Scaling as Methodological and Material Activation Technique

In this methodological paper, we propose that knowledge production and worldbuilding creations (in the context of scholarship) often provide a sense of activation and urgency to act. Namely, we focus on scaling as one possible activation technique for qualitative inquiry building on particular worlds, potential relationships, and emerging ‘(dis)order’ within the world. Scaling as an activation technique and the concept of scale enable scholars to consider their relationality with others, to identify within themselves relationalities regarding their areas of study, to consider how close/far data, knowledge, and participants are and become, which theories and practices are foregrounded and backgrounded, and how relationality within scales and scaling might operate. First, we discuss the relational nature of scaling and how scales are situated in relational spaces. Then we draw from the past scaling traditions and situate scaling in the context of mountains and mountain matter(ings). Finally, we share two scaling activation examples and conclude with a discussion about boundaries and the limits of humanely perceived relationalities and scaling. We propose that nonhuman and/or more-than-human ‘scales’ are particularly pertinent to understanding the limitations of human knowledge and various forms of relationalities.