Remote Ethnography: Mobile Phone Methods

Methods for Change
Diffractive
Genealogy
Professor Natasha Mauthner
Newcastle University
Corresponding Author
natasha.mauthner@ncl.ac.uk

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Diffractive Genealogy

A Diffractive Genealogy is a relational method used to study
research phenomena in terms of the complex tangle ofrelationships in which these phenomena are embedded.
It starts from the assumption that the social issues we study – e.g.
gender inequality, work-life balance, political disaffection, mental
health, technological change, environmental sustainability, globalisation– are best understood by analysing their interconnected human andnon-human dimensions. Where much conventional social researchforegrounds individual people, and their experiences and perspectives,a Diffractive Genealogy emphasises relationships between people
and other living and non-living entities, for example, communities,
institutions, policies, laws, technologies, nature.
A Diffractive Genealogy is a method in which researchers, and otherrelevant parties, map and analyse these relationships. This mapping
exercise is undertaken by reviewing a wide range of materials about
the research phenomenon. These can be academic outputs, policy
documents, practitioner guidelines, blogs, films, visual materials –anything of relevance and interest. Empirical research, using qualitative
and/or quantitative methods, can also be conducted to gather further
insights into the social issue. We analyse these documents, materials,
qualitative/quantitative data to understand how social issues areoften framed in terms of the ‘individual’ and to show how a focus on
relationships can change our understanding of social issues and how
we tackle them.
A Diffractive Genealogy can be used for theoretical and/or empiricalresearch across disciplines.

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Diffractive Genealogy

How does a Diffractive Genealogy
create or contribute to change?

What ideas or concepts influence
this approach?

A Diffractive Genealogy starts from theassumption that to make sense of people’s
experiences, behaviours and practices weneed to understand the relationship andcontexts in which they are embedded. Thisis because people are relational beings who
co-exist, and are interdependent, with otherhumans and non-humans: family, friends, pets,colleagues, communities, institutions, buildings,
nature, place.

The method of Diffractive Genealogy draws
on the concept of relationality. Relationality
attributes properties to relationships rather
than independent entities. Through thisconcept, Diffractive Genealogy emphasises
interdependent relationships amongst andbetween human and non-human systems, andhow these co-emerge and co-create each other.
Genealogy is a way of studying interdependent
historical, cultural, social, economic and othersystems through time and space. It is associatedwith the poststructuralist philosopher Michel
Foucault, who believed the network of past
relationships in which a system evolved—its
history—helps understand how a system works
today. A Genealogy shows how the present
dynamically emerges from the past.
Diffraction in physics refers to how waves
change direction as they encounter an obstacle.
A cloud’s silver lining – when sunlight bends
around the edge of a cloud – is an example. This
bright outline occurs when light is diffracted bycloud droplets along the cloud’s outer edge.
Feminist scientists and philosophers, Karen
Barad and Donna Haraway, use diffraction asa metaphor for recognising how researchers,
and their research instruments, are part of
the network of systems and relations - people,
places, communities - they study. It emphasisesthat our research does not discover or reflect
the true nature of the world. It interacts withit to produce something new, just as the lightinteracts with the cloud to produce thesilver lining.

A Diffractive Genealogy assumes the way people
live their lives, and how societies are organised,
today are linked to, and emerge from, pastsystems and relationships. Understanding thepast is therefore important for understanding
the present.
A Diffractive Genealogy recognises that
researchers, their theories and their
methods shape how we do research andits outcomes. Because we are part of, andinfluence, the systems we study, we must
situate ourselves in our research, and makeexplicit the values underpinning our research
and measurement tools.
A Diffractive Genealogy is a method for studying
these complex relationships. It focuses on therelational systems people are part of, rather
than on individuals. This can change how weunderstand people’s lives and social issues, andthe kinds of interventions we design to address
societal problems.

