Abstract

Against the backdrop of shifting relations between theory and practice in media and cultural studies, a new emphasis on questions of epistemology can contribute towards re-imagining research methods. Such questions have long been elided in the field, despite its diverse contexts and foundational multi-disciplinarity. The epistemological formations of our methods and objects of study are too often assumed in a tacit and uncritical manner. What is needed is not simply a conceptual toolkit that can be extracted and reconstituted from current humanities research programmes. Nor is ‘translation’ of literature in philosophy of science and social sciences entirely adequate for this task. This paper offers media-ecological perspectives, which have been touted as a radical set of research approaches in recent years, as an appropriate point of reference in this regard. Certain concepts may be extrapolated from these perspectives—concerning relational ontologies and immanent critique—in order to address the epistemological dearth. The potential of media-ecological inquiry lies in the opportunity to foster a sort of pre-methodical sensibility, which would exceed metaphorical identification of media ecologies—the tenor this research has tended towards thus far. I relate these media-related concepts to broader debates concerning disciplinarity and methodology in humanities research, and attempt to do so by imagining Theory beyond designations such as productivity and reflexivity—terms that have become shallow and trite. By establishing these correlative points between the situated, particular knowledge of media and cultural studies, and generalist discourses in humanities research, theory can be re-imagined as a form of heuristic that affords researchers room to speculate and invent.