A relevant set of exercises and devices for accommodating the above rules has been provided by Howard Becker in his volume on the Tricks of the Trade (1998). And while many of them have helped push the inquiry forward, only a limited selection will be presented here. One is the adaptation of the idea of the null hypothesis. Well known to statisticians, the null hypothesis involves working with a hypothesis the researcher suspects to be false. Proving the hypothesis wrong does not point to what is true, but proves that an alternative to the hypothesis is right. This can, for example, involve hypothesizing that two variables are only related by chance. When a relationship between the variables is found and the null hypothesis stating that there is no relationship between them is rejected, it can be claimed that there is a smaller chance that these results would have been produced if the hypothesis the researcher believes to be true was not true. One way of adapting the null hypothesis thus involves making random assignments by considering the actors partaking in the introduction and reconfiguration of Nord Pool for wind power integration as if nothing had led to them be there and act in that way. In other words, it involves approaching them as if they “…were assembled in some analog of assigning everyone a number and then using a table of random numbers to assemble the required cast” (Becker, 1998, p. 21).
Apart from random assignments, another way to draw inspiration from the line of thinking involved in the null hypothesis has here implied a focus on strangeness. When one is confronted with something alien or incomprehensible, the idea is to consider it non-sensible and then make that very character of the empirical situation into a null hypothesis. Again, the idea is to have “…hypotheses you take up because you think they’re not true and think that searching for what negates them will get you to what is true” (Becker, 1998, p. 24). An alternative to doing so
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which has also been applied here involves working with the assumption that the actions studied make perfect sense, and that it is simply the researcher who does not know the sense it makes (Becker, 1998). The exercise is similar to what Skinner (2002) has suggested by insisting on having the researcher assume that the actors studied are rational.
Another technique deployed in the effort to stand back and respect the above- mentioned stance, maxim, and the implied rules for research, is to trace what empirically exists by conceiving of the empirical setting as a machine and engaging in a process similar to reverse engineering. The exercise attunes the inquiry to the way the elements of interest in the empirical setting have been produced, while helping to ensure that crucial aspects of the situation are not left out on account of preconceived ideas. In this way it serves to continually stress that what is being studied is an outcome. The operation thus involves having the researcher draw up a social machine consisting of diversified components which produces “…the results that your analysis indicates occurs routinely in the situation you have studied…[one should include] all the parts – all the social gears, cranks, belts, buttons, and other widgets – and all the specifications of materials and their qualities necessary to the desired result” (Becker, 1998, p. 39). Constructing such a machine has many of the same practical implications as applying the notion of the socio-technical agencement (STA) (e.g. Çalışkan & Callon, 2010) described later. But as will also be made clear, since the machine image can tend to point to the repetitive or reproductive elements in an empirical setting, an aspect highlighted in the notion of a STA which it sometimes captures less well is variation through connectedness. One technique to get at just these aspects involves conceiving of the empirical setting as an organism. As a general idea relevant for sensitizing the inquiry to paying attention to all the elements connected to the object of interest, the reference to ecology enables an appreciation of how the “…pieces of the system in question are connected in such a way that the output of each of the sub-processes that make it up provides one of the inputs for some other processes, which in turn take results from many other places and produce results that are inputs for still other processes, and so on” (Becker, 1998, p. 41).
A concrete exercise applicable when trying to stand back and respect the rules of the inquiry which is made clear in light of the biological imagery is turning actors
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into activities. In order to put established typologies on hold as part of the inquiry, the idea is to direct attention to outcomes and what is being done in order to avoid basing the analysis on the transmission of select types from other situations. Doing so implies working with the idea that actors tend to do either what they have to do or what they want to do, and that there is no reason to expect an actor to act consistently as situations change.
Having stated how Nord Pool has been approached through an empirical stance, pragmaticism, rules of research, and a series of related techniques, the methods for data generation can here be introduced. Following the section on data generation, the body of concepts most consistently drawn upon throughout the study is presented and the academic conversation in which the inquiry partakes is outlined.
Methods
Generating data in a way compatible with the empirical ambitions of the study has involved a number of qualitative methods. And while the choice of methods has been influenced by several aspects of the study such as access, time, and the available resources, one single factor has been given priority. To the greatest possible extent, studying the introduction and reconfiguration of Nord Pool in relation to wind power integration has been dictated by the empirical state of affairs and the making of data formats relevant for understanding them (Callon, 1991). This does not mean, however, that inquiry could not have been conducted differently. There is much to suggest that the combination of qualitative methods outlined below is highly relevant for inquiring into topics such as the role and functions of knowledge and expertise in electricity market design and maintenance. But it is also worth considering the fact that these topics of interest and lines of inquiry are themselves products of input such as ways of thinking and established research skills. Thus, it can be argued that it would be difficult to appreciate the crucial details of, for example, the role of knowledge and expertise in wind power integration as market design and maintenance by means of quantitative methods exclusively. But it is here prudent to recall that the endeavor would be hard because it has been made to be that way. Aspects of the inquiry such as research interests and the direction of curiosity also necessarily hinge on the research training and wider history preceding the initiation of the study.
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Before touching upon each of the main methods applied in the study, it should be noted that data generation has been an ongoing activity since the initiation of the inquiry in March 2012. However, most of this type of work has been conducted between November 2012 and December 2014. The choice to use a number of different methods was made in part in recognition of how some aspects of wind power integration through the introduction and reconfiguration of Nord Pool were more easily accessible in specific formats. But with reference to the rule of synthetic inference (Peirce, 1878b), this was also done to compare and encompass the various materials produced by the different methods. Doing so made it possible to corroborate and validate empirical results. And in this sense, inquiry has here built on the idea of triangulation (e.g. Kipping, Wadhwani, & Bucheli, 2014).