Scientific and Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Policy | Textual Technologies: New Literary Forms and Reflexivity

A Possible Preface

The following text has recently come to light l. It dates from 1993 and, as far as can be inferred from its contents, was a putative contribution to a textbook on technical communications for engineers. As far as we know the book never appeared. The paper attempts an overview of 'new literary forms'. The term is more rarely invoked today, except in a historical sense: and, even at the time of writing, the author took a somewhat ambivalent stance towards its status as a genre. Nevertheless, the experimentation that the term denotes, and the theoretical motivations that inform it still have a considerable presence: in some respects, that presence is more widespread. It is therefore presented here with minor revisions.

Prologue: Some Moments from the Chapter's Prehistory

1.
'My second request is to ask if you could recommend someone - associated with the Discourse Analysis Workshops - willing to contribute a compatible piece providing an overview of New Literary Forms'. (from a letter, Jim Collier to Steve Woolgar, 18th August 1992)

2.
'I would suggest Geoff Cooper ... He points out to me, however, that if you wanted the piece written in (a) new literary form(s), he might wish to defer to someone who has already published in his vein.' (from an electronic mail message, Steve Woolgar to Jim Collier, 7th September, 1992)

3.
'I think it would be interesting to have the overview presented through the use of an NLF, but I will work that out with Dr. Cooper'. (from an electronic mail message, Jim Collier to Steve Woolgar, 15th Sept 1992)

4.
'The piece need not be presented in a New Literary Form' (from a letter, Jim Collier and David Toomey to the author, 22nd September 1992)

5.
'However, the relation between reflexivity and new literary forms can be formulated in different ways: and the critical issues that are raised by this flexibility form the focus of the chapter. Addressing this relation topicalises the question of whether this chapter itself can adequately describe the work in question without making use of this literary technology, if such it is.' (from an abstract for the chapter, sent to Jim Collier, November 1992)

6.
I haven't decided whether to do it in a new literary form.

You may as well. If you don't you'll only have to talk about why you're not doing it that way. (from a conversation with Malcolm Ashmore, 17th Feb 1993 2)

Introduction

This chapter attempts to give an overview of the use of 'new literary forms' in science and technology studies. It argues that the genre and its motivations have to be understood in relation to a concern with reflexivity. The latter, as we shall see, resists easy or singular definition; indeed it can be construed as explicitly problematising definitional work. However, in order to get things started, reflexivity can be provisionally characterised as an issue that arises when we address questions of representation: the statements that we make, or the knowledge that we construct about representational practice are themselves representations and thus implicated in what they describe.

Clearly, since representation is a crucial feature of scientific and technological practice, reflexivity can be seen as an important issue for those who study it. The use of 'new literary forms' can be thought of, in general terms, as an attempt to attend to the implications of reflexivity for one's own representational practice. But, as we shall see, it is important to describe the relation between reflexivity and new literary forms more precisely.

To attempt an 'overview' of this work immediately lands the would-be summariser in a reflexive dilemma about his or her own representational practice: for the mode of presentation chosen will be seen to entail the denial of or subscription to some of the claims made by those who write in 'new literary forms'. Can this work which places such store on moving beyond the strictures of the academic monologue be adequately summarised in conventional prose 3? Does the very notion of 'overview' do violence to the instability and flexibility which new literary forms attempt to preserve 4? In other words, the way in which this chapter is written will form a significant part of the arguments that it makes. In this respect it shares with the texts that it discusses the key objective of showing as well as describing. The modes of writing throughout the chapter can therefore be thought of as a way of testing the assertion that new literary forms are necessary for an adequate engagement with reflexivity; the relative success of different strategies adopted will then be available for evaluation at the end of the chapter.

We begin by briefly elaborating some of the senses of 'reflexivity' before moving on to look more specifically at new literary forms 5.

Reflexivity

'Reflexivity' cannot be described or defined as one entity; it is referenced in various domains and contexts, often in quite different senses. I do not intend to map out this diversity here, still less to try to reduce it to one central meaning. Rather, I will suggest that reflexivity can be understood, for our purposes, in terms of two, possibly three central dimensions, and that these can be seen to interact and shift in relative importance in some of the different usages of the term. A few examples are discussed in order to give an indication of the term's diverse meanings and the breadth of its application. The main concern here is with reflexivity as an issue for SSK 6. However, it is the author's contention that too often, discussion of reflexivity within this field has been hampered by a certain insularity and narrowness of focus; and that placing reflexivity in a wider cultural context can recast and clarify the significance of some recurrent questions and their terms of reference.

