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Other Words: Stories from the Social Studies of
Science, Technology, and MedicinebyAnnemarie Mol
This article is part of the seriesThe Politics of Ontology
The term ontologyis sexy. These days, in parts of anthropology,
it seems
able to promise the possibility of escape, of running ahead, of
allowing
academic work to take a rolling avant-garderun. Ontology becomes
a
term by which to relate the beauties and pains of diferingto
that other
magic word,politics. By all means, if it inspires you, run with
it. But allow
me to tell you some stories.
Story Number One
For a long time, while anthropologists went out (from Cambridge
or iode !aneiro" into the rest of the world to study #other
cultures,$ %ature
stayed behind in the laboratory (in &an 'iego, ene)a,
*ondon" where it
was studied by natural scientists. +owe)er, at the )ery moment
that
anthropologists who had gone #elsewhere$ were nding that the
Others
did not necessarily ha)e #cultures$ (or #natures$", natural
science
laboratories got in)aded by their own brand of ethnographers.
-nd by
the time we learned that some Others li)e within many natures
rather
than the singular %ature of the natural sciences, the
lab/ethnographers
emerged from the lab to say that what went on there had little
to do with
nding facts about %ature after all. 0nstead, it was about
such
specicities as purifying ferric chloride, measuring blood le)els
of
thyrotrophin/releasing hormone, or hunting 1uarks. +ence, a
)ariety of
great di)ides (between scientists and primiti)es2 the 3est and
the est2
culture and nature2 facts and ction" got more or less
simultaneously
messed with in )arious ways. The overallpicture of how
ethnographic
studies of Others and ethnographic studies of laboratories
relate was
ne)er 1uite drawn. Their )arious plots do not t within a single
scheme.There is no o)erall.
Story Number Two
-fter the lab studies had opened up facts, the clinic, too,
looked
di4erent. %ot that clinics were into fact/nding5 their aim was
to impro)e
the health of patients, but this includes knowledge practices of
)aried
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kinds. 0 ha)e done hospital eldwork in the %etherlands since
6787. +ere
is an example of what came out of this work in the 6779s.
3hat
is anaemia: The textbook says it is a de)iant bodily condition
and that
there are )arious methods for knowing it5 listening to a
patient;s
complaints2 obser)ing her body2 and measuring the le)els of
hemoglobinin her blood. -ll these methods approach anaemia in their
own way. But
do they: ed the
term ontologyto bring out what was going on here. 0n
nineteenth/
century 3estern philosophy, ontologywas coined as a powerful
word for
the gi)en and xed collection of what there is. For reality, in
the singular.
But if each method enacts its own reality, it becomes possible
to put
realities, and indeedontologies, in the plural. 0t was a
delightful, frightful
pro)ocation.
3hat did it pro)oke: ?utting ontologies in the plural is
notrelati)ism.
The point isnot that #it all depends from which side you look at
it.$0nstead, there is no longer a singular #it$ to look at from
di4erent sides.
-nd while putting ontologies in the plural indicates that
reality is more
than one, it may still be less than many. For while the
theoretical term,
ontologies, is put in the plural, the medical term, anaemia, is
still
singular. Our eldwork showed that in medical practices a lot of
work is
done to coordinate between versionsof reality. The politics,
here, is not
one of otherness. 0n a rst instance, it is about ghts2 not
between
people (a politics of who" but between )ersions of reality (a
politics of
what". +owe)er, in a second instance, )ersions of reality that
clash at
one point turn out to be interdependent a little further along.
Ontologies
are not exclusi)e. They allow for interferences, partial
connections.
&haring practices.
Story Number Three
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Time goes on. 0n the twenty/rst century, it appears (in my
corner of
academia" that there are many theoretical things that the
term ontologycannot do. -s originally this term got coined to
designate
what is, it was carefully emptied of what 3estern philosophy
calls normativity. This means that the )alue of #what is$ does
not formpart of its essences, but relates to them as a secondary
1uality, an
afterthought. -nd the ideals that take distance from #what is,$
the
counterfactuals suggesting #what could be,$ do not form a part
of
ontologies at all. Thus, while ontology@put in the plural
ontologies@
helps to shake up mono/realist singularities, it is ill/suited
for talking
about many other things. &uch as the ways in which goodsand
badsare
performed in practices, in con=unction with pleasures, pains,
ecstasies,
fears, ideals, dreams, passions. Or the )arious shapes
thatprocessesmay take5 causal chains2 back/and/forth
con)ersations2
tinkering and caring2 and so on. -nd what about theori>ing
how ngers
taste when allowed to2 what drugs a4ord to bodies and bodies do
with
drugs2 migrant ambitions and guarded borders in the
oo/genesis.$Body & Society69, nos. E5 666EG.
+araway, 'onna. 6776. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The
einvention
o !ature. *ondon5 Free -ssociation Books.
+araway,
'onna.6778."odest#Witness$Second#"illennium%emale"an'"eets#(nco"o
use). *ondon5 outledge.
!ensen, Casper Bruun. 96. #-nthropology as a Following
&cience5
+umanity and &ociality in Continuous ariation.$
!atureCulture6, no. 65
6EG.
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Hnorr/Cetina, Harin. 67I6. The "anuacture o *no+ledge: n ssay
on
the Constructionist and Conte.tual !ature o Science. Oxford5
?ergamon
?ress.
*atour, Bruno, and &te)e 3oolgar. 6787. /aboratory /ie: The
Social
Construction o Scienti0c acts. %ew Jork5 &age.*aw, !ohn.
99.ircrat Stories: 1ecentering the (b2ect in
Technoscience. 'urham, %.C.5 'uke Kni)ersity ?ress.
