Habits, Neuroses, Talents (https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/sketch-1-habits-neuroses-talents/essay)

Do you have more trouble articulating your frame (social theoretical questions) or object?
The object. Before i actually begun doing research, i always thought it would be the other way around. The problem is, the wobbly-ness of the object ends up displacing the frame. "The thing!" i wanna proclaim, and then chase & capture, however if the thing never simply "is" and only "is relational, contextual, etc." how many of those can one capture with frames; how many frames are enogh to proclaim you truly dealt with "the thing" and not "the thing in state x,y,z"? It feels like trying to catch water with a fishing net sometimes, yes the net becomes wet, but it is still empty.
Do you tend to project-hop or to stick to a project, and what explains this?
I stick to a project by hopping. Take this would-be thesis im woking on. It started with a paper on Death. "How did our relationship with death change?" was the question. I saw an ad in which a company makes a tree out of your corpse. Not fertiliser, but "a"tree. Individualism preserved post-death. got me thinking, why not add "...with thanatological technologies ?" to the question. Suddenly, Pandemic! Turns out, a lot of good people are just waiting to become martyrs for the economy(!) so the question included their demise, the frames became too small, necro was not enough, so it became necropolitics. The project was hopped, but also stuck too. Maybe the explanation lies again in the wobbly-ness of the object. I do not see this as "hopping" the project but getting a clearer view by adding more frames. To get at "more complete" knowledge, which only makes it unobtainable; as again, how many steps are enough?
Do you tend to be more interested in internal dynamics, or external determinations? In the terms laid out by Keller, do you tend to focus so intently on the object of your concern that context falls away (i.e. are you obsessive compulsive, rather than paranoid)? Is your desire to name, specify and control your object? Is your desire is for figure, its ground your annoyance? Or are you paranoid, context being your focus and obsession? All is signal. Only begrudgingly will you admit that something is noise, outside the scope of your project? Figure is hard to come by. Its ground has captured your attention.
I am definitely a paranoid as you can see by the previous answers. I may even be paraniod about my paranoia, i can swear it much easier to focus on the object before reading Fortun's "Figuring Out Ethnography". When nothing is noise but you cant make out the signal you blame your ears, not your attitude to the subject; so you go back to literature review, 5 books later, what changes is only that you cast a wider net on the water, the net is still not a bucket, you got more wet silk, but still no substantial water.
What do you do with unusual or counter examples? Are you drawn to “the deviant,” or rather repulsed by it?
I am drawn to them, drawn and quartered by them even. Only after several treasons against my intial assumption i realise where i began was left behind long ago. This should not be seen as a mistake though, not necessarily. It does however make it hard to write.
Do you tend to over-impose logics on the world, or to resist the construction of coherent narratives?
I think i wear my ideology pin proudly enough, and admitting the logics one impose is better than playing that good old god trick, no? However, just because one is reflexive enough, (or rather how does one determine one is refliexive enough?) does not mean the world they created holds better than any other. I think of my imposal of logics like trying to carve a rock with bronze tools. I apply all my force only to find my tools changed in shape by the encounter. Or perhapns this is how i trick myself.
Do you tend to over-generalize, or to hold back from overarching argument?
I live for the overarching argument, truly. One rarely gets to proclaim something so loudly in academic work without first appearing and then being proven a fool. The attempt is still mroe important than the result. If we will not say anything radical, why do all this work at all? 
"My guess is that one of the main reasons anthropologists do not describe “wreckage” is for fear of being called names—not only apocalyptic, but also romantic, and, worse yet, stupid. Indeed, anthropologists who make big statements have often been wrong, and sometimes stupidly, shamefully so. None of us wants to follow in those footsteps. And yet the fear of being called stupid has stopped our discipline from saying anything at all about environmental destruction. Ironically, a discipline that prides itself on its radical stances has become one of the more conservative disciplines when it comes to ecological wellbeing. We don’t like to say anything stronger than “Everything is complicated.”" - Tsing
Do you like to read interpretations different than your own, or do you tend to feel scooped or intimidated by them?

I welcome a challenge to my readings, does not mean i wont get anxious about them. Im trying to wecome my anxiety to interpretations that differ. I act upon them; challenge them right back, not to win or anything, but to welcome what comes after the challenge. Often i find i am left with a sword that is quite different than the one i drew. I just love that feeling.

