Information Cosmopolitics: An Actor-Network Theory Approach to Information Practices

172 Pages·2015·1.74 MB·English

by  Edin Tabak

Information Cosmopolitics
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Information Cosmopolitics
An Actor-Network Theory Approach to
Information Practices
Edin Tabak
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List of figures and tables
Figures
Figure3.1 Unionversusintersectionprojection 52
Figure3.2 Informationcosmopolitics:individualisation(cid:1)collectivisation 56
Figure4.1 Latour’scirculatorysystemofscientificfacts.Reprintedbypermission 68
ofthepublisherfromPANDORA’SHOPE:ESSAYSONTHE
REALITYOFSCIENCESTUDIESbyBrunoLatour,p.100,
Cambridge,Mass.:HarvardUniversityPress.Copyright©1999
bythePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege.
Figure6.1 Informationcosmopolitics:fourmoments 112
Figure7.1 Informationcosmopolitics:amodelofinformationpractices 122
Tables
Table6.1 Instancesofinformationpractices 113
About the author
Dr Edin Tabak is an EU Marie Curie Fellow at University of Zenica, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, working on the project Information Behaviour in Digital Humanities.
Before this, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Curtin University in Perth, Australia,
where he completed his PhD in 2012. His research interests include information
behaviour, social aspects of information system design, research management and
politicsofinformationpractices.Morerecently,hehasbeenexploringtheemerging
fieldofdigitalhumanitiesandpossibilitiestoaligntheinsightsfromtheresearchon
information practices to digital humanities projects. He was an author of several
publications in prestigious international journals such as Journal of Association for
Information Science and Technology, Journal of Library & Information Science
Research and British Journal of Sociology. He taught Internet Communities and
Social Networks in the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts at the Curtin
University and has published a textbook Information Behaviour at the University of
Zenica, where he has founded the courses on information behaviour and digital
humanities.HewasalsoactingasamemberandaChairofcommitteesinanumber
ofinternationalacademicconferences.
Foreword
It was with pleasure that I approached the writing of this foreword: Information
Cosmopolitics is an ambitious and innovative book. Simply described, Information
Cosmopolitics explores interaction between nationalist and information sharing prac-
tices in academic communities (specifically within a university in Bosnia; a region
thathasexperienceddramaticexpressionsofnationalistfervour)withaviewtounder-
standing the potential impacts of these interactions. However, this book is much more
thananempirical study;it is also a resounding critique of existing theoriesand meth-
ods as well as the launching point for the proposition of an alternate approach. The
authorchallengesdominantapproachesintheinformationbehaviour(IB)field,aswell
as questions existing theoretical approaches to nationalism and cosmopolitanism.
He suggests current approaches within nationalism and within IB studies fail to ade-
quately consider the breadth, extent and implications of participants’ practices and
thereforerevealaninaccurateorpartialpicture.
As analternative,the authorintroducesthe conceptofinformationcosmopolitics
as an approach for tracing information practices and enabling research participants
to perform their own narratives and positionings. The concept of cosmopolitics
developed by Isabelle Stengers, combined with a relational approach derived from
actor-network theory (ANT), is adopted into the formulation of a model and an
approach that understands information practices as ‘a continuous circulation of
negotiation (thus politics) between heterogeneous (human and nonhuman) actors in
the process of composing a common world (a cosmos), constantly redefined by the
circulation in which individual and collective exchange properties’. In this formula-
tion, context is not seen as a container for informationusersbutinstead asan effect
of the users’ own contextualisation. Nor is the individual conceptualised as an iso-
lated mind involved in making sense of the outside world. The author suggests that
instead of trying the ‘impossible task’ of revealing the social or cognitive forces
behind individual information practices, the focus of information studies should be
on tracing the continuous circulation of processes of individualisation and collecti-
visation through which users and context are provisionally constructed. Information
cosmopoliticsisoneapproachtodoingso.
The book employs ANT to sketch an alternative projection for the study of
nationalism and cosmopolitanism. The author claims thatthe positioning of theoret-
ical approaches to nationalism and cosmopolitanism research within a continuum
between particularism and universalism understandings generates a gap between
theory and practice as it forces researchers to adopt a prior position before any
empirical study is undertaken. He argues that these approaches understand a nation
or a cosmos as a union of its members, whereas ANT more usefully conceptualises
xii Foreword
it asanintersection. The‘union’projection presents anysocial group as‘something
that holds us together’; the ANT projection sees it as ‘something that is held
together’. Consequently, in the union projection, nation or cosmos is seen as a
stable entity despite frequent replacements of its parts as the unity and durability is
provided by the projection (union) itself. In contrast, the proposed alternative pro-
jection illuminatesthehard work thatnumerous andheterogenousactorsperformto
maintain unity and identity. It allows us to see why a nation or a cosmos has to be
constantly reinvented in order to maintain its identity as the imbrication of events,
