The fundamental methodological dictum of actor-network theory is to: ‘follow the actors’. This imperative has several implications. The first is that it necessitates a qualitative case study approach, but one of a fairly distinctive kind. Second, these case studies have often revolved around ethnographies at particular institutions, such as the Salk Institute (Latour and Woolgar 1986), or the Daresbury Nuclear Laboratory (Law 1994), although some earlier actor-network studies focused on historical examples, for instance, The Pasteurization of France (Latour 1988a) and the early expansion of Portuguese exploration and trade (Law 1986b). And third, because the dictum is fairly nebulous, what this might mean in practice has often remained vague. When one is following the actors, where do you actually attempt to follow them to? This question has only rarely been addressed within geography’s actor-network literature, however, Cloke et al (2004) suggest that the process-oriented qualitative methods literature of ‘warts and all’ stories offers some key pointers for reflexive research.
There is no single agreed understanding of what a ‘case study’ is, or what a ‘case study method’ entails, as these vary between disciplines and sub-fields. These range from the single individual of psychology, the small local social unit of anthropology, through to the national polity of political science (Platt 2007). Actor-network theory’s use of, and preference for, case studies is grounded in the belief that theory in natural sciences ‘is embedded and extended in empirical practice, and practice itself is necessarily theoretical’ (Law 2009a: 141). We can never learn about the sciences in the abstract, since ‘the parroting of formalisms is empty’ (Law 2008: 629), instead science must be attached to its instances. But actor-network theory’s approach entails a different
understanding of what constitutes the case, which is not restricted to individuals, local areas, or countries, or indeed any particular scale. Actor-network theory cases combine actors across scales that
illustrate how locally situated actors are drawn into associations ‘imposed’ from afar (e.g. the national level) or how other local actors seek to draw distant actors into locally constituted sets of relations, it is necessary to follow the actors as they build these associations. A particularly useful methodology in this respect is the case study in which a particular event or sequence of events can be studied in depth. Although case studies are invariably ‘unique’, if carefully chosen they allow theoretical concerns to be grounded in observation. They are adopted in the belief that close examination of the ‘concrete’ leads to an understanding of more general processes (Murdoch and Marsden 1995: 373).
The problem with choosing a case carefully is that it presupposes one knows what one is
studying and case selection becomes a matter of finding an instance of that topic. In my situation I had only a vaguely defined idea that contested landscapes were of substantive interest, however little sense of what the research question/s and theoretical orientation might be28, and how I might go about gathering data and analysing it, beyond the idea of watching Christchurch City Council planning hearings. In line with John Allen, I considered that the ‘formulation of research question[s] is perhaps best thought of as a task to be achieved’ (2003b: 11 original emphasis), which develops iteratively in relation to both the field and emerging theory, rather than as a question based on a clearly identified ‘gap’ in the literature. He points out that
curiosity can take you in any number of directions, often inspired by the wide reading that you have done in a particular area or perhaps by a deep-seated belief in the importance of a particular topic. How you hit upon a question or an intriguing hypothesis sometimes feels more like guesswork, however, than any philosophical process of deduction or induction. … Trial and error, conjecture, informed guesswork, may not sound that philosophical, but they do convey the speculative element that lies at the heart of what it means to generate new ideas and questions. As curiosity opens up the scope of your inquiry, so one question begs another and, at the very moment you tie a lead down, others proliferate (2003b: 12).
After attending hearings on drainage retention basins and ridgeline subdivisions, by chance, I found myself attending the Taylors Mistake City Plan Hearing (see Marquet 1998), which was ostensibly about the future of the baches at Taylors Mistake. It also involved the proposal for a penguin parade at Boulder Bay, which conflicted with 10 existing baches in the bay. The lengthy nature of the controversy over what should happen to the baches was immediately apparent. I also noticed that much of the argument seemed to revolve around what constituted a ‘bach’ and, in turn, whether such authentic baches should be recognised and protected as heritage. Similarly, the penguin parade involved protecting an ‘endangered species’, but this classification seemed potentially unstable. So my initial framing of the topic suggested a case where cultural and natural heritage come into conflict, thus raising important questions about whose heritage is ultimately protected. I was also struck by the variability of how each category was talked about in different situations, which suggested that the categories of ‘heritage bach’ and ‘endangered species’ were themselves emergent. They were being done in the practices of arguing over the baches and penguin parade. This was certainly a unique case, but I thought that the case might actually be
28 I had not encountered actor-network theory at this stage, in 1998, having studied primarily landscape architecture and heritage studies until then.
