Higher education, theory, and modes of existence: thinking about universities with Latour

Abstract

In this article, I pick up established critical explorations of the role and use of theory in higher education research, focusing on the theoretical affordances of the work of Bruno Latour, one of the architects of actor-network theory. Actor-network theory is increasingly widely used within education research, although Latour has moved away from it and has now folded it within a larger project: An Inquiry into Modes of Existence – AIME. Framed as an empirical inquiry into the ontological and epistemological conditions of modernity, Latour argues for a radical shift in how ‘truth’ or ‘meaning’ is established within the world. In this article, I draw on AIME to illustrate how Latour’s multi-realist ontology, augmenting and responding to criticisms of actor-network theory, can be used to explore higher education through ethnographic research, addressing the call for the generation of theoretically coherent accounts of higher education whilst at the same time addressing the necessity of encompassing a heterogeneous range of social actors in order to construct accounts of higher education practice.