Showing papers in "The Sociological Review in 2012"
TL;DR: The notion of thinking with care is articulated through a series of concrete moves: thinking-with, dissenting-within and thinking-for as mentioned in this paper, which is a vital requisite of collective thinking in interdependent worlds, but also one that necessitates a thick vision of caring.
Abstract: What is the significance of caring for thinking and knowing? Thinking and knowing are essentially relational processes. Grounded on a relational conception of ontology the essay argues that ‘thinking with care’ is a vital requisite of collective thinking in interdependent worlds, but also one that necessitates a thick vision of caring. A speculative exploration of forms of thinking with care unfolds through a rereading of Donna Haraway's work, specifically of its take on feminist discussions on the situated character of knowledge. The notion of thinking with care is articulated through a series of concrete moves: thinking-with, dissenting-within and thinking-for. While weaving Haraway's thinking and writing practices with the trope of care offers a particular understanding of this author's knowledge politics, the task of caring also appears in a different light.
497 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the relationship between metrics, markets and affect in the contemporary UK academy and argues that these metrics, although still embedded within an audit culture, increasingly function autonomously as a data assemblage able not just to mimic markets but, increasingly, to enact them.
Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between metrics, markets and affect in the contemporary UK academy. It argues that the emergence of a particular structure of feeling amongst academics in the last few years has been closely associated with the growth and development of ‘quantified control’. It examines the functioning of a range of metrics: citations; workload models; transparent costing data; research assessments; teaching quality assessments; and commercial university league tables. It argues that these metrics, and others, although still embedded within an audit culture, increasingly function autonomously as a data assemblage able not just to mimic markets but, increasingly, to enact them. It concludes by posing some questions about the possible implications of this for the future of academic practice.
360 citations
TL;DR: Two significant realms of social anxiety, visible in the discourses of media and public policy, potentially pull practices of home food provisioning in conflicting directions as discussed by the authors, leading to conflicting directions.
Abstract: Two significant realms of social anxiety, visible in the discourses of media and public policy, potentially pull practices of home food provisioning in conflicting directions. On the one hand, camp...
243 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a re-distribution of social research methods in the context of online network and textual analysis has been discussed, and it is argued that sociological research stands much to gain from engaging with it, both normatively and analytically speaking.
Abstract: This paper contributes to debates about the implications of digital technology for social research by proposing the concept of the re-distribution of methods. Not only can this concept help to clarify these implications, it can inform our engagement with the normative and analytic promises and problems that the digitization of social life opens up for social research. I argue that in the context of digitization social research becomes noticeably a distributed accomplishment: online platforms, users, devices and informational practices actively contribute to the performance of social research. This also applies more specifically to social research methods: search engines, blogs, information visualisation tools, and so on, play a notable part in the enactment of methods on the Web. The paper explores this phenomenon in relation to online network and textual analysis, and argues that sociological research stands much to gain from engaging with it, both normatively and analytically speaking. I distinguish four predominant views on the re-distribution of digital social methods: methods-as-usual, big methods, virtual methods and digital methods. Taking up this last notion, I propose that a re-distributive understanding of social research opens up a new approach to the re-mediation of social methods in digital environments. I develop this argument through a discussion of two particular online research platforms: the Issue Crawler, a web-based platform for hyperlink analysis, and the Co-Word Machine, an online tool of textual analysis currently under development. Both these tools re-mediate existing social methods, namely co-citation analysis and co-word analysis, and I argue that, as such, they involve the attempt to render specific methodology critiques effective in the online realm. Both methods were developed in the 1970s and 1980s as a critique of then dominant methods of citation analysis. Transposing these methods online, they offer a way for social research to intervene critically in digital social research, and more specifically, in re-distributions of social methods that are currently on-going in digital media.
150 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw on the writings of Michel Foucault, in particular his lectures on biopolitics at the College de France from 1978-79, to examine liberalism and neoliberalism as governmental forms that operate through different models of surveillance.
