ABSTRACT
Refraction is used in this book as a metaphor for seeing and analysing the discursive of material-discursive entanglements. Technology is theorized as a material-discursive entanglement and the materiality of technologies is conceptually used to refract the discursive element of the entanglement, slowing it down and dispersing it into a spectrum of actor assemblages, values and norms. In Chapter 1, this analytical method is explained, as are the understandings of relational spectrums, contexts (and contexting), norms and values that are applied in the book. A final section of the chapter embeds refraction within an agential realist discussion of material-discursive entanglements and cuts, explaining why attention to the nuances of discourse is generative of analytical work that can afford social change.