Do you tend to change an argument as you flesh it out, or do you tend to make the argument work, no matter what?
The first one, but there are lines i do not cross which could be called "virtue" perhaps. 
Do you tend to think in terms of “this is kind of like” (metaphorically)? Do you hold to examples that “say it all,” leveraging metonymic thinking?
My entire education/work has been nothing but a continuation of "this is like that". I am often scared that i will never produce a single original idea, but maybe those comparisons i speak through, are original/authentic enough.
Do you like gaming understanding in this way? Does it frustrate you that your answers often don’t fit easily on either side of the binaries set up by the questions? (Jakobson suggests that over attachment to a simple binary scheme is a “continuity disorder.”)

It does frustrate me but that is the point, correct? This moving onward through frustration, and achieving betterment (in/with what?). Quite the masculine heroics, i must say. And again, on the one hand i know them to be "fake", does not stop by belief in them however; and thus it's reality, in a sense.

1. Do you have more trouble articulating your frame (social theoretical questions) or object?

I definitely struggle more with articulating my frame, and the theories it draws from/speaks to. I think some of this is rooted in the nowhere-ness that I feel with my interdisciplinary positioning.

2. Do you tend to project-hop or to stick to a project, and what explains this?

I project-hop, a lot. When describing my project(s), things can/do sound vaguely inter-related, I've been told, but I think of project-hopping as not really that because all my work coagulates into one larger set of questions (at least in my understanding). When I consciously project-hop, though, I do so because I enjoy moving between different kinds of work -- provided I plan far enough in advance for it -- and because the collaborations that emerge out of this movement allow me to learn ways of noticing + knowing that I would otherwise not have encountered.

3. Do you tend to be more interested in internal dynamics, or external determinations? In the terms laid out by Keller, do you tend to focus so intently on the object of your concern that context falls away (i.e. are you obsessive compulsive, rather than paranoid)? Is your desire to name, specify and control your object? Is your desire is for figure, its ground your annoyance? Or are you paranoid, context being your focus and obsession? All is signal. Only begrudgingly will you admit that something is noise, outside the scope of your project? Figure is hard to come by. Its ground has captured your attention.

100% the latter -- I live for the context, and that makes it really hard to cut away things that might not be relevant to (field)work right now, because I'm always anxious that I'm missing out on some important context (even though I don't wind up using the vast majority of the context in my writing).

4. What do you do with unusual or counter examples? Are you drawn to “the deviant,” or rather repulsed by it?

Love "the deviant," and am here for it both academically and personally (I think being disabled has allowed me a lot of mental room to embrace how deviation is conceptualized and what meanings it takes on). I appreciate unusual/counter-examples for the ways in which they remind me that (my) knowledge is always shifting, and that there is no singular, specific way horizon.

5. Do you tend to over-impose logics on the world, or to resist the construction of coherent narratives?

I try as hard as I can to find logics that fit what I see, theories that make sense of the moment. In doing that, I also have to push myself to remember that maybe I am constructing a narrative that is more coherent than probable/useful.

6. Do you tend to over-generalize, or to hold back from overarching argument?

I hold back from overarching arguments, because "the deviant" has often reminded me that it is not possible to say 'the' fully-encapsulating thing about anything.

7. Do you like to read interpretations different than your own, or do you tend to feel scooped or intimidated by them?

I love different interpretations! They have contributed very significantly to shaping my worldview and my (academic) life -- I started out as a statistician, and I know I have strayed very far because of all of the generous, thoughtful, unbelievably rich interpretations I've read that were so different than the things I knew.

8. Do you tend to change an argument as you flesh it out, or do you tend to make the argument work, no matter what?

I'm not wedded to the argument, and will certainly change it as I flesh it out. I have a nasty habit of discovering more interesting reading as I write, which has also made for situations where I almost never know what I am writing about until I have it fully written out.

9. Do you tend to think in terms of “this is kind of like” (metaphorically)? Do you hold to examples that “say it all,” leveraging metonymic thinking?

More the former than the latter, but it depends on the situation, mood, and so many other factors.

