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01-06-2015 | Empirical Study/Analysis

Fun in Go: The Timely Delivery of a Monkey Jump and its Lingering Relevance to Science Studies

Author: Philippe Sormani

Published in: Human Studies | Issue 2/2015

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Abstract

This paper offers an ethnomethodological exploration of fun in Go (the ancient board game), the timely delivery of a ‘Monkey Jump’ (a particular move in Go), and its lingering relevance to science studies (where Go has provided an early analogy for laboratory work). In Go terms, the paper makes a ‘pincer’ move: on the one hand, it explores the analytic potential of ‘fun’ for ethnographic purposes and, on the other hand, it questions its manifest abandonment in some quarters of science studies. In particular, the paper challenges their “curious seriousness” (Garfinkel in Réseaux Hors Sér 8(1):69–78, 1990) whenever grand ontological claims are mixed up with suspended empirical inquiry. That said, the latter criticism does not take the form of a scholarly exercise in conceptual clarification, but remains part and parcel of the author’s ethnography of playing amateur Go, including his dealing with and delivery of a Monkey Jump and reading of Go literature and replaying of professional games (as most amateurs do). The key point of the paper, then, is to demonstrate the heuristic interest of adopting a practitioner’s stance, not only for understanding a technical domain such as Go in its own terms (Livingston in Ethnographies of reason, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2008), but also for launching a phenomenological critique of analytic discretion in science studies. Therefore, the second part of the paper re-examines, from an amateur Go player’s stance, Latour and Woolgar’s Go analogy in and for Laboratory Life (1979, 1986a)—an early exemplar of science studies’ ontological bent.

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Recently, Eric Livingston has emphasized the heuristic interest of ethnomethodological research in the first person singular: “if I want to do original work, I have to see what it is that I’m talking about” (Livingston 2008: 138). In Livingston’s spirit, this paper is also held in the first person singular. Yet its potential originality owes debts to many parties and players, as can be gleaned from the acknowledgments at the end of this text.

As Kierkegaard put it, “irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it, but loved by those who do” (Kirkegaard 2006: 255).

The city names do not correspond to the cities where the ethnography has been (and still is) conducted. The names of participants and places have been altered and anonymized as well.

The target of my ‘pincer’ move has been most aptly identified by J.R. Zammito when he questions science studies qua “hyperbolic ‘theory’ threaten[ing] especially the prospect of learning anything from others that we did not already presume” (Zammito 2004: 275), including any actor’s presumed “politics,” “ontology,” or “metaphysics” (see, e.g., Latour 2006: 73f.).

The broader ‘pincer’ move consists in challenging any “hyperbolic ‘theory’” (or “eccentric ontology,” Collin 2011: 199) in science studies by drawing upon the sustained practice of amateur Go, on the one hand, and its technical terms as part of that self-same practice, on the other. This latter move, as we shall see, results in a phenomenological critique “beneath” existing conceptual clarifications of scholarly interest (see, e.g., Hutchinson et al. 2008; Lynch 2013; Quéré 2012; Tsilipakos 2012).

In the existing literature on (and in) ethnomethodology, H. Garfinkel’s requirement to engage in technical self-instruction has often been referred to as a professional distraction, if not unnecessary pain. Early on, M. Lynch (1985: 128) acknowledged the “monstrously difficult strictures of Garfinkel’s program” (quoted in Latour, Woolgar 1986b: 286, note 5). This section, in turn, tries to convey the instructive fun (or, one might say, surprising pleasure) of engaging in this program, even in and for a “tough case” such as Go, whether amateur or professional.

The tautological point marks the reflexive availability of the setting(s). For the seminal account of this “uninteresting” notion of reflexivity, see Garfinkel (1967:6f.).

Though not always favorably so: “Go is to Western chess what philosophy is to double entry accounting” (from Shibumi, a bestseller by Trevanian, quoted on a leading Go book publisher’s website, see http://www.kiseido.com/).