Abstract: This paper draws on the writings of Michel Foucault, in particular his lectures on biopolitics at the College de France from 1978–79, to examine liberalism and neoliberalism as governmental forms that operate through different models of surveillance. First, this paper re-reads Foucault's Discipline and Punish in the light of his analysis of the art of liberal government that is advanced through the course of these lectures. It is argued that the Panopticon is not just an architecture of power centred on discipline and normalization, as is commonly understood, but a normative model of the relation of the state to the market which, for Foucault, is ‘the very formula of liberal government’. Second, the limits of panopticism, and by extension liberal governance, are explored through analysis of Gilles Deleuze's account of the shift from disciplinary to ‘control’ societies, and Zygmunt Bauman's writings on individualization and the ‘Synopticon’. In response to Deleuze and Bauman, the final section of this paper returns to Foucault's lectures on biopolitics to argue that contemporary capitalist society is characterized not simply by the decline of state powers (the control society) or the passing down of responsibilities from the state to the individual (the individualization thesis), but by the neoliberal marketization of the state and its institutions; a development which is underpinned by a specific form of governmentality. In conclusion, a four-fold typology of surveillance is advanced: surveillance as discipline, as control, as interactivity, and as a mechanism for promoting competition. It is argued that while these types of surveillance are not mutually exclusive, they are underpinned by different governmentalities that can be used to address different aspects of the relationship between the state and the market, and with this the social and cultural logics of contemporary forms of market capitalism more broadly.
143 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, food waste is a compelling and yet hugely under-researched area of interest for social scientists, and the need to account for this neglect and to situate the fledgling body of social science scholarsh...
Abstract: Food waste is a compelling and yet hugely under-researched area of interest for social scientists. In order to account for this neglect and to situate the fledgling body of social science scholarsh...
120 citations
TL;DR: This article explored how leftovers are transformed and reused as meals in British households and found that reusing and eating up leftovers involves a collective sacrifice by family members which marks out their membership to the family unit.
Abstract: Exploring our relationship with mealtime leftovers tells us a lot about not only our relationships with waste, but with one another, in the home. In our study of British mealtimes we explore how leftovers are transformed and reused as meals. We refer to theories of disposal in exploring the skills involved in transforming leftovers. We also explore the motivations behind these transformations. Drawing on the work of Miller (1998) we examine how the reuse of leftovers involves sacrifice by individual family members for the greater good of the whole family. We also find that reusing and eating up leftovers involves a collective sacrifice by family members which marks out their membership to the family unit.
120 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the notion of family to consider how it may be understood in people's everyday lives, and suggested the term "social person" as a heuristic device to distinguish the sense of close-knit selves that may be involved in some understandings of personhood.
Abstract: This article examines the notion of ‘family’ to consider how it may be understood in people's everyday lives. Certain recurrent and powerful motifs are apparent, notably themes of togetherness and belonging, in the context of a unit that the person can be ‘part of’. At the same time, there may be important variations in the meanings given to individuality and family, evoking differing understandings of the self and personhood. I consider these ideas further through globally relevant but variable cultural themes of autonomy and relationality, suggesting the term ‘social person’ as a heuristic device to distinguish the sense of ‘close-knit selves’ that may be involved in some understandings of personhood. I argue that this version of personhood may be powerfully expressed through ‘family’ meanings, with a significance which can be at least provisionally mapped along lines of inequality and disadvantage within and between societies around the world. These forms of connectedness may be hard to grasp through t...
119 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a multi-faceted power analysis of men's violence to known women is presented, by way of assessing two main perspectives on research in men and masculinities: first, that founded on hegemonic masculinity, and, second, that based on the hegemony of men.
Abstract: This article presents a multi-faceted power analysis of men's violence to known women, by way of assessing two main perspectives on research in men and masculinities: first, that founded on hegemonic masculinity, and, second, that based on the hegemony of men. Each perspective is interrogated in terms of understandings of men's violence to known women. These approaches are articulated in relation to empirical research, and conceptual and theoretical analysis. Thus this article addresses to what extent hegemonic masculinity and the hegemony of men, respectively, are useful concepts for explaining and engaging with men's violence to known women? The article concludes with discussion of more general implications of this analysis.
112 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a manifesto for live methods in sociological research, which highlights potential new capacities for how sociologists do sociology and argues for a more artful and crafty approach.
