what acts and the ethics it implies

About unruliness, taking risks and slowliness

Abstract

Departing from new materialism and actor- network theory the article discusses the ethics of research implied in the principle of general symmetry. After thorough investigation of the ethical claims which arise from the inclusion of non-human actors in studies of social life, the article suggests a way to act on such ethics. Our foundational premise being that neither researchers nor the field possess powers to define an ethics of research, which is rather to be understood as an effect of actual relations between the field-network and the researchers’ network. This proposing of a new-materialist ethics of research also involves a new metho- dology; a ‘heterogenic listening’. The article unfolds this heterogenic listening and concep- tualizes specific elements within; putting at risk and slowing down.