For approximately four months (from February to May 2004), I went playing Go and observing its playing at the mentioned Magic pub. Later that year, I pursued the ethnography on a weekly basis for almost a year at Geneva Go Club (from September 2004 onwards). In 2007, I attended a four-day workshop with a Japanese Go professional, including one amateur tournament, after having attended several training sessions at the Japanese consulate in Geneva. Only recently, however, have I been able to take up participant observation at Linz Go Club (from September 2013 onwards). The reasons for the only recent “revival” of the ongoing ethnography, as well as the delayed finalization of this paper, are not without analytic interest (as outlined in the conclusion to this paper).

These partly embodied members’ methods, we may say, establish the “natural home” of their talk (see Goffman 1964).

“Natural accountability” denotes the “accountability to the populational cohort and the scene in which one does something” (Editor’s note, in Garfinkel 2002: 173, note 2)—for instance, ‘starting another game of Go’. Garfinkel contrasts this “natural accountability” with the “[classical] accountability to the populational cohort to which one reports a description of what has been done” (Garfinkel 2002: 173).

For a detailed analysis of “turn-generated” and “turn-generating” membership categories in conversational talk and otherwise institutionalized interaction, see Sacks (1992) and Watson (1994). On ranking rules in Go, see http://www.gokgs.com/help/rank.html.

“Although the normal size of a Go board is 19 by 19 lines, it is possible to use smaller sizes. Beginners can learn the basics on a 9 by 9 board and quick games can be played on a 13 by 13 board without losing the essential character of the game” (BGA 2001: 6). Visual representations of 9 × 9 and 19 × 19 Go boards are used below.

For a recent investigation of this reflexive, mutually elaborating relationship between rule and instance in other board games, see Liberman (2013, chap. 3).

In Go, one can manifestly “kill” an opponent’s group and still keep its members as “prisoners”. This may go against the military saying (“take no prisoners”), yet it does not prevent one from playing Go, even though the game is often presented in military terms (e.g., “chess is a battle, Go is war”).

Not all of the basic rules of Go have been explained, among which “ko” rules which prevent situations of virtually eternal, mutual recapturing (“ko” meaning “eternity” in Japanese). For an explanation of the handicap system and the differences in the Japanese and Chinese rules of Go, see BGA (2001: 10f.). The “dotted” intersections on the Go board, also visible on its presently used figures, mark the positions where handicap stones are placed.

The hyphenated expression hints at the form of the sought answer.

After the “nasty surprise” game, the 3 dan player showed us several possible responses to the Monkey Jump problem on the board. All of them seemed to be “sensitive” to the actual situation: the slightest alterations in the constellation of the stones modified the preferred moves to play. He demonstrated different solutions (or “preference rules”; Garfinkel 1963), yet with the crucial caveat that the adequacy of each would remain contingent upon the particular game under way. For a Monkey Jump textbook that takes into account such game-bound contingencies, see Hunter (2002).

To disregard the “direction of play” of an unfolding game is a typical flaw of amateur players—at least according to longstanding professionals (e.g., Kajiwara 1979: 19). I shall get back to this point (in the next section below) when examining the Go analogy in and for Laboratory Life (Latour and Woolgar 1979: 247–250).

“I see exactly what you mean, but whether it is better, I don’t know” (A. Sormani, personal remark). This was the reaction of a more experienced player to my game analysis. The latter could and can thus be continued.

The same holds for the sequel to the commented episode. As readers can glean from the Kifu in Appendix 1, in answer to Black’s Monkey Jump (move 141), White surrounded and enclosed Black’s group even more severely in the upper-left corner (see moves 142–153), thus canceling Black’s project of minimizing White’s territory on the left-hand side. Did I lose or win the game in the end? The Kifu sheet may assist interested readers in finding an answer to this question.

I was fortunate enough to discuss this chapter section with Ignaz Strebel, who offered me the “no go” pun. Eventually, however, the section spells out in which way no pun is actually intended. If this involves an irony, perhaps so much the better (see note 2 above).