10. Do you like gaming understanding in this way? Does it frustrate you that your answers often don’t fit easily on either side of the binaries set up by the questions? (Jakobson suggests that over attachment to a simple binary scheme is a “continuity disorder.”)

Yes and no -- I have often found imposed binaries very difficult to make my intellectual peace with, but have also sometimes appreciated the naming of a binary so that I can think of where I fall with my own work/methods/processes in more concrete terms than let-things-happen-and-I'll-see-what-comes-of-it.

1. Do you have more trouble articulating your frame (social theoretical questions) or object?  Definitely frame.  I typically have a good 'feel' for objects that prove rich for thinking through frames, but it takes time and effort for me to tease out their articulation [sometimes a lot of time to translate my 'feel' into language].
2. Do you tend to project-hop or to stick to a project, and what explains this?  Interesting question...both:  I feel like I have an 'uber project' which finds many different expressions in different objects.  I enjoy doing many diverse explorations into these.  That said, thus far I've only had one 'all consuming' project, which very luckily is my dissertation project.  But I find myself exploring it through many different lenses [chronologically].
3. Do you tend to be more interested in internal dynamics, or external determinations? In the terms laid out by Keller, do you tend to focus so intently on the object of your concern that context falls away (i.e. are you obsessive compulsive, rather than paranoid)? Is your desire to name, specify and control your object? Is your desire is for figure, its ground your annoyance? Or are you paranoid, context being your focus and obsession? All is signal. Only begrudgingly will you admit that something is noise, outside the scope of your project? Figure is hard to come by. Its ground has captured your attention.  Definitly more paranoid, but realistically I'm dysfunctional in both ways.  Incresingly, I can't seperate the object from it's context, and generally think it's less productive to do so.  That said, my architecture background is very 'figure' dominant, and I've been consciously unlearning some of that training.
4. What do you do with unusual or counter examples? Are you drawn to “the deviant,” or rather repulsed by it?  Definitely drawn to the deviant.  I enjoy, and find it very productive to imagine, and think through, possibilities...particularly those that are more subversive.
5. Do you tend to over-impose logics on the world, or to resist the construction of coherent narratives?  Intellectually, I'm pretty resistent to overarching logics/narratives, but in practice I often find myself generating them in production, especially initially.  It takes some work for me to break them down and complicate them.  I've been questioning why I tend to work this way for several years now...still no good answers, but I am concerned that it renders my thinking and writing more 'simple' than is reflective of my subjects [and that they deserve].
6. Do you tend to over-generalize, or to hold back from overarching argument?  As briefly touched upon above, defenitely on the side of over-generalizing.  I suspect this has to do with my discomfort with writing.  I tend to speak with more nuance than I write.
7. Do you like to read interpretations different than your own, or do you tend to feel scooped or intimidated by them?  I enjoy reading defferent interpretations from my own.  They enrich my thinking, as does conversation, more than I can typically accomplish on my own.  Sometimes, I feel intimidated...there are lots of really amazing thinkers out there...I hope to get there one day.
8. Do you tend to change an argument as you flesh it out, or do you tend to make the argument work, no matter what?  Some of both, often driven by my beliefs.  I find I'm willing to manipulate supporting evidence and narrative structure [almost like an intellectual game] for interest and for fun, to make an intellectual proposition 'work.'  But there are certain values I hold deeply, which I often find I will modify the intellectual argument to support at almost all cost.  I worry that this is opportunist at best, and not ethical at its worst.
9. Do you tend to think in terms of “this is kind of like” (metaphorically)? Do you hold to examples that “say it all,” leveraging metonymic thinking?  Hmmm...good question.  I'm not sure I have a preference, but that could be because I haven't thought to pay attention until now.
10. Do you like gaming understanding in this way? Does it frustrate you that your answers often don’t fit easily on either side of the binaries set up by the questions? (Jakobson suggests that over attachment to a simple binary scheme is a “continuity disorder.”). I love exploring the 'grey tones' between black and white.  While I find it very productive in terms of thinking, it can be a liability when working on finalizing ideas/projects as it often results in slower production inspired by more questioning.

1. Do you have more trouble articulating your frame (social theoretical questions) or object?

Social theoretical questions, if I understand this question correctly.

