Ethnographies of Higher Education and Modes of Existence: Using Latour’s Philosophical Anthropology to Construct Faithful Accounts of Higher Education Practice

Abstract

Bruno Latour, one of the architects of actor-network theory, has now enfolded this approach within a larger project, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence – AIME. Framed as an empirical inquiry into the ontological and epistemological conditions of modernity, Latour argues for a radical shift in how “objective truth,” “scientific fact,” and “meaning” are established within the world. In this chapter, I draw on several elements of AIME to illustrate how Latour’s ontology, building on, augmenting and responding to criticisms of actor-network theory, can be used to explore higher education, focussing on one episode derived from a larger ethnography of medical education.

Citation

Tummons, J. (2019), "Ethnographies of Higher Education and Modes of Existence: Using Latour’s Philosophical Anthropology to Construct Faithful Accounts of Higher Education Practice", Theory and Method in Higher Education Research (Theory and Method in Higher Education Research, Vol. 5), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 207-223. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2056-375220190000005013