Abstract: In this manifesto for live methods the key arguments of the volume are summarized in eleven propositions. We offer eleven provocations to highlight potential new capacities for how we do sociology. The argument for a more artful and crafty approach to sociological research embraces new technological opportunities while expanding the attentiveness of researchers. We identify a set of practices available to us as sociologists from the heterodox histories of the tradition as well as from current collaborations and cross-disciplinary exchanges. The question of value is not set apart from the eleven points we raise in the manifesto. Additionally, we are concerned with how the culture of audit and assessment within universities is impacting on sociological research. Despite the institutional threats to sociology we emphasize the discipline is well placed in our current moment to develop creative, public and novel modes of doing imaginative and critical sociological research.
109 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw on recent debates about empirical sociology's methodological crisis that results from the emergence of sophisticated information-based capitalism and digital culture, and present an alternative approach to the methodological crisis.
Abstract: The article draws on recent debates about empirical sociology's methodological crisis that results from the emergence of sophisticated information-based capitalism and digital culture. Researchers ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors utilize the concept of waste regimes to understand the global connections involved in generating food waste, and find that the unequal organization of uncertainty is a key structural determinant of food waste production in both the North and South continents.
Abstract: This article utilizes the concept of waste regimes in order to understand the global connections involved in generating food waste. This concept treats waste as a social relationship and assumes that in any economy there is a waste circulation in addition to a value circulation, and that the two are interdependent. For this reason, the author critiques metaphors, such as value chains or supply chains, that have dominated the scholarship on food and agriculture. Creatively utilizing secondary empirical data on the Global North and South from that scholarship, the findings indicate that the unequal organization of uncertainty is a key structural determinant of food waste production in both. The relationship between risk and waste stretches across not only geographical but also scalar boundaries, revealing that solutions to the ‘food waste problem’ limited to technological innovation and a few sites or even countries will prove insufficient and will likely exacerbate existing inequalities.
TL;DR: In a pivotal section of Capital, volume 1, Marx (1976: 279) notes that, in order to understand the capitalist production of value, we must descend into the hidden abode of production.
Abstract: In a pivotal section of Capital, volume 1, Marx (1976: 279) notes that, in order to understand the capitalist production of value, we must descend into the ‘hidden abode of production’: the site of...
TL;DR: The London bombings of 7 July 2005 were a major event shaping the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain and as discussed by the authors introduced the idea of "securitized citizens" to analyse the relationship.
Abstract: The London bombings of 7 July 2005 were a major event shaping the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain. In this paper we introduce the idea of ‘securitized citizens’ to analyse t...
TL;DR: In recent years, a growing number of councils have begun separate food waste collections from domestic premises, a change that has resulted in householders having to sort food waste and keep i...
Abstract: Recent years have seen an increasing number of councils begin separate food waste collections from domestic premises, a change that has resulted in householders having to sort food waste and keep i...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore some negative aspects of friendship and argue that friendship can challenge one's sense of self and even produce ontological insecurity, and that staying true to friends, even when the relationships becomes uneven or tiresome, can be a sign of ethical standing.
Abstract: In this paper we explore some of the negative aspects of friendship. In so doing we do not seek to join the debate about whether or not friendships are more or less important than other relationships but rather to explore precisely how significant friendships can be. Based on written accounts submitted to the British Mass Observation Project, we analyse how friendship, when it goes wrong, can challenge one's sense of self and even produce ontological insecurity. Friendship, it is argued, is tied into the process of self-identification and so staying true to friends, even when the relationships becomes uneven or tiresome, can be a sign of ethical standing. Meeting ‘old’ friends can also become very challenging, especially if one does not wish to be reminded of the self one once was. The paper contributes to the growing interest in relationships beyond kin.
TL;DR: The importance of date labeling in informing both retailers and consumers how long a food will remain edible, safe and of sufficient quality makes it a prime site for the identification of, and intervention in, food waste.
Abstract: The importance of date labelling in informing both retailers and consumers how long a food will remain edible, safe and of sufficient quality makes it a prime site for the identification of, and intervention in, food waste. This paper examines the historical and spatial evolution of the date labelling system in the UK. The paper shows how reforms to date marking have occurred in response to shifting concerns about food quality, safety and latterly waste. It distinguishes four periods during which labels moved from an internal stock control mechanism to a consumer protection mechanism, a food safety device and recently emerged as a key element in the fight against food waste. Contributing to recent sociological studies of food labelling, the paper charts changing understandings of the role of the label in mediating between consumers, the food industry and regulators. It shows how regulatory objects such as date labels materialize societal concerns about food and situates contemporary efforts to reform date...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors make the argument that ethnographic returning, in which ethnographers return to their field over time, and which is an engaged and long-term ethnography, can be considered a form of lon...