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Diffractive Genealogy

Why might I want to use a
Diffractive Genealogy?
l	
Diffractive Genealogy can be used asa tool to help identify the different
worldviews, values and beliefs
held by people, groups, communities
or organisations, and can be usedby researchers, policy-makers andpractitioners. It helps us explore how
we think about and frame a social issue
in the first place; how this informs how
we theorise and measure social issues;and how the actions we take in relation
to social issues are shaped. It helps us
understand how specific ways of thinking
about social issues get built into, and are
reproduced by, our theories, methods,
policies and practices. Exposing theseworldviews, values and beliefs makes it
easier to challenge them.

l	Diffractive Genealogy is useful for

researchers working in interdisciplinary
and transdisciplinary teams, especiallyresearch where academic and nonacademic partners are working together
to co-produce knowledge and change.
l	Diffractive Genealogy works with diverse

topics, populations and geographicaland socio-cultural contexts. Researchers,
as well as policy-makers, practitioners,
and activists can use it to analyse
assumptions at work in theirown domains.

l	
Diffractive Genealogy encourages us toexperiment with new ways of thinking
and see where these lead us. This makes
this method useful in situations ororganisations where we can get stuckwith certain ways of thinking or doing
things, and where tweaking existing
approaches is not working.
l	Diffractive Genealogy starts from theassumption that we live in a relational
world where all living and non-living
entities are connected. It is well suited
to projects trying to understand a social
issue from a relational perspective
which focuses on relationships between
people and the wider social and naturalenvironment in which they live. It would
also be useful for projects wanting tochallenge taken-for-granted binary waysof thinking about and addressing
social issues.

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Diffractive Genealogy

Step by step guide to using a
Diffractive Genealogy:
1. Identify a social issue: What is the social
issue you are curious about and want toinvestigate? What are different ways ofthinking about this social issue? Are someways more dominant than others? Is thissocial issue thought of as a ‘problem’; ifso, why?
2. Map the social issue. Create thegenealogy by making a relational mapof the various aspects of this issue, thedifferent human and non-human parties
involved, and its distributed (temporaland spatial) scales. The starting point formaking the map is somewhat arbitrary.
You can use various modalities to makethe map: a drawing, a sculpture, a diagram,a table, a collage, a piece of writing, afilm, etc. As part of this genealogy, you
can also conduct empirical research suchas documentary analysis, ethnography,
interviews, focus groups, a survey,
analysis of secondary quantitativeor qualitative data.

Map the social issue
What are the people, communities, places,
institutions, policies, laws, technologies,
media reports, organisational documents,
personal stories, scientific discourses,
geopolitical contexts connected to thesocial issue you are investigating?

3. Analyse one or more aspects of thesocial issue: It is not possible to analyse
all the threads and connections mapped instep 2. Choices must be made about what
to explore in more detail. There may bedifferent reasons for making these choices.
For example, is there an aspect of thissocial issue you find puzzling or intriguing?
Do you have a burning question about thissocial issue? Have the thinking, policies andpractices concerning a social issue changed
or reached a dead end?

Analyse one or more aspects of the social issue.
In this step, you follow one or more threads with thefollowing questions in mind:
1. How is the social issue being framed in thisthread?
2. How has this thread and its framing developed
across time and space?
3. What key ideas, values and assumptions
underpin this thread and its framing?
4. What broader historical, social, cultural,
economic, political and intellectual currents
have shaped this thread and its framing?
5. What/who does the current framing privilege
and what/who does it marginalise?
6. Have there been competing framings acrosstime and space, and specific junctures wheresome ideas took root and others fell by thewayside?
7. Can you frame this social issue differently?

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Diffractive Genealogy

4. Map and analyse your own practices. In
this ‘diffractive’ step, you highlight how yourown practices (e.g. methods and theories)
are part of the network of relations you are
studying and how they contribute to framing
the social issue in a particular way. You use
steps 2 and 3 to undertake this analysis andmapping exercise. Step 4 provides a way ofunderstanding the values and assumptions
embedded in your practices, and how they
too are shaping what you study. Making
this explicit is regarded as a form of ethicalresearch practice.
Map analyse your own practices
For academics, this might be exploring
the philosophical approach, theories
and methods used in the research; thecharacteristics of the researchers; thedisciplinary norms shaping research
practices; the geo-political location of theresearch; the funding sources supporting
the research; and so on.
For non-academic practitioners, thismight be examining funding sources,
geo-political context, and organisational
policies and practices
5. Decentre the researcher. By framing andstudying a social issue in relational terms, a
Diffractive Genealogy decentres the role of
the researcher in three ways:l	
It foregrounds the distributed (temporaland spatial) scales of a social issue: thehistorical, social, cultural, political andeconomic forces and practices that
contribute to its emergence. This is doneby following steps 2 and 3.

