Rethinking Data: Toward More Engaged and Creative Research Practices.
Phillip Vannini’s book, Non-representational and More-than-human Research – Vitalist Methodologies for the End of Data, invites readers to rethink what “data” means in research today. Instead of seeing data as lifeless facts to be collected and stored, Vannini encourages us to view research materials as lively, relational, and always changing. Drawing on ideas from non-representational theory and more-than-human perspectives, the book challenges traditional approaches that treat data as passive and fixed. Vannini proposes “more-than-data”: a way of doing research that values creativity, connection, and the active role of both humans and non-humans in shaping knowledge.
Key Takeaways
- Phillip Vannini sees data as lively and relational, not passive.
- Vitalist methods should focus on attunement and care, not extraction.
- “More-than-human” thinking rejects anthropocentrism and emphasizes entanglements.
- Moving beyond data means resisting audit culture and embracing multispecies knowledge.
- Scholars are encouraged to engage creatively and closely with the lifeworld.
Phillip Vannini: A Cultural Theorist Challenging Conventional Paradigms
Phillip Vannini is a Canadian cultural theorist and ethnographer whose work has significantly shaped contemporary debates on non-representational methodologies and qualitative inquiry. Known for his contributions to sensory ethnography and methodological innovation, Vannini has consistently challenged conventional research paradigms that privilege representation, textualization, and positivist epistemologies. His earlier works, such as Non-Representational Methodologies: Re-envisioning Research (2015), positioned him as a leading voice in the movement toward creative, affective, and process-oriented approaches. In More-Than-Data? An Introduction to Vitalist Methodologies, Vannini extends this trajectory by interrogating the ontological status of “data” and advocating for a radical rethinking of what research materials are and what they do.
Critiquing the Received Notion of Data: From “Givens” to Extractivism
The book begins with a critique of the received notion of data as inert, passive “givens”, a view deeply rooted in positivist traditions and perpetuated even within qualitative research. Vannini argues that this conception reduces the lifeworld to static objects, taming its vitality and rendering research a sedentary exercise in representation. Drawing on Dewey’s observation that epistemology might have evolved differently had we spoken of “takens” rather than “givens,” Vannini highlights how conventional data practices enact an extractivist logic that commodifies knowledge and reinforces neoliberal audit cultures.
Introducing “More-Than-Data”: Non-Representational and More-Than-Human Perspectives
Against this backdrop, Vannini introduces the notion of “more-than-data,” a conceptual move inspired by two influential currents: non-representational theory and more-than-human perspectives. Non-representational theory, first articulated by Nigel Thrift (2008) and expanded by scholars like Lorimer (2005) and Anderson and Harrison (2010), rejects the primacy of representation and instead focuses on practices, performances, and affective intensities that animate everyday life. More-than-human perspectives, a term popularized by Sarah Whatmore (2006), challenge anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism by foregrounding the agency, vitality, and relationality of non-human entities: animals, plants, materials, technologies, and elemental forces. Importantly, “more-than-human” does not mean “post-human” in the sense of leaving humanity behind; rather, it signals an ontology of excess, emphasizing that humans are always already entangled with other beings and forces in co-constitutive assemblages. This shift demands that research move away from human-centered discourses and toward multispecies, multinaturalist modes of inquiry that recognize distributed agency and situated knowledges.
Vitalist Methodologies: Slowing Down and Embracing Élan Vital
Vannini’s vitalist methodologies emerge from the convergence of these perspectives. They advocate for slowing down, cultivating proximity, and engaging with the lifeworld through attunement, care, and speculative openness. Rather than extracting information, researchers are invited to encounter phenomena as co-constitutive events animated by an élan vital—a concept borrowed from Bergson (2002) and reinterpreted by neo-vitalist thinkers such as Bennett (2010) and Greco (2021). Vitalist methodologies resist mechanistic, deterministic, and representationalist explanations, favoring instead weak theories (Sedgwick, 1997; Stewart, 2008) that embrace indeterminacy and wonder. This orientation reframes research as an ethical and political practice: a modest act of witnessing that acknowledges the vibrancy and contrarian spirit of the world, rather than reducing it to commodifiable units of information.
“Reviewers highlight its multidisciplinary relevance, noting that it will be valuable for students, researchers, and arts practitioners across the social sciences, and that it opens new methodological dialogues for years to come” (Barnes & Noble, n.d.).
Non-representational and More-than-human Research – Vitalist Methodologies for the End of Data, edited by Phillip Vannini is available at Routledge.
Strengths and Limitations of Vannini’s Approach
The strength of Vannini’s book lies in its theoretical depth and its capacity to synthesize diverse intellectual traditions, from process philosophy, affect theory to posthumanism, into a coherent call for methodological transformation. By framing research as “encountering” rather than “collecting,” Vannini offers a generative vocabulary for qualitative inquiry that resists the audit culture and neoliberal imperatives of speed and efficiency. His emphasis on arts-based and sensory approaches aligns with recent developments in research-creation and speculative scholarship, opening new possibilities for interdisciplinary practice. However, the book’s conceptual richness comes at the cost of practical guidance; readers seeking concrete techniques for implementing vitalist methodologies may find its prescriptions elusive. Moreover, the dense theoretical language may pose challenges for those unfamiliar with continental philosophy or poststructuralist thought.
A Timely Intervention: Toward an Ethics of Care and Relationality
Despite these limitations, Non-representational and More-than-human Research – Vitalist Methodologies for the End of Data is a timely and provocative intervention in debates on the future of qualitative research. It not only critiques the epistemological foundations of data-driven science but also gestures toward an ethics of care and relationality that is urgently needed in an era of ecological crisis and algorithmic governance. By advocating for a shift from data as inert to data as lively, emergent, and agentive, Vannini invites scholars to reimagine research as a creative, speculative, and deeply ethical endeavor.
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