ABSTRACT
The relational innovations of social researchers have often been neglected in favour of their substantive conceptual contents. The chapter counters that tendency by tracing some elements of a genealogy of relational thinking in social research. A relational template – the use of cross-tabulation – is taken as a methodological point of focus. The chapter argues that this technique has been a central battleground in the struggle to counter essentialism by moving from categorial to relational diagrams. The work of three scholars who have each in different ways acknowledged the limitations of categorial thinking – Paul Lazarsfeld, Howard Becker and Bruno Latour – is examined. Through these examples and others, the chapter marks out key themes in the development of relational thought in methods of social research. In doing so, it confronts some of the obstacles to breaking with substantialist thinking and considers the way that relational work may remain haunted by residual categorisation of an essentialist kind.