2. Do you tend to project-hop or to stick to a project, and what explains this?

I would rather stick to a project, as leaving things unfinished would bother me. In other words, as a matter of principle, if I start doing something, then I would do my best to complete it properly.

3. Do you tend to be more interested in internal dynamics, or external determinations? In the terms laid out by Keller, do you tend to focus so intently on the object of your concern that context falls away (i.e. are you obsessive compulsive, rather than paranoid)? Is your desire to name, specify and control your object? Is your desire is for figure, its ground your annoyance? Or are you paranoid, context being your focus and obsession? All is signal. Only begrudgingly will you admit that something is noise, outside the scope of your project? Figure is hard to come by. Its ground has captured your attention.

I tend to be more interested in my own internal dynamics, so in Keller’s words, I would fear more of the loss of self-control than being controlled by others. Again, according to Keller’s conceptualization, this makes me obsessive compulsive, I guess. And while working on stuff, I do have the tendency of obsessing about understanding thoroughly what I am working on (so I do desire to name/categorize, order and control), but I would still say that I do not obsess about it to the extent that the context (of what I study?) falls away from my attention.

4. What do you do with unusual or counter examples? Are you drawn to “the deviant,” or rather repulsed by it?

Although I have the tendency to force things to fit in the frameworks I build to better understand/control the phenomenon I study (so to be repulsed by the unusual examples), as I am already aware of this tendency of mine (also the obsessive-compulsive tendencies I have in general, not particularly as a researcher) I am pretty much conscious of such practices of mine as well. As far as I observe, my overall work ethic (i.e. if I start doing something then I would do it properly) overwrites my tendency of following what feels better for an obsessive-compulsive person. That is why I would force myself to follow the deviant, even though it initially feels overwhelming. But I would still be able to do so, because soon after the first “shock”, I would again keenly accept the challenge of “getting it right”/ “capturing, hence controlling, it properly”.

5. Do you tend to over-impose logics on the world, or to resist the construction of coherent narratives?

I do enjoy over-imposing logics on the world; however, I do not imagine those as something fully comprehensible by human minds. Thus, while I always resist the simplifying, overarching coherent narratives, I do find peace in believing in the existence of very complex patterns that are only partially intelligible to humans, reminding us how small and incapable humans are after all.

6. Do you tend to over-generalize, or to hold back from overarching argument?

I hold back from overarching arguments/statements when it comes to parts of phenomena that humans attempt to understand, hence to study; but I can also find over-generalizations soothing when it comes to bigger phenomena that I think are elusive to human mind, as I tried to explain above.

 7. Do you like to read interpretations different than your own, or do you tend to feel scooped or intimidated by them?

It depends on how extreme the interpretations different than my own are. I would be just curious and willing to read about them as long as they are not fundamentally shaking my own believes and values. But if we are talking about interpretations that would not allow my interpretations/believes/values to (co-)exist, I would not enjoy reading them, and mostly would feel intimidated by them; yet I would still force myself to read them either to better hone my arguments to be able to convince them or to simply keep myself posted about them (which can in future lead me to change my own assumptions).

8. Do you tend to change an argument as you flesh it out, or do you tend to make the argument work, no matter what?

I would definitely change my argument, no matter how much time and effort I already put in it. If I spot any problem in it, I cannot pretend that it does not exist; because to complete a project/essay/argument properly (the work ethic I mentioned in the beginning), for me, means accepting to be challenged for it. If I accept to be challenged for it, then I cannot just make the argument work for the sake of being done with that project. The argument should be as strong as I can make it to be.

9. Do you tend to think in terms of “this is kind of like” (metaphorically)? Do you hold to examples that “say it all,” leveraging metonymic thinking?

I do think in terms of “this is kind of like”, and I have always been taken with the power of metaphors in communication.

10. Do you like gaming understanding in this way? Does it frustrate you that your answers often don’t fit easily on either side of the binaries set up by the questions? (Jakobson suggests that over attachment to a simple binary scheme is a “continuity disorder.”)

Again, it depends. Sometimes, yes, my answers do not fit on either side, and then I create my own middle ground; but sometimes they do fall under one of the choices. In any case, I would not get frustrated by the fact that some of my answers do not fit on either side of the binaries, I would just ignore them and talk about how it works in my reality.