highlighting a symmetrical process of heritage recognition and emergent classification. Although, as Annemarie Mol and John Law argue, instead of presenting cases as empirical instances of something general and larger such as a theory, cases can plausibly do all kinds of other work:
[T]hey may sensitize the reader to events and situations elsewhere that have not been recognized so far and that may well be improbable. … They may suggest ways of thinking about and tackling other specificities, not because they are “generally applicable” but because they may be transferable, translatable. They may condense – anthropologists might want to say “symbolize” – a range of experiences, relations of a variety of kinds. They may act as an irritant, destabilizing expectations. For instance, they may destabilize scale relations – undermining precisely the idea that details (or better, specificities) are part of a larger whole (2002: 15).
This hunch that the practices of classification were a crucial aspect of the case meant I had to figure out how I should study this, beyond sitting in planning hearings. Michael Woods’ (1998) study of rural conflict exploring the usefulness of actor-network theory provided the vital insight that actor-network theory could help to inform my study of how emergent classifications could be used to influence landscape planning. Woods highlights four attractions of using actor- network theory for analysing political conflicts; first, emphasis is shifted away from powerful actors towards ‘understanding how coalitions are constructed and structured’; second, there is an acceptance of non-humans as actors; third, the processes of translation allows for an ‘exploration of the cultural and ideological sub-texts of political conflicts’ (1998: 324); and fourth, the
recognition that a coalition’s programmes are constantly responding to anti-programmes, which can illustrate how the nature of a political campaign or issue alters as contexts change. It also highlighted the methodology of following the actors. As Cloke et al. (2004) (following Marcus) note, in studying this type of case, the research process;
takes shape after researchers (1) latch on to specific people, things, metaphors
plot/stories/allegories, lives/biographies and/or conflicts; and (2) follow them, see what ‘sticks’ to them, gets wrapped up in them, unravels them and where that takes a researcher who is (un)able to follow myriad possible leads and make myriad possible connections (Marcus 1995; 1998). Here, questions are asked of ‘emergent object[s] of study whose contours, sites, and relationships are not known beforehand’ but come into being and take ‘unexpected trajectories’ through following up answers to those questions, and the questions that they then raise, and so on where possible (Marcus 1998: 86,80) (Cloke et al. 2004: 190 emphasis in Cloke et al.).
The difficulties of following the actors become apparent when you try to do it. In the context of a struggle over the future of a particular landscape it is not always easy to decide who the most important actors are, where they should be followed to, if it is even possible, and how access to these situations should be negotiated, which suggests there are range of ethical issues involved.
5.8.1 Ethical issues
The first ethical question I encountered attending a publically accessible City Council Plan Hearing was what approach to observation should I take? I could legitimately sit there
unobtrusively watching the proceedings, but ‘simple observation’ (Lee 2000) would quickly present difficulties the longer the hearing continued. This is because there were only a few other observers and they appeared to be fairly obviously aligned to one or other of the sides that were presenting evidence to the hearing, and none was taking notes as I was. The likelihood of being seen as some sort of ‘fink’ (Goffman 2002: 149) was, therefore, fairly high unless I clarified my position as a researcher. There were also positive reasons to be upfront about the type of researcher I was, as I was fairly sure that I would also want to interview some of these
participants at a later stage, therefore establishing trust and rapport initially would be essential to the on-going viability of the research. Providing an exact description of the research questions during iterative research is not always possible, however, in part because they are not fully known, because as Crang and Cook (2007: 30) observe, when research is changing as you do it, ‘yesterday’s honesty can often become tomorrow’s apparent lies’. At this stage it was also
somewhat more appropriate to give a generalised, slightly watered down or tactical version of the research question I was interested in because I didn’t want to exclude research possibilities, and the project needed to be fashioned as worthwhile when initial contact was made with the ‘gatekeepers’ of each side of the dispute, as well as Christchurch City Council staff (Crang and Cook 2007). Before morning tea on the first day of the hearing it was apparent that I had been pegged as either a journalist or a researcher, and I was approached by several people involved in the hearing at the first tea-break. My response that I was a Lincoln University PhD researcher interested in ‘how contested landscape planning decisions get made’ appeared to satisfy those participants I spoke to initially, and they seemed to view my research as a serious endeavour that was worthy of their participation. Indeed, it is possible that I was quickly seen as someone who was potentially worth cultivating or ‘enrolling’, perhaps because my ‘take’ might be persuasive in supporting their cause, at some time in the future.
