This book presents post-praxeology, an approach that brings process philosophy and ethnomethodology together to study social life as ongoing processes. Rather than explaining action through individuals or structures alone, it examines how heterogeneous elements come together within concrete situations. Brian L. Due develops post-praxeology as a way of studying process-in-practice grounded in process ontology and operationalised through ethnographic methods. The result is both a conceptual orientation and a methodological toolkit for analysing social phenomena as continuously unfolding formations.
The book develops a novel approach to understanding social situations as emergent, empirical phenomena. It advocates a methodology that integrates insights from process philosophy (especially Whitehead and Deleuze) and non-anthropocentric perspectives with phenomenology and ethnomethodology. Introducing the framework of post-praxeology, the book expands upon traditional ethnomethodological praxeology by embracing process philosophy’s foundational concepts, such as flat ontology, distributed agency, and diverse assemblages comprising humans, nonhumans, and other material elements. The ‘post’ in post-praxeology signifies this shift beyond conventional praxeological concerns, presenting a comprehensive methodological stance that emphasises the emergent, situated nature of social phenomena without privileging any specific type of agent or material beforehand. The book promotes video ethnography as a principal methodological tool, uniquely enabling the detailed capture and analysis of ongoing, dynamic processes of becoming. It addresses scholars and researchers engaged in qualitative empirical research, providing a robust, innovative approach to exploring social situations across diverse empirical contexts.
Brian L. Due
Fieldwork Video analysis Ethnomethodology Social interaction Process philosophy Agency Assemblages Sociomaterial practices Local ontologies Spatiotemporality