Pepper as Imposter

• “An imposter is commonly understood as a person who pretends to be someone else in orderto deceive others” (Vogel et al., 2021: 3). This isthe starting point of Woolgar and colleagues’(2021) recent work on imposters, in which theyexplore how thinking with imposters can be auseful analytic for social theory, i.e. a tool or lensthrough which to observe social-material phenomena. In the book, they trace early sociologicaluse of imposters to articulate (underlying and/orperformative) social orders, and how impostering was initially seen as an example of deviationfrom the normal. In these early uses, examplesof impostering could be interpreted for clues towhich mechanisms held together the social order.However, their reworking of the term imposteringmoves the figure of the imposter to ‘center stage’and uses it to explore indeterminacy, uncertaintyand disorder, the frictions and disruptions thatare actually central to social relations (Vogel et al.,2021: 4). Rather than using it to discover underlying normative mechanisms, this new use of impostering keeps the analytical focus on the messypractices of social relations but also encouragesanalysis of which other actors are collaborating inthe impostering practices, and what purposes theimposter is supposed to serve. 

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)