina Merz<\/a><\/p>\n

#16: \u201cThe dienstweg <\/em>also exists at the Berkman Center.\u201d \u2013Urs Gasser<\/a><\/p>\n

#17: \u201cAre we dealing with new data or are we finding a new language?\u201d\u00a0\u2013Gerhard Buurman<\/a><\/p>\n

#18: \u201cthe volume and the ambition of interdisciplinary digital research\u00a0methods\u00a0is amazing\u2026what would the result be if we took this abstract\u00a0higher-order thinking and landed it?\u201d \u00a0–Colin Maclay<\/a><\/p>\n

#19: \u201cDiscourse and censorship are action and reaction.\u201d \u2013John Palfrey<\/a><\/p>\n

#20: \u201cThe striking thing about new\u00a0methods\u00a0is dynamism: of the data, of the\u00a0object of study, of the researchers, of everything.\u201d \u2013Caroline Nolan<\/a><\/p>\n

#21: \u201cAre conversations about new\u00a0methods\u00a0really just new forms of the same\u00a0old conversations? Even if they are, note that both new and old, these\u00a0are conversations that most researchers never bother to have in the\u00a0first place.\u201d \u2013Eszter Hargittai<\/a><\/p>\n

#22: \u201cA prime ingredient of methodological innovation is courage. \u00a0My\u00a0conclusion from this discussion of new\u00a0methods\u00a0is to embrace\u00a0riskiness.\u201d \u2013Herbert Burkert<\/a><\/p>\n

#23: \u201cI now realize that during my five years at university I was\u00a0completely wrong to think of research\u00a0methods\u00a0as boring.\u201d \u2013Sandra\u00a0Cortesi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(or: Methods Quotes Without Any Context) I recently participated in an invigorating conversation about the future of research methods and digital media. \u00a0As an experiment, instead of my usual note-taking at this event I wrote down complete quotations that I thought were interesting and compiled them into the list below. \u00a0As a form of note-taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1321],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4M7Bm-6h","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/niftyc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}