Abstract: This paper makes the argument that ethnographic returning, in which ethnographers return to their field over time, and which is an engaged and long-term ethnography, can be considered a form of lon...
TL;DR: The St Anns neighbourhood in Nottingham was first studied by Coates and Silburn in the 1960s as mentioned in this paper, which noted the great upheavals of the physical and social cha...
Abstract: This paper focuses upon the St Anns neighbourhood in Nottingham, a community first studied by Ken Coates and Bill Silburn in the 1960s which noted the great upheavals of the physical and social cha...
TL;DR: In this paper, a version of Live Sociology that enacts and engages with the openness and processuality of events is presented. But the focus is on everyday objects that, in their relationality, "misbehave" and potentially challenge standard sociological framings.
Abstract: This paper outlines a version of ‘Live Sociology’ that enacts and engages with the openness and processuality of events. This is initially explored through a focus on everyday objects that, in their relationality, ‘misbehave’, potentially challenging standard sociological framings. Drawing on the work of Isabelle Stengers, it is suggested that such objects can be understood as ‘idiotic’ - possessed of an incommensurability that enables social scientists to ‘slow down’ and reflect upon ‘what is busily being done’ (not least by the social scientists themselves). This responsiveness to the idiot object is then contrasted to the proactive idiocy of Speculative Design. Here, artefacts - probes and prototypes – are designed to have oblique and ambiguous functions that allow both their users and designers to open up what is at stake in particular events. Examples taken from past and current research are used to illustrate how speculative designs can open up what ‘the neighbourhood’ and ‘energy demand reduction’ can be. The paper ends with a discussion of a possible ‘idiotic methodology’ and its implications for the conceptual and practical doings of social scientific research.
TL;DR: In this paper, we focus on the previous stage in the food life cycle and examine the freegan practice of collecting and redistributing food discarded as "worthless" by supermarket chains.
Abstract: A common problem in all affluent societies, particularly in the retail sector, is the burgeoning issue of food waste. In this, Australia is no exception. However, to a large extent, the main focus of research in Australia to date has been on food waste at the household level. This paper focuses on the previous stage in the food life-cycle and examines the freegan practice of collecting and redistributing food discarded as ‘worthless’ by supermarket chains, in particular. For freegans, this is an act of choice, not need, to protest against issues of overconsumption and waste. The practice of freeganism has had multiple manifestations throughout history. It represents an alternative ethics of consumption and has multiple forms, embracing such issues as pesticide contamination, excessive labour exploitation, packaging and more. This paper reports on ongoing ethnographic research into two freegan subcultures in Australia: dumpster-divers and participation in the activities associated with ‘Food Not Bombs’. It...
TL;DR: In this article, a broad definition of cosmopolitanism is given and elucidated by an outline of its epistemological, ontological and methodological frameworks, which can also account for both the diachronic and synchronic levels of the emergence of cosmo-model as both a counterfactual normative cultural model and as a part of social and political practices and institutional arrangements.
Abstract: In recent years social science has been characterized by a cosmopolitan turn. Of the many questions that arise from this the most important are those that concern the implications for explaining social change. While cosmopolitanism is centrally about social change, much cosmopolitan theory due to its normative orientation lacks a capacity for explanation. The problem of explanation is also a problem that besets all ‘big question’ approaches in social science. In this paper a broad definition of cosmopolitanism is given and elucidated by an outline of its epistemological, ontological and methodological frameworks. Emphasizing the latter two, a relational conception of cosmopolitanism is developed as an alternative to dispositional/agency based and systemic accounts. First I argue that there are four main kinds of cosmopolitan relationships, which together constitute the social ontology of cosmopolitanism. These are the relativization of identity, the positive recognition of the other, the mutual evaluation of cultures, and the creation of a normative world culture. A methodological framework is advanced that distinguishes between the preconditions of cosmopolitanism, its social mechanisms and processes (of which three are specified: generative, transformational and institutionalizing) and trajectories of historical change. The argument is made that cosmopolitan phenomena can be accounted for in terms of this ontological and methodological framework. The advantage of this approach is that it offers cosmopolitan analysis a macro level account of social change that is broadly explanatory and which can also account for both the diachronic and synchronic levels of the emergence of cosmopolitanism as both a counter-factual normative cultural model and as a part of social and political practices and institutional arrangements.
