ABSTRACT In this article we draw on actor-network theory (ANT) in order to challenge the methodological and empirical orthodoxies of anthropocentrism and interactionism that have long informed dominant discourses of ethnographic work. We use ANT to open new possibilities for understanding education as emergent in relational fields where non-human forces are as equally necessary as and possess an agency equivalent to, human forces: the principle of symmetry. We argue that this generates important conceptual as well as political possibilities in constituting different possible outcomes in the accomplishment of ethnographies of education. We draw attention to the problematic of the decentring of the human subject and the critical investigation of the interface between people and objects that frame this special issue, and also propose a methodological response framed by a commitment to empirical research through ethnography as well as a theoretical response framed by relational materialism, operationalised here through recourse to ANT.

中文翻译：

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人种学，物质性和对称原则：教育人种学中的人类中心主义和互动主义问题

摘要在本文中，我们将借鉴行动者网络理论（ANT），以挑战人类学中心主义和互动主义的方法论和经验正统观念，而这些正统观念长期以来一直是民族志研究的主要论述。我们使用ANT来开辟新的可能性，将教育理解为关系领域中的新兴事物，在这些领域中，非人类力量与人类力量同等重要，并且拥有与人类力量等效的代理：对称原理。我们认为，这在构成民族志的教育方面可能产生重要的概念和政治可能性，以构成不同的可能结果。我们提请注意人类主体下放的问题以及对构成此特殊问题的人与物体之间的界面进行的批判性研究，