Dimension 1: 'reflexivity' refers to those aspects of representation - intended here to include a spectrum from everyday language to more formal bodies of knowledge - which involve some degree of self-reference or self-implication. (Structural reflexivity).

Dimension 2: 'reflexivity' refers to the capacity for awareness and reflection. In many instances, but not in all, this reflection might be directed towards, or occasioned by the self-implication described in dimension 1. (Cognitive reflexivity).

The shifting inter-relation of these dimensions in different usages is complex. In SSK advocates of reflexivity tend to see the second dimension as weaker and less interesting than the first; for whereas self-implication has the capacity to generate paradoxes and instabilities within texts, reflection is seen to suggest something altogether less exhilarating and disruptive 7. But it is important to realise that this second sense is also crucial for their work, and in particular, for their attempts to find new forms of writing which can embody, sustain and explore these instabilities. For whereas dimension 1 describes a structural aspect of representation, the use of new literary forms derives from the reflection upon, and recognition of this first dimension. After all, structural reflexivity can be acknowledged but ignored in practice 8, or dealt with in different ways (Latour 1988): the strategy of (attempting to) highlight structural reflexivity within a text implies a commitment to reflecting upon it as a part of one's representational practice 9.

A third dimension can be tentatively offered.

Dimension 3: 'reflexivity' refers to the inseparability of representation and represented. This implies, for example, a rejection of the idea that the observation and description of phenomena can be seen as detached from those phenomena. (Embedded reflexivity).

Embedded reflexivity itself admits of a range of emphases, from the need to take into account some version of the 'context of representation 10, to the assertion that representations constitute or create the objects that they describe (Woolgar 88b). The latter point resonates with a number of contemporary approaches to representation within the humanities and social sciences; while within SSK it can be placed at the extreme end of the relativism/realism axis. It should not be seen as a separate and distinct thread from structural and/or cognitive reflexivity. They are all rather to be interpreted as differences of emphasis. For example, embedded reflexivity can itself differentially be seen in structural or cognitive terms: in the latter case the stress would fall on the observer's reflection upon his or her degree of engagement in the phenomena of interest.

It is easy to see that, whilst these different strands of meaning are closely inter-related, they allow for a wide range of usages. Let us briefly consider a few. Reflexivity has been considered a defining feature of modernity in at least two distinct senses. Lawson (1985) considers it to be the central problem of modern philosophy, given that the recognition of the constitutive quality of language (3) gives rise to problems of self-reference (1). In the work of Beck and Giddens however, reflexive modernity refers to the capacity of citizens to reflect upon, monitor and critique their political and social environment (2) (see for example Beck et al, 1994). Interestingly, this capacity for reflection may be conceptualised as deriving from the achievement of (cognitive) detachment from structural constraints. In other words, reflection may imply the very opposite of embedded reflexivity; and indeed this tension may be seen in the problems associated with 'meta-reflexivity', to use Latour's term (1988), within SSK (see section 7).

By contrast, many other uses of the term stress the embedded character of reflexivity. In ethnomethodology for example, reflexivity refers to the relation of accounts to the settings and contexts in which they are located, and which they describe: in Garfinkel's terms, they are 'constituent features of the settings they make observable (Garfinkel, 1968: 8). This has a number of methodological consequences for social science which I cannot pursue here; but we can note that its significance is not restricted to the ways in which the social scientist would treat and interpret his or her materials where the latter is considered as 'data'. The presence and interpretative work of the social scientist would itself be part of the setting being reported, and subject to the implications of embedded reflexivity. We can note here three approaches which entail different responses to this methodological issue, all of which entail reflection upon the significance of the observer's presence as a way of improving the quality of the social scientist's account. Hammersley and Atkinson (1983) recommend reflexivity as a methodological device for avoiding positivism and naturalism in ethnographic studies. Work within feminist ethnography suggests that the gendered experience of the ethnographer in the field should be considered an important source of insight and part of the materials under study (see for example Callaway, 1992). For Bourdieu (1990) the scientific status of the sociological or anthropological account can be buttressed by making the act of observation part of the phenomena of interest; in particular, the institutional constraints and structures of the observer's world are brought into focus.

