"An exciting new book, offering a fresh lens to think about how and why methodology matters [...] This is a powerful way of thinking through what methods do sociologically, and politically, which is particularly pressing in a context of multiple global intersecting crises of a social, environmental, and economic nature, which require new, critical forms of academic praxis."The Sociological Review"This jewel of a book addresses the wicked problem of thinking about problems by treating problems as emergent, contingent, circulating spaces in which forms generate methods in an open series of linked processes. Celia Lury brings great clarity and originality to this novel approach to the problem of method."Arjun Appadurai, New York University"Only Celia Lury could bring together insights from various disciplines to track the profound changes in knowledge production in relationship to a new regime of truth and to respond with what she discusses as compositional methodology and epistemic infrastructures. This is precisely the book to read right now no matter your discipline or practice! I look forward to sharing it with my colleagues and students."Patricia Ticineto Clough, The City University of New York and author of The User Unconscious
Introduction: The Compulsion of CompositionPart 1Chapter 1: Problem SpacesPart 2Chapter 2: The Parasite and the OctopusChapter 3: Indexing the Human (with Ana Gross)Chapter 4: Platforms and the Epistemic InfrastructurePart 3Chapter 5: More than CircularChapter 6: Know-ability and Answer-abilityConclusion: How and Why Methodology MattersBibliography
Celia Lury is Professor of Sociology at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick.