Replications in quantitative and qualitative methods: a new era for commensurable digital social sciences

TL;DR

This paper discusses how integrating replication theory with digital data and Actor Network Theory can enhance comparability and insights in social sciences, marking a new era for mixed-method research.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework combining replication, Actor Network Theory, and digital resources to advance comparability in social science research.

Findings

Replication propagates through digital networks.

Actor Network Theory enhances qualitative comparison.

Digital resources enable new insights from field studies.

Abstract

Social sciences were built from comparison methods assembling field works and data, either quantitative or qualitative. Big Data offers new opportunities to extend this requirement to build commensurable data sets. The paper tells the story of the two previous quantification eras (census and polls) in order to demonstrate the need for a new agency to be considered as the target of this new generation of social sciences: that of objects as Actor Network Theory proposed and of replications that propagate all over the digital networks. The case study of Latour's topofil of Boa Vista is revisited to explore how a qualitative method dedicated to comparison and an Actor Network Theory approach extended in a replication theory may offer new insights from any field study and may use the digital ressources to do so.