Within the social sciences then, reflexivity arises both as a feature of modernity, and as a problem for method (to be solved by reflection). Before considering the question of reflexivity outside the social sciences, it can be suggested that reflexivity emerges as a issues of particular pertinence for certain disciplines and sub-disciplines. For any body of work which takes as its central problematic language, representation or knowledge, reflexivity will be of potential importance, even if responses to it within those fields might range from celebration, through management, to dismissal or silence. SSK is a conspicuous example here, but reflexivity is not, as some of its debates seem to assume, its exclusive property. For example, as Weber (1982) points out, psychoanalysis - a rational discourse upon irrationality - can be seen as a discipline which has attempted to repress unavoidable reflexive questions (in a markedly reflexive manner) 11 . Similarly, recent currents in literary theory and philosophy, such as deconstruction, which stress the constitutive character of textuality can be seen in part as responding to reflexive issues.

If the above remarks construe reflexivity as an issue for the social sciences and humanities, we should nevertheless treat claims that that it is not an issue for the natural sciences with considerable caution. Woolgar (1988a) for example suggests that the natural sciences would acknowledge reflexivity as a 'problem' 'only if it was granted that electrons (like physicists) had belief systems, their own theories of interaction and so on' (ibid: 23). However, the validity of this assertion would appear to rest on the prioritising and generalising of what I have called 'cognitive reflexivity' l2. Bartlett (1987) points to a number of reflexive aspects in the natural sciences and mathematics which derive from structural or embedded dimensions: for example, proof-theoretical reflexivity in Cantor and Godel, reflexivity in topology, chronology, quantum mechanics and biology l3.

Self-consciously reflexive work within SSK can therefore be seen as having both differences and similarities with features of this heterogeneous collection of approaches; moreover, these will perhaps differ depending on whether we take its claims at face value or choose to read its texts more critically. But we can point to two emphases which, whilst not exclusive to avowedly reflexive work within SSK, play a large part in shaping its identity. Firstly, in contrast to more overtly 'humanist' approaches, the symmetries that concern it are at the level of textual representation: that is, symmetries that arise in description rather than in the embodied presence of the observer l4.

Secondly, and closely related to the first point, it is committed to exploring rather than controlling the effects of reflexivity. Indeed, the development of 'new literary forms' is precisely an attempt to go beyond that form of response to reflexivity which amounts to qualifying one's claims and carrying on as before; rather, a form of textuality is sought in which the paradoxes and instabilities of reflexivity can be both sustained and examined.

The Rationale for New Literary Forms

Woolgar is usually credited with the first reference to the need for new literary forms in SSK: 'we need to explore forms of literary expression whereby the monster can be simultaneously kept at bay and allowed a position at the heart of our enterprise' (Woolgar, 1982: 489), where the 'the enterprise' is the ethnography of science, 'the monster' is reflexivity, and 'we' is a rhetorically constructed community of uncertain scope and status l5. Of course, as its advocates are happy to acknowledge, the attribute 'new' (noticeably absent from Woolgar's much cited original account) only has validity within this particular field. Other fields have experimented with textual forms as a response to, and as a part of, their own critiques of referential discourse; for example, work within deconstruction (see for example Ronell, 1989; Derrida: 1986), and notably those parts of 20th century literature that can be read as a 'revolt' against realist aesthetics (see Nash, 1987). Reflexive SSK has in some cases borrowed from the latter.

As I have already noted, the rationale for new literary forms is to facilitate the exploration and even celebration of aspects of reflexivity. In particular, the emphasis placed on the social construction of knowledge and the multiplicity of possible accounts that can be given of phenomena within SSK is seen as necessitating a different form of writing from the more orthodox realist and monologic (single-voiced) form of (social) scientific texts. As Mulkay puts it, he saw a need to 'devise a new kind of sociological language that could give expression to the conception of knowledge provided by SSK' (Mulkay, 1991a: xvii). A key strategy here has been the introduction of more than one voice into the text ...