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that current forms of engaging with transactional social data are problematic to the sociological imagination because they tend to be ahistorical and focus mainly on "now casting".
Abstract: Recently, Savage and Burrows (2007) have argued that one way to invigorate sociology's ‘empirical crisis’ is to take advantage of live, web-based digital transactional data. This paper argues that whilst sociologists do indeed need to engage with this growing digital data deluge, there are longer-term risks involved that need to be considered. More precisely, C. Wright Mills' ‘sociological imagination’ is used as the basis for the kind of sociological research that one might aim for, even within the digital era. In so doing, it is suggested that current forms of engaging with transactional social data are problematic to the sociological imagination because they tend to be ahistorical and focus mainly on ‘now casting’. The ahistorical nature of this genre of digital research, it is argued, necessarily restricts the possibility of developing a serious sociological imagination. In turn, it is concluded, there is a need to think beyond the digitized surfaces of the plastic present and to consider the impact that time and temporality, particularly within the digital arena, have on shaping our sociological imagination.
TL;DR: This article revisited Bourdieu's theory of educational reproduction and sketched some of the manifestations of this intermediate zone of educational performance, namely social space travel, the Ic... and social mobility, deviant trajectories and resistance.
Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu's famous theory of educational reproduction is often depicted by critics in simplistic terms: individuals either have plenty of cultural capital, and thus symbolic mastery and school success, or they do not and develop practical mastery and vocational interests instead. Social mobility, deviant trajectories and resistance, on the other hand, are seemingly impossible. The nature of Bourdieu's writing fuelled this perception, but implicit in his early work, and elaborated in his later writings, is the idea that class and capital possession are fully relational, gradational and refracted by family dynamics, thereby suggesting the existence of all manner of possible shades of difference between the two poles of reproduction. This paper, whilst acknowledging that reproduction is still the major feature of the education system in the UK, thus revisits Bourdieu's thesis and sketches some of the manifestations of this intermediate zone of educational performance, namely social space travel, the Ic...
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TL;DR: The authors investigates the specificity of sociological materials and methods in relation to other disciplines and practices (art, literature, science and journalism) and questions the opportunities for sociological attentiveness, experimentation and failure in the context of contemporary UK professional, institutional and academic/intellectual constraints.
Abstract: This article investigates the specificity of sociological materials and methods in relation to other disciplines and practices (art, literature, science and journalism) and questions the opportunities for sociological attentiveness, experimentation and failure in the context of contemporary UK professional, institutional and academic/intellectual constraints. It asks whether materials and methods are ‘sociological’ to the extent that they tell about the problems of society, or whether it is the unique relation of sociology to its materials and methods that defines sociological practice. Exploring these questions in relation to a project that was researched and written during an extended period of unpaid leave (ie outside the profession and the institution), the article also examines some of the consequences of a changed relation between sociology and experience. What would be the implications if the aim of sociology was not only to theorize and explain experience but also, sometimes, to be an ‘informed provocation’ of experience? The second part of the article considers what the concept of ‘make-believe’ might offer sociology – not in terms of what sociology is, but rather in terms of what it does with its materials and methods. Finally, the article returns to the most common material that sociologists work with – words – and asks how it is possible to stay receptive to the vitality of words as forces in the research process.
TL;DR: The case of minority ethnic (ME) middle classes through empirical data from a small, exploratory study conducted in England with 36 minority ethnic, "middle-class" individuals (parents, pupils and young professionals) from a range of ME backgrounds as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Despite an increasing sociological interest in the middle classes and their educational practices, research has largely concentrated on the white middle classes. This paper considers the case of the minority ethnic (ME) middle classes through empirical data from a small, exploratory study conducted in England with 36 minority ethnic, ‘middle-class’ individuals (parents, pupils and young professionals) from a range of ME backgrounds. It is argued that participants experienced ME middle-class identity as a profoundly conflictual and precarious space, negotiated through a matrix of relational classed and racialized positionings. ‘Authentic’ middle-classness remains the preserve of white society due to racial inequalities and the dominance of whiteness as the popularly legitimated marker of middle classness. Moreover, attempts to define an acceptable, legitimate and principled ME middle-class identity are compromised by the discursive threats of ‘inauthenticity’, ‘pretension’ and ‘misrecognition’.
