LangeMemo15

Structure-I’m beginning to see this project as dealing with two analytically distinct yet practically intertwined structures which influence hydrology: (1) social structure-the institutions, economies, norms and values which are traditionally taken, in sociological analysis, to influence individual behaviors and (2) natural-cultural structure-which I hope to delineate from the concept of non-human agency. Instead of seeing elements of the natural world as agents who are acting, I think it might be better to see them as structures with histories, logics, etc. but without the anthropomorphic baggage which non-human agency brings. Furthermore Conatus-I mean this largely in the terms by which Bourdieu uses it viz. as a general principal of social trajectory. I want to understand how the trajectories of hydrologists are shaped by both the social structural and the natural-cultural structural crises with which hydrology is intimately bound up. I want to understand the trajectories of hydrology both at the level of individual scientists, institutions, and fields.