But if Mulkay's saying that he had to devise a new language in order more adequately to represent a particular conception of what he is studying, what's so radical about that? In fact it's difficult to imagine a more realist statement isn't it?

Well you might be right 16. Or you might just be a token example of how the use of a different voice can be used to introduce instabilities into texts. And it would certainly be wrong to assume that new literary forms are just a means of putting more than one side of an argument; different voices are part of it. The belief seems to be that 'whereas traditional, monologic texts were designed to hide their own textuality, that is, their own artful use of language to give meaning to the world, these other forms reveal and celebrate that textuality' (Mulkay, l991a: xviii).

Designed to hide their own textuality? You must be kidding. Designed by whom? What is this, the conspiracy theory of scientific realism?

(etc)

Other claims can, have and might be made for new literary forms besides the celebration of heterogeneity, the introduction of instability and the foregrounding of the processes of textual construction. But I wish to draw attention here to just one further feature of new literary forms which is, if not always explicitly claimed, a common motivation behind many of these texts. This can be explained in terms of a distinction between what a text says and what it shows l7. That is to say, the form of the text can be made to contribute to the points being made, either supporting or contradicting what is being ostensibly claimed. In this way, as Lawson puts it 'the move of reflexivity allows the text to indicate in the shift of meaning that there is something beyond what is merely said' (Lawson, 1985: 113).

Let us move on to look at some examples of new literary forms. But let us (writer and readers) bear in mind two important provisos. Firstly, the boundaries of new literary forms are not given, and indeed the entity itself is something of a construct. I have chosen to concentrate mainly on work by authors who have characterised themselves in these terms; but attempts to define the essence and limits of this work would raise further interesting analytic issues which there is insufficient space to go into here. To give just one example, if new literary forms can be seen in part as a necessary move beyond orthodox forms, we would want to know what constituted orthodoxy in particular settings: a dialogue would be less dramatic in a collection of interviews with sociologists than in a scientific journal.

Secondly, the extent to which new literary forms constitute a technology, a set of techniques for the achievement of reflexive effects should be, and will be, and indeed is being, critically questioned.

New Literary Forms -- A User's Manual

Here is a selection of new literary techniques which you may find useful for achieving reflexive effects. Note that not all of the items in this selection are mutually exclusive nor even distinct from each other.

Asymmetric lists

'Asymmetric' here means simply that not all of the items in the list are mutually exclusive or even distinct from each other. The form probably originates in Borges' fictional Chinese encyclopedia (cited in Foucault 1970: xv), but the classic instance of it in SSK is Ashmore's encyclopedia of reflexivity (1989: ch 2). To get a flavour of the effects of asymmetry, compile a list, include a number of overlapping categories, and make at least some entries refer to each other, and some refer to themselves.

Dialogue

This has been the pre-eminent method of introducing different voices into SSK texts. There are variations in format, but the basic style is not dissimilar to the representation of dialogue in novels. Here is an example of the introduction of dialogue into a text:

'At the same time, other contributors recognise and comment upon some of the difficulties associated with this development ... EXCUSE ME, CAN I ASK SOMETHING HERE? Oh, not you again. What is it?' (Woolgar and Ashmore, 1988: 2)

Notice here that the introduction of different 'voices' into the text - a central rationale in many accounts - is taken in a particularly literal sense: dialogues involve the simulation of spoken conversation, and are frequently 'chatty' in a way which can be irritating to many l8.

Plays

(curtain rises)

Author: Apparently an extension of 'dialogues', which allows more than two voices to be heard, even though Mulkay's 'The scientist talks back: a one-act play' (Mulkay, 1984) was one of the first actual uses of new literary forms.

Referee: Perhaps you should mention some other examples of overtly 'dramatic' formats, such as Ashmore (1989: ch 7).

Editor: Good idea.

(exeunt)

Parallel texts and happenings

Monologic texts, dialogues and conventional play formats share the catastrophically unreflexive limitation that only one 'voice' can be read or heard at the same time .

