Neuroses, Talents, Habits: Tim Schütz

Do you have more trouble articulating your frame (social theoretical questions) or object?I usually have more trouble articulating the object and like researching for social theoretical frameworks. I have to remind myself though that there are so many possibilities and not get stuck with one. An example I often return to comes from a course on drug use as a social problem in liberal societies. I learned to approached the same issue through the perspectives of four different lenses: the cultural history of drugs, governance and statistical knowledge produced by entities like the EU, or enacted through care on-the-ground, be it academics or social workers. Do you tend to project-hop or to stick to a project, and what explains this?I tend to stick to one particular project, worried that a frequent change will lead to superficial work and missing the internal dynamics (see next question).Do you tend to be more interested in internal dynamics, or external determinations? In the terms laid out by Keller, do you tend to focus so intently on the object of your concern that context falls away (i.e. are you obsessive compulsive, rather than paranoid)? Is your desire is to name, specify and control your object? Is your desire is for figure, its ground your annoyance? Or are you paranoid, context being your focus and obsession? All is signal. Only begrudgingly will you admit that something is noise, outside the scope of your project? Figure is hard to come by. Its ground has captured your attention.I tend towards naming, specifying and controlling, so rather on the obsessive end of the spectrum. In the past, approaches such as Susan Star’s writing on the ethnography of infrastructures have helped me to think more in terms of situated practices, relations, and creatively engage the inversions of figure and ground.What do you do with unusual or counter examples? Are you drawn to “the deviant,” or rather repulsed by it?I first thought that I am repulsed by counter examples, but then realized that I should rather use them to expand/challenge theories that I find interesting. It is kind of built into proposals, as the need to demonstrate the value of my research by covering yet another unconsidered niche,Do you tend to over-impose logics on the world, or to resist the construction of coherent narrativesI definitely tend to over-impose logics on the world and use theory in schematic ways to get thinking. Partly, I think that is due to the writing format that I am used to, which are short papers that are (maybe) less geared towards polyphony, juxtaposition, composition, and fragments.Do you tend to over-generalize, or to hold back from overarching argument?I guess I tend towards over-generalizing. Do you like to read interpretations different than your own, or do you tend to feel scooped or intimidated by them?I really like reading different interpretations and critical takes on, e.g. the same article or book. However if it’s my about own interpretation vis-a-vis, another one, I can definitely feel intimidated. I had to look up the term scooped, and could relate to the anxiety of stumbling across someone else’s similar work while I considered mine original. I am learning that the experience of being scooped is more a quality indicator for the relevance of one’s own work, since it is obviously of interest to other people.Do you tend to change an argument as you flesh it out, or do you tend to make the argument work, no matter what?I think I tend to make the argument work, no matter what. Probably that’s an artifact from relying on hypothesis-driven thinking. On the other hand, I don’t have much experience when it comes to more long-lasting research, where I am supposed to adapt my research question over time.Do you tend to think in terms of “this is kind of like” (metaphorically)? Do you hold to examples that “say it all,” leveraging metonymic thinking?Yes, I definitely try to use metaphors to explain things, but I am often worried they are too superificial.Do you like gaming understanding in this way? Does it frustrate you that your answers often don’t fit easily on either side of the binaries set up by the questions? (Jakobson suggests that over attachment to a simple binary scheme is a “continuity disorder.”?Yes, I can get frustrated by binaries and try to game the structure by coming up with compromises, third ways, hybrids …