In all of the investigated Go clubs books were made available to their members. These books, in contrast to manuals, were typically signed by “professionals” and designed for “amateurs”. Garfinkel (1990): 77 alluded to the “curious seriousness of professional sociology” as a phenomenon to be discovered (and not predefined) in the particular course of an ethnomethodological inquiry. This section tries to exemplify his allusion and how it might apply to science studies and their renewed interest in ontology (see Woolgar and Lezaun 2013). On the “renewed” character of this interest, see the conclusion to this paper.

In professional science studies, in turn, the incongruity seems not to have been noticed. This may not be surprising, given their indebtedness to Laboratory Life (e.g., Law 2009: 144; Sismondo 1993: 532). This unquestioned indebtedness may be considered as a second expression of “curious seriousness”. For a related criticism of technically complex, yet potentially empty analogies, see Gingras (2007).

That is, “at the beginning of the game, any move appears as possible, or as good, as any other” (Latour and Woolgar 1979: 42, note 5).

L&W use the expression “model,” rather “ontology,” when writing of “(created) pockets of order” (1979: 246). Yet their argument seems to be ontological, as it bears on (scientific) reality and its constructed character, rather than on the methods and concepts used for its investigation (Latour and Woolgar 1979:244–252). If the latter were brought into focus, the “Go” analogy might have been dropped altogether, as well as the conflation between probabilistic notions and game preferences regarding contingency and necessity (see also Coulter 1996). This manifest conflation, in turn, has (or had) the advantage of providing L&W with a local motive for rhetorical work.

Kawabata received the Nobel Prize in 1968 for his life work. For further information on this author and his Master of Go, see the translator’s introduction to Kawabata (1996/1972: vi–vii).

The numbering of moves corresponds to the moves shown in Fig. 12.

In other words, given their interpretive discretion, L&W could not but miss the “relationship between the first two moves” (Kajiwara 1979: 56) and how (and why!) “move two lost the game” perhaps (Kajiwara 1979: 55–78). The conservative character of the commented opening move is related to its placement at R-16, in the upper right-hand corner: “a quiet, restrained move that can easily be turned into profit” (Kajiwara 1979: 8).

Crucially, L&W missed the ordered opening of the game (i.e., its “conservative” and then “diagonal” opening, via moves 1–3), which made possible its incidental, yet incongruous commentary in terms of “initial disorder” (i.e., as presumably illustrated by Fig. 12). As one reviewer suggested, L&W might not have been very serious about the “Go” analogy, though perhaps about the general picture of lab work (see though Latour and Woolgar 1986b: 284f.). Is that to say that the end (conveying this or that general picture) justifies the means (using this or that dodgy analogy)? Obviously, the present paper has argued against this view, an instrumentalist view which seems to have been L&W’s too (see Collin 2011: 114).

With A. Louch, we may note more generally that “in a limited and ordinary employment of game, a [wo]man must understand the rules in order to play. But when we come to apply this concept analogically or metaphorically this requirement is no longer met. In fact, anthropologists want to claim the right to revise the participants’ account of their performances. In such a case, is the anthropologist’s diagnosis of the rules a generalization upon observed actions, or a directive to act? Is [s]he umpire or observer?” (Louch 1969: 225).

No “resistance to theory” (Hutchinson et al. 2008: 92) was cultivated in this paper, however. Rather, a “member’s theory” (e.g., opening theory in Go) was to be recovered as part of a “member’s practice” (i.e., amateur Go), as already suggested by Garfinkel and Sacks (1986/1970).

At a recent workshop on “actor-network theory,” I asked one of its leading figures “but why, as an ethnographer, should one ‘ontologize’, ‘epistemologize’, or otherwise ‘theorize’ phenomena, instead of describing them in their self-identifying features, and stick to the understanding that such description can provide?” He called the question “a tough one” and declined to answer it.

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Title: Fun in Go: The Timely Delivery of a Monkey Jump and its Lingering Relevance to Science Studies
Author: Philippe Sormani
Publication date: 01-06-2015
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Human Studies / Issue 2/2015
Print ISSN: 0163-8548
Electronic ISSN: 1572-851X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-015-9340-x

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