l	
It maps both human and non-humanparties involved in the social issue:
research participants and communities,
policymakers, practitioners, but also thenatural and physical environment. This isalso done by following steps 2 and 3.
l	
It highlights not only how the researcher
shapes the research and its outcomes,
but also the influence of researchmethods and theories. This is achievedby following step 4. Decentring
the researcher does not mean the
researcher is objective and detachedfrom the research phenomenon. Rather,
it involves investigating the phenomenon
through more than the subjectivity of
the human researcher and/or research
participants, to analyse its temporal andspatial dimensions, human and nonhuman elements, and how it is shaped by
the research itself
6. Produce a Diffractive Genealogy:
Undertaking steps 1 to 5 is a way of using themethod of Diffractive Genealogy to analyse asocial issue. Because a genealogical method
recognises the relational nature of the world,
one thread leads to another. This means atsome point we must stop the analysis for the
purposes of writing up the genealogy, while
recognising the arbitrary nature of where
and when we make this cut. Writing up theresults of these steps is a way of producing
a Diffractive Genealogy: a relational analysis
of a social issue and how your own practices
contribute to framing it in a particular way.

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Diffractive Genealogy

Example(s) of Diffractive Genealogy in social science research:
A Diffractive Genealogy of data
sharing in the social sciences:
Researcher:
Professor Natasha Mauthner
Newcastle University

Identifying the data sharing movement
as a social issue
I use Diffractive Genealogy to study the
emergence of the data sharing movementin the social sciences. I embarked on the
project in response to a change in data policy.
Until the mid 1990s, social researchers were
expected to destroy empirical data within five
years of their collection. A new data policy
was introduced in which researchers were
expected to share their data, by depositing
them within a social science archive, making
them available to other researchers.
Mapping the data sharing movement
I read widely to understand its historicalemergence in a global context; its
manifestation across geographical andsocio-cultural contexts; and its articulation
across different social and natural science
disciplines, and in relation to different formsof data. My sources included: academic
publications; academic and non-academic
conference reports; policy documents issued
by inter- and non-governmental organisations;data sharing policies issued by researchfunding organisations, academic journals anduniversities; information-sharing legislation;library and data repository websites; and blogs
about data sharing. I mapped the genealogy
using diagrams and written text.
Analysing one or more aspects of the data
sharing movement
I was interested in rationales for regulating
and institutionalising data sharing; theirunderpinning values and assumptions;and discourses around ‘transparency’ and‘replicability’. This led me to explore complianceissues amongst researchers in natural andsocial science; ethical and epistemologicalchallenges researchers were facing; andsolutions proposed by researchers, policy
makers and archivists and the extent to which
they addressed the challenges.

Mapping and analysing my own practices
I situate my genealogy by accounting for myown research practices and the role they play inhelping to make the specific Diffractive Genealogyof the data sharing movement I produce. I explain
the relational thinking underpinning my researchand the Diffractive Genealogy methodology I
have developed to put into practice this relational
approach. This makes visible the lens throughwhich I read and analyse my materials and how
it materialises data sharing as a contested new
professional norm and not simply a marker ofscientific progress.
Decentring the researcher
I decentre the researcher by inviting a focus
on the historical, social, cultural, political andeconomic processes at distributed temporal andspecial scales involved in making the data sharing
movement; and foregrounding how my research
approach and method shape how I frame andunderstand data sharing.
Producing a Diffractive Genealogy of the data
sharing movement
Writing up the results produces a genealogy ofdata sharing. Situating this genealogy by
writing about the influence of my own research
practices produces a Diffractive Genealogy.
My Diffractive Genealogy of the data sharing
movement focuses on its underlying
philosophical, moral, economic and politicalvalues and how these give rise to the contested
nature of data sharing as a new professional
norm. This research is contributing to a reassessment of data sharing initiatives to makethem more inclusive of diverse understandingsof, and approaches to, research.