Parallel texts, by contrast, enable the simultaneous display of different arguments, whether conflicting or harmonious. (Derrida, 1986, Ashmore, 1989)

Parallel texts find their dramatic analogue in Case's (1992) conception and use of 'happenings' in which an at times anarchic cacophony of overlapping voices is created. (To appreciate the effect, attendance at a live performance is necessary).

Giving voices to unlikely entities

Monologic texts, dialogues, plays, parallel texts and happenings - however - can all too easily accept the somewhat staid assumption that 'voices' be associated with living human agents. Some recent work has rectified this lack of epistemological nerve (cf Collins and Yearley, 1992) by giving voices to other entities such as dead scientists (Ashmore 1993), dolphins (Mulkay, 1991a) embryos in the womb (Mulkay 1991b), and the text itself (in debates with the author and other voices) (Low 1992) 19.

Reflexive footnoting 20

The book review ''Scientific and Technical Communication is Theory, Practice and Policy' contains a particularly pretentious piece on 'new literary forms' which, despite its claim to be a critical review of this body of work quickly degenerates into pastiche .. ". Pioneered by Ashmore et al (1989).

Backstage/frontstage

A useful technique popularised by Ashmore (1989) and Woolgar (1989; 1992), in which some of the interaction and communication that precedes the writing of the paper is referred to in order to underline the social processes at work in the construction of the text: eg communications with editors, referees etc (see also Cooper 1997) 21.

Fiction

What characterises many of these experiments is their use of explicitly fictional forms of writing. This aspect of these new literary forms implies a critique of the distinction between the fictional and the factual; a distinction which constitutes the most basic interpretative prop for the production of scholarly/scientific (nonfiction) discourse.

Quotation

Similarly, the distinction between author and other can he deconstructed by inserting into one's text, and thereby recontextualising, fragments from other sources. An example of this is the previous entry, extracted from Ashmore's encyclopedia of reflexivity (1989: 66) which parts of this section resemble. The question arises whether this resemblance qualifies the section as a genuine member of the class 'new literary forms', or whether it disqualifies it on the grounds of lack of novelty? Hope is at hand however, for this may well be construed as an example of a ...

Paradox

To achieve a really authentic 'new literary forms' effect, paradoxes are essential. Regardless of the risk of banality, they should be pursued, indicated and discussed as relentlessly as possible.

Irony

Indispensable part of the new literary formalist's repertoire, but easily overdone: use sparingly 22.

Wit

If possible.

Self-reference

Mandatory. Sprinkle liberally throughout.

Narcissism and navel-gazing

See next section, 'Debates'.

Ordinary prose

In certain settings, the decision to avoid experimentation with the form of the text can make a reflexive point; for example, it may represent an assertion (or the testing of an assertion) that such experimentation is unnecessary for the adequate discussion of reflexivity. As such, it attempts both to show and to describe, and therefore meets a central criterion for new literary forms. See Cooper (1997) for an example and a discussion of this phenomenon; see also the concluding section of Pinch and Pinch (1988) 23.

Ordinary prose

There is, of course, no such thing (see 'fiction' above).

Debates

It is fair to say that the use of new literary forms has not won universal admiration within SSK. In this section I consider some of the problems associated with, and criticisms of, this body of work. I suggest that an informed evaluation should avoid conflating reflexivity and new literary forms in the way that some critics have done, especially given, as noted in section four, the enormous breadth of approaches and concerns that the former can signify. An awareness of this breadth helps to mitigate against the assumption that the effective criticism of particular techniques would amount to a demolition of the validity of reflexivity as an intellectual issue. Let us begin by looking at some of the issues that relate more to the mode of writing.

Firstly, there is the problem of the alienating effects of some of these stylistic innovations. There is little doubt that many readers find them off-putting (see for example Wynne 1986, Pinch and Pinch 1988). The relation that these texts set up with their readers seems to be the heart of the problem here. Latour, in the most sophisticated criticism to date, points to one aspect of this, the existence of 'a very naive set of beliefs in the naive beliefs of readers' (1988: 168): that is, the assumption that unless attention is drawn to the constructed character of the text, to the contingency of its claims and so forth, then there is a danger of the reader being taken in. The reader must be protected. This can constitute an almost patronising stance towards the reader, and the effect may be exacerbated by the continual need for the text to refer back to, and attend to itself. Whether or not this is perceived as narcissism, the reader can be reduced to the role of bystander while the different voices chat amongst themselves, and the deconstructive work is done for him or her.