actions and individuals (or more accurately, to use ANT terminology, actants)
forces the intersection to change its shape and size. The author argues that we
should focus on these processes of reinvention as they illuminate the means of con-
struction and reproduction of nation and cosmos (and in the process, reveal fragile
connections that provide an empirical traceability between individual actions and
theconstructionsitesofnationalismandcosmopolitanism).
These understandings emerge out of a rigorous analysis of existing literatures in
the IBandnationalism fieldsofresearch,and throughthe undertakingoffield work
with academics in Bosnia. The juxtaposition of a series ofnarrative episodes detail-
ing the various intersections of information sharing practises and nationalist or cos-
mopolitan understandings and actions, alongside an exploration of the evolving
modelofinformationcosmopoliticsisinsightful.Thisenablesthereadertoappreci-
ate the complexity and fluidity of information sharing behaviours and the ways in
which nationalism and associated understandings and practices (as one of many
influences)mightimpactuponthese.
The book thus presents a multidisciplinary study, and as such it will be of inter-
est to scholars working across wide range of fields, including information science,
politics and science communication. Since it heavily draws on theoretical insights
from science and technology studies, it will benefit the readership from this field as
well. However, the book will primarily appeal to the researchers and students in
library and information science, and it is particularly relevant to those working in
the IB field. The proposed approach and model of information practices provides
important theoretical and methodological contributions to this field. The concept of
information cosmopolitics is based on ANT, which enables accounting for a range
of heterogeneous actors involved in information practices. By extending agency to
non-humans and focusingon relations between entities rather than on entities them-
selves, information cosmopolitics offers an alternative to the user-centred and
context-centredapproachesthatdominateIBfield.
As you read this book, you may find that the book itself could be described as a
circulation of information cosmopolitics. It starts with the author’s personal reflec-
tionsoncosmopolitanlifeintheformerYugoslaviaduringthe1980sandhisbewil-
derment about the rise of an extreme nationalism among a large part of Yugoslav
academic community during the Balkan wars in 1990s. This perplexity is described
as the trigger for his project investigating the impact of nationalism on information
sharing practices amongst Bosnian academics.Theauthor utilised the ANT concep-
tual tools to‘de-scribe’ the field data into his concept ofinformation cosmopolitics.
These individual interpretations were attached to the context of information studies
Foreword xiii
and studies on nationalism and cosmopolitanism, resulting in a new model to trace
information practices and providing a sketch for an alternative projection to study
practices of nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Finally, the end of the book offers
propositions rather than conclusions. These do not provide certainty but instead
offer a provisional closure to the initial perplexity. In this way, the author inten-
tionally makes the limitations of his approach clearly visible, inviting us explicitly
towardsfurtherinquiries.Hearguesthatthecontributionsofthisbook(asanyother
book) depend on the perplexity it creates amongst readers, and through that process
‘generates interests to be attached to a different context’. I hope that Information
Cosmopoliticswillgeneratesuchinterestamongstitsreaders.
AssociateProfessorMicheleWillson
HeadoftheDepartmentofInternetStudies
CurtinUniversity,Perth,Australia
TheauthorofTechnicallyTogether:
RethinkingCommunitywithinTechno-Society
Acknowledgements
My first and most sincere acknowledgement go to Michele Willson, without whose
assistance and support this book would not have been possible. I would also like
to express my deep appreciation to Matthew Allen, Diane Sonnenwald and Jim
Underwood for their thoughtful and constructive suggestions on earlier versions of
the text. I wish to acknowledge the study participants, including all those who
wantedtoremainanonymous,fortheirwillingnesstosharetheirexperiences.Ican-
not name all of them here, but I am sure that Damir Kukic´, Radoslav Drasˇkovic´,
Goran Opacˇic´, Esad Delibasˇic´ and Enes Prasko will recognise their voices in this
book. I am grateful to the publisher Dr Glyn Jones for the opportunity to undertake
thisproject.SpecialthankstoGeorgeKnott,AcquisitionsEditor,forhisenthusiasm
for the project, and to Harriet Clayton, Editorial Project Manager, for her guidance
throughouttheproductionprocess.
Some of the material in Chapters 2 and 4 have previously been published as
Tabak, E. (2014), Jumping between users and context: A difficulty in tracing
information practices, Journal of the Association for Information Science and
Technology, 65(11), 2223(cid:1)32, and as Tabak, E. and Willson, M. (2012), A non-
linear model of information sharing practices in academic communities, Library &
Information Science Research, 34(2), 110(cid:1)16. Some parts of Chapters 2 and 3 will
appear as ‘Downloading plug-ins for nationalism and cosmopolitanism’ in a forth-
coming issue of British Journal of Sociology. I gratefully acknowledge permission
from Elsevier and John Wiley & Sons to reproduce the above material. I am also
grateful to Harvard University Press: Figure 4.1 is reprinted by permission of the
publisher from Pandora’s hope: essays on the reality of science studies by Bruno
Latour, p. 100, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1999 by
thePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege.