Other Words: Stories from the Social Studies of

Science, Technology, and Medicine

by Annemarie Mol
This article is part of the series The Politics of Ontology
The term ontology is sexy. These days, in parts of anthropology, it seems
able to promise the possibility of escape, of running ahead, of allowing
academic work to take a rolling avant-garde run. Ontology becomes a
term by which to relate the beauties and pains of difering to that other
magic word, politics. By all means, if it inspires you, run with it. But allow
me to tell you some stories.
Story Number One
For a long time, while anthropologists went out (from Cambridge or io
de !aneiro" into the rest of the world to study #other cultures,$ %ature
stayed behind in the laboratory (in &an 'iego, (ene)a, *ondon" where it
was studied by natural scientists. +owe)er, at the )ery moment that
anthropologists who had gone #elsewhere$ were ,nding that the Others
did not necessarily ha)e #cultures$ (or #natures$", natural science
laboratories got in)aded by their own brand of ethnographers. -nd by
the time we learned that some Others li)e with.in many natures rather
than the singular %ature of the natural sciences, the lab/ethnographers
emerged from the lab to say that what went on there had little to do with
,nding facts about %ature after all. 0nstead, it was about such
speci,cities as purifying ferric chloride, measuring blood le)els of
thyrotrophin/releasing hormone, or hunting 1uarks. +ence, a )ariety of
great di)ides (between scientists and primiti)es2 the 3est and the est2
culture and nature2 facts and ,ction" got more or less simultaneously
messed with in )arious ways. The overall picture of how ethnographic
studies of Others and ethnographic studies of laboratories relate was
ne)er 1uite drawn. Their )arious plots do not ,t within a single scheme.
There is no o)erall.
Story Number Two
-fter the lab studies had opened up facts, the clinic, too, looked
di4erent. %ot that clinics were into fact/,nding5 their aim was to impro)e
the health of patients, but this includes knowledge practices of )aried
kinds. 0 ha)e done hospital ,eldwork in the %etherlands since 6787. +ere
is an example of what came out of this work in the 6779s. 3hat
is anaemia: The textbook says it is a de)iant bodily condition and that
there are )arious methods for knowing it5 listening to a patient;s
complaints2 obser)ing her body2 and measuring the le)els of hemoglobin
in her blood. -ll these methods approach anaemia in their own way. But
do they: <y ,eldwork suggested otherwise. ather than approaching a
single ob=ect in di4erent ways, each of these methods enacts an ob=ect
of its own. 0n daily clinical practice, a patient;s complaints, the color of
her eyelids, and her hemoglobin le)el are all real enough, but they do
not neatly map onto each other. The di4erent methods, rather than
allowing for di4erent perspecti)es on a single (fore)er elusi)e" ob=ect,
follow from, and feed into, di4erent (more or less painful" e)ents. Other
hospital ethnographers found similar things. 3e mobili>ed the
term ontology to bring out what was going on here. 0n nineteenth/
century 3estern philosophy, ontology was coined as a powerful word for
the gi)en and ,xed collection of what there is. For reality, in the singular.
But if each method enacts its own reality, it becomes possible to put
realities, and indeedontologies, in the plural. 0t was a delightful, frightful
pro)ocation.
3hat did it pro)oke: ?utting ontologies in the plural is not relati)ism.
The point isnot that #it all depends from which side you look at it.$
0nstead, there is no longer a singular #it$ to look at from di4erent sides.
-nd while putting ontologies in the plural indicates that reality is more
than one, it may still be less than many. For while the theoretical term,
ontologies, is put in the plural, the medical term, anaemia, is still
singular. Our ,eldwork showed that in medical practices a lot of work is
done to coordinate between versions of reality. The politics, here, is not
one of otherness. 0n a ,rst instance, it is about ,ghts2 not between
people (a politics of who" but between )ersions of reality (a politics of
what". +owe)er, in a second instance, )ersions of reality that clash at
one point turn out to be interdependent a little further along. Ontologies
are not exclusi)e. They allow for interferences, partial connections.
&haring practices.
Story Number Three
Time goes on. 0n the twenty/,rst century, it appears (in my corner of
academia" that there are many theoretical things that the
term ontology cannot do. -s originally this term got coined to designate
what is, it was carefully emptied of what 3estern philosophy
calls normativity. This means that the )alue of #what is$ does not form
part of its essences, but relates to them as a secondary 1uality, an
afterthought. -nd the ideals that take distance from #what is,$ the
counterfactuals suggesting #what could be,$ do not form a part of
ontologies at all. Thus, while ontology@put in the plural ontologies@
helps to shake up mono/realist singularities, it is ill/suited for talking
about many other things. &uch as the ways in which goods and bads are
performed in practices, in con=unction with pleasures, pains, ecstasies,
fears, ideals, dreams, passions. Or the )arious shapes
that processes may take5 causal chains2 back/and/forth con)ersations2
tinkering and caring2 and so on. -nd what about theori>ing how ,ngers
taste when allowed to2 what drugs a4ord to bodies and bodies do with
drugs2 migrant ambitions and guarded borders in the <editerranean2
garment factories on ,re in Bangladesh2 or soy for 'utch pigs being
grown in the -ma>on: To name =ust a few examples. 0n some cases, it
might be wiser (more enlightening, more generati)e, more generous,
and yes, e)en more pro)ocati)e" to play with other words.
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