Organising Modernity

Book excerpt: In this important theoretical and empirical statement John Law argues against the purity of post-enlightenment political and social theory, and offers an alternative post-modern sociology. Arguing in favor of a sociology of verbs, he suggests that power, organizations, mind-body dualisms, and macro-micro distinctions may all be understood as the local performance of recursive modes of social ordering. Drawing on a range of theoretical traditions including actor-network theory, verstehende sociology, and the writing of Michel Foucault, he explores the production of materials - including agents and architectures - and their importance for these modes of ordering. The book, which draws on organizational ethnography to develop its argument, is essential reading for all those interested in social theory, materialism, or the sociology of organizations at the end of the era of high modernity.