Circulating References
(Bruno Latour, 1999, Pandora's Hope, chapter 2: Circulating References: Sampling the Soil in the Amazon Forest)
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Latour introduces 'circulating references' as phenomenon to counter the distinction of language and nature as totally different ontological domains and the gap between words and the world that this chasm produces: "Our philosophical tradition has been mistaken in wanting to make phenomena the meeting point between things-in-themselves and categories of human understanding. Realists, empiricists, idealists, and assorted rationalists have fought ceaselessly among themselves around this bipolar model. Phenomena, however, are not found at the meeting point between things and the forms of the human mind; phenomena are what circulates all along the reversible chain of transformations." (p. 71)

Before landing on 'reversible chain of transformations' as a definition of 'circulating references' Latour takes us on his soil sampling field trip in Bao Vista, Brazil, alongside three scientist: a botanist, a pedologist and a geographer/geomorphologist. Latour functions as an examinator of the practices that produces information, which he does by following and describing the steps between the arrival at the site and the eventual publication of the research.

He observes the successive reductions of the soil: losing matter. And at the same time, regaining the possibility to branch off to other forms that such reductions (written, calculated, archival) make possible (p. 55). The English word 'oversight' captures Latour's doubled understanding of reduction: looking at something from above (regaining form) and ignoring it (losing matter) (p. 38).

On of these steps, the passage to words, seems to be a change of state so radical that now a sign appears in place of a thing. But, this "compression of data", this "crossing of the boundary that divides the world from discourse" has already been crosses a good ten times (p. 63). The passage to words is not a privileged stage. It is one of the many raptures between matter and form that together create an unbroken series of well-nested elements. Each of these elements play the role of a sign (form) for the previous one and of thing (matter) for the succeeding one.

What we end up with is a long cascade of references that do not rely so much on resemblance but on regulated series of transformations, transmutation and translation (p. 58). Important is the alignment of each stage with the ones that precede and follow it, and thus its reversible characteristic. Truth-value circulates here like electricity through a wire, in which the double directional movement of reference is amplified by the scientist getting ready to leave but also preparing to return (p.74).


Multidimensional Citation
(Laura Combs, Laurel Schwulst, Mindy Seu, 2022, link to article)
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Glueing together the long cascade of Latour and the three cascading dots (⋱) by Combs, Schwulst and Seu: multidimensional citation. An "expansive citational practice", in which citation is not presented as singular, but instead "explicitly connected to the lineage of research that came before it." ⋱ is an attempt at "acknowledging the multi-authored histories of ideas, our place within them, and our agency to extend them." 'Multidimensional citation' could thus be seen as "a way of tracing not only the source of a quote but the learning trail that supports and surrounds it." This tracing of the trail brings us to back to ‘circulating references’: each step, each stage of transformations on the infinite chain from matter to form should be reversible. And for it to be reversible, it should be traceable, and for it to be traceable, it should be visible.

When understanding the cascading dots as a practical implementation (trying to make visible) of the rather abstract 'circulating references', it is worth looking at this symbol. In Unicode standard, ⋱ stands for the 'Down Right Diagonal Ellipsis' (U+22F1). As explained by Agnes Cameron, it has a mathematical root in a special kind of matrix: the identity matrix. "When the ⋱ appears in a matrix (arrangement of number in rows and columns), it functions like an ellipsis, but trailing in another direction. In this mathematical context, the ⋱ means "and so forth." "Similar to the mathematical symbol, ⋱ is surrounded by those who have been given credit, but it also implies there's an unknown number of additional people in its citational web. The symbol inherently acknowledges there is more than what is explicitly listed."

Which brings us to the well noted imperfections of U+22F1 in the text: besides the extra care and delivery time, in adrienne maree brown's words: "lineage is both important for me to name, and impossible to track."