The paradox here is that much of this work makes the acts of reading and interpretation topics in a way that much writing does not 24. Yet there is a sense in which it has only the vaguest conception of who the audience for this work would be. At its worst, its authors give the impression that they are writing for their own elite community of cognoscenti, from which the reader is excluded 25.

A further criticism that relates specifically to new literary forms, though it is taken as having a wider significance by some (for example Collins and Yearley, 1992) concerns what one might call the political claims that are sometimes made for the genre. The issue is whether bringing in different voices involves a form of epistemological modesty whereby the sociologist, or more generally the writer, refuses to adopt the traditional privileged position of authority within the text. Pinch and Pinch (1988) and Collins and Yearley (1992) have both pointed out that dialogue can be used to simulate plurality while the argument remains in the control of the author.

Gosh. But seriously, who would want to argue with that?

No-one. On the other hand, there may be a case for saying that some new literary formalists overstate the case for the anti-authoritarian and liberal potential of the form 26. But most would be uneasy about the technological determinism of both positions, if we take writing as a technology 27.

This leads us to some criticisms which also involve questions about reflexivity more generally, and which therefore avoid this restrictive isolated focus on the technology. Of course there are many who see reflexivity a needless distraction from the real business of empirical research. This is not the place to argue this particular issue in depth, the primary concern being new literary forms, but since they are so often seen as equivalent I will briefly note a problem with one recurrent charge. Collins and Yearley's central point (1992), is that reflexivity (which includes new literary forms) 'leads nowhere' (ibid: 305) and should therefore be abandoned. The assertion points to a potentially complex area of debate: I would want to begin by asserting rather that reflexivity 'leads somewhere else' 28 But my main dispute is with the conception of reflexivity that underlies the remark (and the same point could be made in relation to relativism): that is, reflexivity is assumed to be, or formulated as a matter of (mere) academic preference. On this account its 'usefulness' can be assessed, and it can be adopted or discarded accordingly. However this neglects the possibility, suggested in section four, that reflexivity may be an unavoidable feature of modernity, of contemporary culture. To construe it as simply a matter of epistemological style is to misunderstand the way in which academic matters are embedded within wider cultural fields.

If this line of argument is followed through, the more interesting questions arise as matters of response and strategy towards reflexivity. I will mention two. Firstly, Latour's point. Latour (1988) accepts the validity of reflexivity as a phenomenon, but sees new literary forms as a misguided response to it, a response which he subsumes under the category of meta-reflexivity. Meta-reflexivity entails the attempt for a text to separate from and comment upon itself, to aspire to a meta-level, to escape 'the semiotic turn'. This, it is said, cannot be done 29. Rather one should accept that a story is just a story, and adopt an infra-reflexive strategy: that is, use rhetorical tricks and devices (such as realism) to persuade readers in the same way that, for example, scientific texts have been shown to do. On this account, to explore reflexivity within the text is essentially pointless, in the sense that it attempts the impossible 30.

Secondly, two different articles have made a similar point about the individualism which is implicit in this form of writing. Beer and Martins (1990) commenting on Ashmore (1989) suggest that such work may be a form of 'hyperindividualism'; and that this lies at the opposite end of the spectrum from the co-operative nature of scientific activity which it studies 31. They suggest that this may be both empowering and reductive. Collins (1990) brings out the implications of this: for if reflexivity in SSK is seen to arise in respect of the symmetry between scientific and social scientific representation, then the assertion that texts should in some way engage in reflexivity depends on the individual, and the individual text being taken as the relevant unit. However, if reflexivity is considered to be an issue for a (scientific) community, then the need to 'be reflexive' as we report on empirical matters disappears. Reflexivity can be achieved at the communal level.

If these two criticisms are telling ones, we should he aware of the limits of their scope. Latour's point is aimed primarily at the attempt, which he imputes to meta-reflexivists, to achieve 'truer texts'; but this imputation is contentious, and it certainly does not represent the totality of what new literary formalists set out to do. The point about individualism, similarly, suggests that experimental reflexive texts are not a necessary response to issues of symmetry; but it does not imply that they are not a valid response, albeit one among many. All that is removed is the idea of compulsion.

