FOCUS

Abstract

Adopting the mantra of sports psychologists – be focused – can sometimes work for social scientists, but just as clearly we need to think about how focus might or might not improve the quality of social inquiry. One way of focussing is to begin with definitions, but these so often turn out to be tendentious or essentialising. We have to learn to live with perplexity, and to question anew our assumptions about scale – could the smaller be the bigger thing there is? This paper reflects on such issues in an intentionally provocative manner, using as exemplars the work of Latour, Garfinkel, and Grimmett. The latter will not be familiar to many, as he is a spin bowler, nonetheless, his endeavours in mastering his cricketing art provide a useful lesson for those who wish to gain pleasure from detailed, theoretically informed, empirical social science inquiry.