François Lambotte

From bricolage to thickness: making the most of the messiness of research narratives

Purpose – The research process is commonly viewed as a succession of linear, structured and planned practices that exclude informal and unplanned practices, engaging with the unexpected or the uncertain. The authors’ aim is to explore this aspect of researching in connection with the narratives of researchers as they oscillate between past and present, theory and empiricism. Design/methodology/approach – The authors first draw on the concept of “bricolage” to validate informal research practices as researchers seek to lend “thickness” to their research. To deal with the apparent “messiness” of research narratives, they apply the concepts of kairotic time and action nets. Kairotic times are key moments in research narratives when actions, under tension, interconnect to form action nets, which, in turn, generate meaning or knowledge. Findings – The authors analyse two research episodes. The first recounts how personal experiences and contingencies influence a researchers choice of research objects and his associated theoretical reflections. The second highlights how some concrete difficulties in choosing a field and gaining access trigger a set of actions that force a researcher to review his initial choices and to reposition himself methodologically. Discussing the concept of kairotic time, the authors show the importance of context and timing and demonstrate how stories build around a gravitational point. From there, they discuss how the concept of action nets, breaking linearity, helps to envision research practice not as a sequence, but as networks of actions that produce scientific outcomes. Originality/value – This paper provides an operational method of using kairotic time and action nets to account for, and acknowledge, the messiness in research narratives.

Making Social Media Activity Analytics Intelligible for Oneself and for Others: A “Boundary Object” Approach to Dashboard Design

Created in 2013, our laboratory works on the intelligibility of the activity of social media for others (e.a community animators) and for oneself (e.a member of the community) in a professional context. To bridge the gap between existing measures of activity, visualization of data and intelligibility of activity, we have set up a multidisciplinary team at the crossroads of these various players and knowledge. The goals of this team are to develop intelligible measures of the activity grouped together in a dashboard and to evaluate their contribution to the community’s dynamics. Inspired by the work of Star and Griesemer [16] on boundary objects and standardized methods, this paper aims to explain how we create, adapt and negotiate the current development of our dashboard’s prototype - conceived as a boundary object - sufficiently “robust” to achieve common objectives and “plastic enough” to meet the diverse interests of the different actors involved in the project.