Deconstructing the social; reaffirming its reconstruction

As an aside to the inevitable scrutiny that the name Latour, and then Giddens, produce:

This thesis does not adopt a Latourian Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach (Latour, 2005), although it is informed the importance of tracing social action. The ANT approach seeks to deconstruct reality by challenging our most basic assumptions of social reality, the assumptions of what is an individual (as composed of conflicting normative imperatives in a

state of change through time and space); questioning the existence of associations and groups;

and focusing our attention on their actions as opposed to forms. This can be traced back to work of Giddens (1987; 1990; 2009) and from him to Goffman (1956), who then suggest that agency is something psychologically distinct from Foucauldian “the body plus power”

(Giddens, 1994, p. 58). Giddens’ work on society and modernity seeks to understand the reproduction and source of normative behavior and, therefore, its possible aberration: Social change. Latour’s work, both with Callon (1981) and through ANT (2005), seeks to show the importance of not identifying groups and even individuals as homogenous assemblages of unified structures, but as composites of contradictory and conflictual normative codes.

Giddens (1984) and then Long (2001) refer to these as multiplicities which lead us to see conflicting views, ways of knowing, discourses, values at play and thus, realities. Abstraction as an attempt to impose a static, normatively construed idea of what contemporary society is, engages in what Callon and Latour (1981) termed “macro-structuring” society. As even individuals can be, and indeed are, composed of conflicting normative systems it becomes necessary to adopt a methodology that takes actors and organizations and their actions as fundamental units of the social. Although a Latourian approach would suggest outlining networks and groups of actors and tracing their interactions as a way to reveal something about the unfolding nature of social reality, there is little agreement on how the theory can be used in practice. Instead, this research adopts the ethnographic approach utilizing Long’s Actor-Interface theory which shares a number of theoretical propositions with ANT, but differs in the intent. Importantly, both theories deal with reality as a contested construction.

They thus break with tendency to rob actors of their agency through any abstraction of social reality, and thus, unlike Latour, Actor-Interface theory brings us to understand not just the actions of the actors, but their epistemological understanding of the world, which it recognizes as the nexus of social change. In the end both theories share similarities, but whereas ANT wades deep into the abstractions of agency embedded in both material goods and humans, Actor-Interface theory remains focused on actors and groups of actors and understandings. As Mosse (2010) points out, both theories are non-deterministic. While the actor-oriented interface theory is interested in the competing versions of reality “grounded in the everyday life experiences and consciousness of ordinary men and women” (Long, 1993, p. 142), the intent of ANT is to identify and focus on the traces of actions performed by groups (in concert with material things), thus reducing reality not to concepts but to verifiable action (Latour tells us that groups cannot exist unless they engage with the world).

Similarly, Long tells us that our focus should train on the interaction of these traces but instead of the traces we should seek out the concepts and discourses shared between groups and actors and how these are translated into actions.

Long and Villarreal (1993) explain that interfaces, spatial temporal territories where competing versions and visions of how reality is structured are the key nodes for analysis.

“Interface analysis, which concentrates upon analyzing critical junctures or arenas involving differences of normative value and social interest, entail not only understanding the struggles and power differentials taking place between the parties involved but also an attempt to reveal the dynamics of cultural accommodation that makes it possible for the various world views to interact” (1993, p. 148). To which they add, “hence network analysis can help to

identify the boundaries of epistemic communities and to characterize the structure and contents of particular communicator networks.” By investigating these conflicting social worlds, we reveal boundaries, unifying understandings and expectations, and ruptures.

With competing discourses, visions and understandings, “it becomes necessary, therefore, to identify the conditions under which particular definitions of reality and visions of the future are upheld, to analyze the interplay of cultural and ideological oppositions and to map out the ways in which bridging or distancing actions and ideologies make it possible for certain types of interface to reproduce or transform themselves,” (Long, 2001, p. 70).

As a former investigative journalist (1995-2007) I was both trained in and practiced the techniques of ethnographic case studies. By engaging with an anthropological research institution in Mexico from 2007 to the present, I have been to the field on more than 26 investigations utilizing ethnographic techniques to document life-histories, territorial characterizations, and conflicts over access to resources. As both a practitioner and student of ethnographic research I am skeptical of the tendency towards big data. I also have a public policy background, and training in quantitative research but my experience in the field tells me that data is not perfect. Working together with Peixoto-Charles, a data expert, helped to convince me of the power of good data and our ability to infer. Yet with an anthropological background I understand that even the proxies that that are used to represent living conditions, and even the models that are composed are socially constructed and, as far as they invisibilize the extremes, I believe they are extremely dangerous. It is my contention that this turn toward big data is key in the invisibilizing of the costs of our current human-nature existential crisis. I remain committed to the techniques and results of qualitative fieldwork, knocking on doors, spending time with people, trying to understand how they see themselves and the world around them and trying our best not to misrepresent them.

Despite the intimate knowledge of real world situations and the strategies and living conditions endured by those who live within them, ethnographic case studies, which allow us to engage with these competing discourses, has limitations. The most significant limitation of ethnographic research is in its inability to represent the general case. This puts it at a disadvantage for directing policy aimed at the general social conditions within a context, yet it does inform policy with the lived experiences of people. In this case our research team was composed of data-science Ph.D. candidate Anna Peixoto-Charles, and myself, under the leadership of Dr. Solene Morvant-Roux. The combination of both the qualitative and quantitative focusses really allowed us to approach our research subject from two distinct direction, sharing perspectives on the findings and differences. It is because of the way this research team was set up that we produced robust results for the project. In this thesis I primarily focus on the qualitative results of this project, utilizing some of our most basic findings from the large scale survey, but that survey generally remains the terrain of Peixoto-Charles for her own forthcoming thesis.

A mixed methodology allows for the compensation of the weaknesses between different qualitative and quantitative techniques (Shorten & Smith, 2017). In this study two surveys were employed as a means of establishing some numerical patterns of representation of

the trends at hand. These present clear general pictures, which is augmented by historical perspectives provided through interviews with key informants, focus groups with members of the community, and correspondences with experts. The interviews were carried out from 2016-2019 with water providers, water consumers, activists, academics, governmental authorities and representatives of international institutions. (For the complete list of interviews see Appendix 1). Furthermore, literature reviews, utilizing both journalistic and academic sources, are key for both documenting the context and the shifting discourses over time. Finally, this research relies on the case study method (Van Velson, 1967). The case study involves identifying individuals and groups within the interface between public and private water provision and trying to understand the particularities and rationalities of their situation. “The advantage of case studies is that researchers who utilize them can deal with the reality behind appearances with contradictions and the dialectical nature of social life, as well as if a whole that is more than the sum of its parts,” writes Feagin (1991, p. 31).

Within this case study framework, the investigation employed the techniques of participant observation, situational analysis and the extended case method (Van Velson, 1967; Moser, 2009). Case studies were carried out in four of the five study areas. Van Velson’s Extended Case Method includes repeating visits over a period of years. This allowed us to follow households for two years in El Salto and three years for the cases in Chiapas. The details of how the cases were selected and how many cases are included are elaborated below in the breakdown of fieldwork activities.