On Making Data Social: Heterogeneity in Sociological Practice

Abstract

This article is concerned with how we might go about theorizing the roles of nonhumans (technologies, animals, etc.), and their associations with humans, in the production of ‘social data’. Drawing on recent sociological work on heterogeneity, the article explores how nonhumans contribute to the emergence of both the ‘microsocial’ and ‘macrosocial’ as complex patterns of ordering and disordering. These patterns are exemplified with reference to a ‘disastrous interview episode’. With the aid of such concepts as parasite, preposition and co(a)gent, the disastrous interview episode is interpreted in three ways to show how nonhumans must be disciplined in order to allow the emergence of social data; how nonhumans’ ‘misbehaviour’ can be understood in terms of their ‘hybridic’ associations with humans; and how the interaction between hybrids mediates such macro entities as universities and corporations. Finally, in conclusion, some of the broader implications of this analysis for sociological practice are considered.