While it seemed obvious that most attention should be paid to the actors who were presenting expert and lay evidence, or making submissions to planning hearings, concentrating solely on these actors ran the risk of ignoring actors who work behind the scenes, or those actors who are spoken for by others. I took a flexible approach to who should be followed as particular topics became salient. For instance, as the ‘species’ status and the population of the penguins became important issues I interviewed scientists and fieldworkers involved in the study of both penguin phylogenetics and those undertaking the penguin population census on Banks Peninsula. While it was impractical to follow systematists into the laboratory (because it had already occurred, or it was done overseas) I did follow them to conferences where they presented their findings, and tracked these findings’ subsequent publication, and their reception (or lack thereof). Interviews with the fieldworkers involved in the penguin census attempted to elicit as much about the
practical, physical and material difficulties involved in undertaking scientific research while negotiating their way around the rugged coastline.
Following the strategic and tactical decision-making of each group too closely presented other difficulties. First, I was reluctant to ask if I could attend meetings where either side was
discussing the sorts of strategies they would be using to present their side of the case at a hearing, because of the risk of being seen as a spy by the group I was observing, or as partisan by the other group. Second, much of this type of planning was likely to happen informally; as chatting while doing practical activities, or over the phone. Indeed, much of the most important stuff seemed to be going on elsewhere. As John Law has observed, this type of situation can induce anxiety in the ethnographer, suggesting that they don’t measure up to an ‘ideal’, where; ‘[s]uch a creature would have been more energetic, made more phone calls, been more sociable, and have had a better memory … needed less time out … and been less prone to distractions …’ because ‘[w]herever I happened to be, the action was not’ (1994: 43-45). But he recognises that following what was ‘really going on’ is a dream of pure order, and that ‘the largest part of the action is always being generated elsewhere’ (1994: 47). In an attempt to understand what was going on elsewhere I relied, therefore, on interviews with some of the key people within each group to highlight the ways they organised their networks. While these interviews were sometimes, somewhat guarded, it also became apparent that participants were more forthcoming about tactics and strategies in informal situations, where they seemed to regard them more as a commentary on the current events of the situation.
There are difficult ethical issues involved with maintaining the anonymity of interview and personal communication respondents in a contentious issue where particular individuals may be readily identifiable because they have spoken out publically or presented evidence to various hearings. Because of the high likelihood of being able to connect publically presented evidence or observations to interview respondents I have used several techniques to protect interview
respondents’ anonymity. First, any quotations from Environment Court or planning hearing evidence, and observations in public situations identifies the role but not the name of the person, and includes the date of the evidence or observation. Second, because it would not be that difficult to find out the names of people who have given evidence, I have not linked quotations from respondents’ interview transcripts to their roles. Instead, interview respondents are labelled ‘Bach 3’, ‘Penguin 5’ etc, with the date of the interview, if they are readily identifiable as
belonging to a particular side. If they were from one of the agencies involved they were identified by role, for instance, ‘city council planner’, or ‘Historic Places Trust planner’, since their
interviews were about understanding the processes of conservation and planning. While this forecloses on any possibility of comparing the consistency between public and private
presentations by individuals, it still allows some of the strategies and tactics discussed in interviews to be highlighted, while increasing the chances of anonymity being retained. There are numerous possible ways that an actor might potentially exert power in a planning situation, ranging from the tree-sitting and monkey-wrenching of political activism; public relations campaigns and influencing media coverage; submissions, hearings and appeals of the planning process; through to lobbying of decision-makers that might subvert that process. But this study, whilst not ignoring these aspects, concentrates on how classifications are made in practice, and consequently the fieldwork methods try to capture as much of this diversity of influencing as possible, as well as following what happens to particular episodes of classifying. Consequently I adopted a broad suite of methods that hopefully reinforced the weaknesses in each of the other methods.