Doing new materialist research: from ontology to methodology

Speaker: Nick Fox (Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Huddersfield)
Pam Alldred (Department of Social Work, Care and Community, Nottingham Trent University) will join the Q and A.
Organizer: Sarah Elton (Department of Sociology & CQ Fellow, Toronto Metropolitan University)
Title: Doing new materialist research: from ontology to methodology
Abstract: With growing interest in new materialist and posthuman approaches, it is timely to explore in detail how these ontologies translate practically into social research methodologies for social inquiry. This task has been made complex by the differing interpretations of the new materialist theories by social theorists, with different conclusions about the shape of a new materialism-inspired methodology. This paper aims to fill a gap in the literature by setting out a methodology using one specific thread within the new materialisms: Deleuzian ‘ethology’. Inspired by Spinoza’s Ethics, Deleuze established a conceptual toolkit for ethological inquiry, comprising ‘relation’, ‘assemblage’, ‘affect’ and ‘capacity’. This talk considers how this toolkit translates into a straightforward research methodology. This entails developing a perspective on setting a research question, methods for data collection, methods of data analysis and finally, presenting study findings. The paper concludes with some reflections on the task of translating philosophical theory into social science methodology.
About the Speakers: Nick J. Fox is Professor of Sociology at the University of Huddersfield and also holds an honorary chair in sociology at the University of Sheffield. He is a leading UK new materialist scholar, and has researched and written widely on materialist social theory as applied to health, embodiment, sexuality, creativity and emotions. His most recent book, with Pam Alldred, is Sociology and the New Materialism (Sage, 2017). Nick’s current activity is inflected towards political sociology, with work addressing environmental sustainability policy, citizenship, capitalism and the pandemic, and political economy.
Pam Alldred is Professor of Youth and Community in the Department of Social Work, Care and Community (SWCC) at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Her role is to lead research in the Department and support doctoral researchers. She has examined 35 PhDs in the UK, Spain, Hungary and Australia and been Director of Departmental Post-Graduate Research and of a Centre for Youth Work Studies. Pam researches parenting, sexualities and Relationship and Sex Education and all things relating to inequalities and gender violence. She has led two international projects on gender-related violence: the GAP Work Project, and USV React which shares first-responder training for university staff on sexual violence (www.USVReact/eu), that it developed and piloted, improving response in at least 25 universities.
Recent books include Sociology and New Materialism with NJ Fox (SAGE, 2016) and the SAGE Handbook of Youth Work Practices (co-edited with F. Cullen, D. Fusco and K. Edwards, 2018). Pam is a Core Member of the UK’s Sex Education Forum and a Trustee of the Professional Association of Youth & Community Lecturers, and she teaches research methods on courses for PhD, social work and youth work students.

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Really good workshop!! Thanks!

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