Conclusion

So there we have it. Hopefully, readers now have a clearer idea of what new literary forms are, how to use them, and why they might want to use them. However, bearing in mind the reservations expressed in section seven about the alienating effects of this genre, they might be edgy that this slightly more informal tone, coupled with an explicit reference to 'readers', means that the text is about to fall back into another embarrassing dialogue. This is not the case (yet). The author's personal conviction is that, for those studying science and technology and indeed for a whole range of intellectual work today, thinking through the implications of reflexivity for one's own practice is invaluable, and that attempts to engage in new forms of writing represent an important attempt to do this. This is not to say that there are not problems to be dealt with. Perhaps the challenge is to give more thought to the reader's position in this enterprise, and to develop modes of writing with this in mind.

I suggested at the outset that a key issue for this text was whether this work could be adequately reviewed without recourse to literary experimentation. In other words, what is the relationship between new literary forms and reflexivity? It seems to me that there are two key formulations here. The first takes new literary forms as techniques which can be applied, and which of themselves achieve reflexive effects. The second is to insist that reflexivity cannot be discussed without experimenting with the form of the argument. The first is a species of technological determinism, and I have attempted to be critical of it in different ways throughout the paper. The second is more difficult to assess: part of the rationale for the form that this paper has taken was to see how far experimentation was necessary to do justice to the arguments.

And what's the result? Do you need to use these forms?

Well, of course, it's not that simple. For one thing, if we follow the findings of SSK, the success or otherwise of an experiment is a matter for social negotiation (Collins, 1975) 32. So in this case, the 'success' or otherwise of different parts of the paper are not a matter for the judgement of the author. But of course the issue here goes beyond this, for the idea that this text could serve as some sort of test case should probably be seen more as a rhetorical device for introducing the issues.

How can you say that? You set up the adequacy of different forms of representation as the key issue for the chapter.

And so it has been. Hopefully the form(s) adopted have brought into focus a number of important issues. For one thing, it attempts to deconstruct the idea that the 'voice' behind the text can be unproblematically taken as belonging to the author. This is not the same as simply adding more voices, each expressing different points of view: rather, it's a matter of trying to show how different genres and conventions of authorship are behind texts (cf Foucault, 1977). Perhaps this is a way of beginning to deconstruct the simplistic distinction between 'new literary forms' and orthodox academic prose; after all, the latter is itself subject to a whole range of conventions. And if this line of argument is followed through, it might mitigate against the reification of techniques, and the confusion of technique with forms of knowledge.

So, after all this, aren't you in effect saying that the way things are written is irrelevant?

No, this is not an idealist argument for the irrelevance of techniques and technologies of representation to knowledge: it's an argument against the degeneration of technique into formula. Certain writers begin experimenting with some textual forms which have been comparatively little used within their field; this has the potential to draw attention to a range of questions about reflexivity, textuality, genres, conventions of authorship and so forth. The problem is that such experimentation can in turn come be seen as a delimited and definable genre in its own right, and thus reincorporated into the stable set of assumptions that it set out to disrupt 33. The further move can then be made of reducing the diversity of issues that are, or could be, raised about representation to questions about the adequacy of this constructed genre'.

So in response to the original question about the adequacy of, and necessity for new literary forms, you would want to say that a reformulation of the question could stand as an answer?

Who, me?

Acknowledgments:
Thanks to Steve Woolgar for encouragement and constructive comments.

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Notes

1 cf Mulkay (1991a), chapter 14.

2 As approximately recalled by the author.

3 Some of its advocates have provided monologic rationales for the use of new literary forms: see for example Mulkay ( 1991 a: preface); Woolgar ( 1988a).

4 lt. should be noted here that much of the work discussed in this chapter can be read precisely in terms of the aspiration to an overview: on this point see in particular Latour (1988) discussed in section 7.

5 In so doing. is an implicit claim being made that knowledge can be discussed independently of and prior to consideration of questions about its representation?