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Diffractive Genealogy

Where else could a Diffractive
Genealogy be used?
A Diffractive Genealogy is a useful method forstudying social phenomena as relational systems
and for understanding the relationships shaping
our own research practices and their impact
on what we study. I have used a Diffractive
Genealogy to study postnatal depression as arelational phenomenon. In contrast to medical
models of depression, which attribute thecondition to the individual mother, a diffractive
genealogy situates depression in a societal andcultural context. Depression is understood asembedded in a relational network ofhuman and non-human systems, thatall play a part in creating the condition.
These include the social, political, material,
structural, and cultural conditions of women’s
lives; and the role of psychiatric methods (e.g.,
screening devices, diagnostic tools, clinicalguidelines) in reinforcing the idea of depression
as an individual problem. The method can help
bring about change by broadening the scope ofinterventions, encouraging health professionals
to look beyond treatments focused on individual
women and take into consideration therelationship between mental health and thewider environment. I have also used a Diffractive
Genealogy to study how families use technology,
and to understand technology use as morethan about individual family members, theirexperiences and their practices. I see technology
use as part of broader human and non-humansystems including discourses about technology
in the media, popular culture and academia;
moral panics about technology; concerns about
the effects of technology on children; technology
design, development and marketing. All those
involved with these phenomena – researchers,
technology developers, policymakers,
legislators – are implicated and have collective
responsibility for emerging technologies andtheir effects on society and families.

Top Tips
1. Be open. A key aspect of this method
is being prepared to think very
differently about the world we live in.
Be open to challenge yourself and yourown assumptions.
2. Embrace slow method. The method isa slow way of working because it takes
us on a journey following many different
threads of an inter-connected network,
not knowing where these will take us
and what rabbit holes we might end up
in! It is also the case that the changebrought about by using this method
will be slow.
3. Adapt the method. Methods are notstatic. They evolve and change overtime. Researchers make them their own
as they put them into practice. Use thestep-by-step guide as a starting point for
further innovations and adaptations.
4. Accept being uncomfortable.
Working with this method can take us
to places where we feel uncomfortable.
This can be because we cannot find ourway through the interconnected web;
we may not be sure which threads tofollow; or we simply cannot find answers
to our questions. Occupying these kindsof spaces can be uncomfortable.
5. Trust the process. Related to this isa willingness to lose ourselves and let
go of our impulse to drive forward our
projects in a directed and intentional
way. We need to surrender to theprocess and trust it will take us to theplace we need to get to even though we
do not yet know what that place is.

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Further readingl eerts, Evelien and van der Tuin, Iris (2016) ‘Diffraction & Reading Diffractively’. New
GMaterialism, 27th July 2016 Available from: https://newmaterialism.eu/almanac/d/diffraction.htmll	Mauthner, Natasha (2014) ‘Digital data sharing: A genealogical and performative

perspective’. Studia Socjologiczne, 3(214), 177-186. Available from: https://www.
researchgate.net/publication/271838973_Digital_data_sharing_A_genealogical_and_
performative_perspectivel authner, Natasha (2015) ‘We don’t need digital detox, but there is a need toMrethink our relationship with technology’. The Conversation, 20th April 2015.
Available from: https://theconversation.com/we-dont-need-digital-detox-but-thereis-a-need-to-rethink-our-relationship-with-technology-40346l	
Mauthner, Natasha (2016) ‘Diffractive Genealogies’. New Materialism, 8th

September 2016. Available from: https://newmaterialism.eu/almanac/d/diffractivegenealogies.htmll	
Mauthner, Natasha (1997) ‘Postnatal depression: How can midwives help?’.

Midwifery, 13(4), 163-171. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/
publication/51308310_Postnatal_depression_how_can_midwives_helpl	
Mauthner, Natasha (2018) ‘Screening, Diagnosing, and Medicating Depression:

Psychiatric Methods and the Making of Mental Disorder’. Women’s
Reproductive Health 5:1, 32-36. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/
publication/324250178_Screening_Diagnosing_and_Medicating_Depression_
Psychiatric_Methods_and_the_Making_of_Mental_Disorderl	
Mauthner, Natasha (2021) ‘Karen Barad’s posthumanist relational ontology:

An intra-active approach to theorising and studying family practices’. Families,
Relationships and Societies, 10(1): 33-49. Available from: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/349283997_Karen_Barad%27s_posthumanist_relational_ontology_
an_intra-active_approach_to_theorising_and_studying_family_practicesl	Miceli, Charles (2023). ‘Michel Foucault and Genealogy’. Train of Thoughts, YouTube

Video, Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVKaeZZ0_kw

To reference:

Mauthner, N. (2023) ‘Diffractive Genealogy’ in Rodekirchen, M., Pottinger, L. Briggs,
A., Barron, A., Eseonu, T., Hall, S. and Browne, A.L. (eds.) Methods for Change Volume
2: Impactful social science methodologies for 21st century problems. Manchester:
Aspect and The University of Manchester.

To read about more exciting social science
methods, the full range of Methods for
Change ‘how-to’ guides can be found here.

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