TL;DR: In recent years, there has been a resurgence of sociological work exploring the importance and meaning of kinship as discussed by the authors, and much of this work has criticized the individualization thesis according to which kinship is defined.
Abstract: In recent years, there has been a resurgence of sociological work exploring the importance and meaning of kinship. Much of this work has criticized the ‘individualization’ thesis according to which...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore some of the aesthetic, political and conceptual issues that arise when we pose the problem of representing social totality today, and contrast these perspectives with the repudiation of a sociology of totality in the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour, arguing that sociology can learn from contemporary artistic efforts to map social and economic power as a whole.
Abstract: Can, or should, social theory try to 'see it whole'? This article explores some of the aesthetic, political and conceptual issues that arise when we pose the problem of representing social totality today. It revisits two influential assertions of theory’s calling to generate orienting and totalising representations of capitalist society: C. Wright Mills’s plea for the 'sociological imagination' and Fredric Jameson appeal for an ‘aesthetic of cognitive mapping'. Mills and Jameson converge on the need to mediate personal experience with systemic constraints, knowledge with action, while underscoring the political urgency and epistemic difficulty of such a demand. The article contrasts these perspectives with the repudiation of a sociology of totality in the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour. It explores this contrast through the 'panorama' as a visual practice and a metaphor for theory itself. Against Latour’s proposal to reduce and relativise totality, it argues that sociology can learn from contemporary artistic efforts to map social and economic power as a whole. ‘Panoramic’ projects in the arts, such as Allan Sekula’s and Mark Lombardi’s, can allow us to reflect sociology’s own deficit of imagination, and on the persistence of the desire to ‘see it whole’ – especially when that whole is opaque, fragmented, contradictory. A live sociology can only gain from greater attention to the critical experiments with forms and methods of representation that are being carried out by artists preoccupied with the staging of social totality.
TL;DR: The authors argue that women engage in the bodily labour of engenderment in a context of hostility and harassment and that they develop a contradictorily gendered habitus which brings together attributes which are culturally associated with both masculinity and femininity.
Abstract: Most of the young people enrolling on modern apprenticeships in the horse racing industry are women and many hope to become jockeys. The majority of those who realise these ambitions are, however, men. This paper explores this process of attrition, focussing on gendered embodiment and its relation to the development of the bodily hexis and habitus characteristic of the racing field. We argue that women engage in the bodily labour of engenderment in a context of hostility and harassment and that they develop a contradictorily gendered habitus which brings together attributes which are culturally associated with both masculinity and femininity. In order to achieve this they subject themselves to a disciplining and punishing of the body which creates a ‘tortured’ masculinity. Female bodies are, however, ‘imprisoned’ by the workings of the habitus and, within the racing field, their bodies are read as weak, not fit for hard work and as more suited to an office (or home) than a race horse. These embodied processes and practices place them at a severe disadvantage and result in women being a very small minority of jockeys.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the practice of Live Sociology in situations of pain and suffering and highlight the importance of an engagement with a range of materials out of which attempts at intersubjective bridging can be produced, and which exceed the social, the material, and the temporally linear; and an empirical sensibility that is hospitable to the inaccessible and non-relational.
Abstract: The practice of Live Sociology in situations of pain and suffering is the author’s focus. An outline of the challenges of understanding pain is followed by a discussion of Bourdieu’s ‘social suffering’ (1999) and the palliative care philosophy of ‘total pain’. Using examples from qualitative research on disadvantaged dying migrants in the UK, attention is given to the methods that are improvised by dying people and care practitioners in attempts to bridge intersubjective divides, where the causes and routes of pain can be ontologically and temporally indeterminate and/or withdrawn. The paper contends that these latter phenomena are the incitement for the inventive bridging and performative work of care and Live Sociological methods, both of which are concerned with opposing suffering. Drawing from the ontology of total pain, I highlight the importance of (i) an engagement with a range of materials out of which attempts at intersubjective bridging can be produced, and which exceed the social, the material, and the temporally linear; and (ii) an empirical sensibility that is hospitable to the inaccessible and non-relational.