6 Ashmore's encyclopedia of reflexivity (Ashmore 1989 ch 2) gives the most comprehensive review of this diversity.

7 See for example Woolgar's distinction between reflection and reflexion (1988a) and Ashmore (1989: ch 2).

8 Collins takes this position: cited in Ashmore (1989: ch 4).

9 Derrida (1991) shows that for all the grandiose claims of continental theory about moving beyond subjectivity/cognition such a move would be extremely hard to accomplish. Indeed one way of reading his work is in terms of the complex interaction of structure and subjectivity/cognition.

10 But see Cooper (1991).

11 '... can psychoanalytic thinking itself escape the effects of what it tries to think? Weber (1982: xvi).

12 Denigration of mere 'reflection' notwithstanding: see note 7.

13 See also Hofstadter (1980) on recursion in computer science mathematics music and art; and a range of disciplines represented in Steier (1992).

14 This statement is somewhat contentious in its generality and an adequate treatment of the issue would require lengthy discussion. There are certainly exceptions for example Low (1991) and Law (1994). The interesting issue to be explored here is the question of the identity or difference of the researcher in the field with respect to the author in the text: this chapter should shed some light on why one might wish to support the apparently bizarre assertion that they be thought of as separate entities.

15 As will he argued later. the audience has a problematic status in some of this work.

16 See Latour (1988) on the fallacy of truer texts discussed in section 7.

17 Antecedents for this can be found in the work of both Wittgenstein and Derrida to name but two: see respectively. Janik and Toulmin (1973). and Lawson (1985) for discussion.

18 A number of variations are possible here: see for example Wynne's (1988) reflection on her own analytic practice Latour's (1989) highly formal debate. Woolgar's (1993) staging of an imaginary argument between two of his critics. Cooper and Woolgar's (1996) dramatisation of tensions between different positions in contemporary research practice and Derrida's (1995) simulated interview.

19 There are some parallels here with work in actor-network theory: see for example Callon (1986). Some dialogues attempt to avoid the assignation of voices to any (stable) identities: see for example parts of Ashmore (1989) and Woolgar and Ashmore ( 1988).

20 This should not be confused with the use of footnotes to supply methodological correctives (Woolgar 1988a) to claims made in the main text. Rather, the footnotes capacity for self-reference should be exploited. A good example of this is Woolgar (1989: note 7); see also Cooper (1997: note 19).

21 Not to be confused with an apparently similar device in the acknowledgments of conventional academic papers.

22 More specifically, be sure to use the right kind of irony - reflexive not instrumental (Woolgar. 1983).

23 But cf the opening sections of Pinch and Pinch (1988).

24 See for example Mulkay (1985: preface).

25 In particular. the structure of the most important collection of this writing (Woolgar. 1988c) gives this unfortunate impression.

26 In my view Mulkay sometimes does this.

27 Perhaps the further point that has been insufficiently discussed is whether the insertion of different voices can be read as an abdication of authorial responsibility: for instance as a refusal to assert unequivocally without recourse to contradiction, paradox and qualification.

28 Indeed Lyotard s concept of paralogy can be read as suggesting that reflexivity is part of the key dynamic behind the generation of new research paradigms (Lyotard 1984). Woolgar's claims for iterative reconceptualisation are in some ways similar: see for example Woolgar (1992).

29 Nash makes a similar assertion with regard to literary texts: Self-reflexivity for instance can only make a fool of itself - as writers are often now aware and as the topos of infinite regress shows - since for a text properly to demonstrate to point to itself it must stand outside itself and this no text could accomplish however much it wished . (1987: 241-242). It would also appear that the recourse to a meta-level might be in conflict with claims for the liberalism of these texts.

30 Interestingly however Latour (1992) is full of the textual experimentation of the sort that he here questions.

31 It may be that this tension is manifested in other ways within such work: for whereas the assertion of reflexivity's importance within SSK entails a claim about the symmetry between science and social science insofar as both are representational justifications for textual experimentation can be formulated in terms of the need to escape the empiricist constraints of scientific representation.

32 The crucial aspect of social negotiation here may turn out to be reader/writer relations.

33 It might reasonably be argued that both advocates and critics share some of the responsibility for this.

Textual Technologies:
New Literary Forms and Reflexivity

Book Contents

Chapter 16: Textual Technologies