ABSTRACT
Pragmatic Inquiry brings together a remarkably creative transcontinental and interdisciplinary group of researchers who met on a regular basis over four years to explore together novel analytical tools to make sense and account for social reality. It will give the reader a renewed sense of possibilities for capturing social complexity. Diane Vaughan defines analogical theorizing, as “a method that compares similar events or activities across different social settings, leads to more refined and generalizable theoretical explanations.” In the US, the influence of John Dewey is manifest, not only in sociology but also in anthropology. The influence of pragmatism operates through an anthropology of practice which came to replace the focus on culture in post-Geertzian anthropology. In the case of demonstration, techniques and materiality are essential complementary elements in the cultural and social processes of the construction of reality, and they can produce legitimacy as a secondary effect.
