From mapping to scaling fields: A narrative about a theory and methodology development process

Abstract

This paper is basically about the ongoing interactions of two persons, situated in the same office, regarding the question of how to map the actual dynamics of what in a neo-institutional perspective is designated as organisational fields. In their efforts, both persons also interacted directly or indirectly with a whole range of other persons as, for instance, the authors of various journal articles and seminar students of the bachelor degree in social and educational sciences at the University of Luxembourg. The paper is written in a narrative style, as it retraces the train of thought and action leading to a first formulation of what they have, to put it in the terms of Wagner (1981), invented and covenanted as being an hermeneutics of scaling. This process might, retrospectively, be best described as a process of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction. In this sense, the present paper has to be seen as a temporary materialisation of ideas being exchanged in an ongoing interaction process taking on a certain pattern which, on the long run, eventually materialises in a more or less formalised network.