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neil 🍄

Genuine question: can anyone point me to a practical usage of actor-network theory? (from Bruno Latour). I read [[Technology appropriation in a de-growing economy]] and they discuss a Marxist spin on ANT. For the purposes of appropriating technology from Big Tech for degrowth ends. And while I like all the words, I can’t quite get a grasp on what it really means and what you’d actually do…

@neil for me ANT has meant 1) follow the actors, instead of relying on "social" explanations 2) actors can be anything that makes a difference in the world, not just people. I wouldn't describe it as practical :-)

@edsu Thanks Ed - would you describe it as useful/interesting/worth a look, if not necessarily on-the-ground practical?

@neil yes, like others have said in this thread, I think he is very helpful when thinking about what gets attention, and as a result, what gets described and analyzed. As someone working on the boundaries/fringes of the technical and the social he has been like a helpful friend.

@neil

In a sense, any organiser could use ANT in building movements and cultural formations? Enrolment, obligatory passage point, immutable mobiles etc, all help to figure the ways in which objects and geographies play parts in ‘social’ organisation as ‘actants’. This isn’t the only way to think about the power of ‘stuff’ of course - for example ‘material culture’ has been playing this role in anthropology for a long time.

But maybe this isn’t what you meant by practical usage?

@mike_hales Thanks Mike - sounds worth investigating then. In this very particular instance I'm wondering if it would be a useful way of mapping technology stacks (and all the wide variety of actants that entails) and then thinking about how the dynamics of them would play out were you to substitute particular actants with alternatives.

@neil
I think that’s not much like how Callon & Latour approached things. nothing ‘plug in’ about their perspective, rather the opposite, concrete contextual relationships, conjunctural actions, evolutionary flow. not structuralist!

dunno how ANT is taught today, now it’s a piece of sociological repertoire taught in courses. possibly much more fixed in its constructs and maybe even proceduralised some. C&L we’re ‘very french’, playful, provocative. interested to know what txts you find?

@neil not sure if you're after examples only in de-growth or more generally?

If latter, my short answer is: design = ANT in practice
(& Transition Design = ANT for degrowth)

Latour's _Aramis_ describes ANT-ish efforts to create new public transport.

Akrich's article on inscribing users into new electricity systems might be useful: AKRICH, M. "The De-Scription of Technical Objects." Shaping Technology Building Society: Studjes in Sociotechnical Change (1992)

See also: bruno-latour.fr/node/212

www.bruno-latour.frThe Key to Success in Innovation (Part I & Part II) | bruno-latour.fr

@neil sorry, now thinking these are too elementary for what you're after, and probably known to you already

@camerontw No these look great, thanks - I'm completely new to the notion of ANT so any useful orientations and real-world examples that others have found helpful are much appreciated

@neil I have found ANT useful as a approach for mapping out the actors in a given situation and thinking through how they may enroll others (inc nonhumans) in the network and how tasks get delegated to actors. Do you have to say you are using ANT to do that? Not necessarily. But the vocabulary is helpful.

@dollyjorgensen Thank you - it sounds like it can be useful as a tool for discovery and description of a given system, which in itself is of use, even if it might not necessarily tell you what needs doing to change that system.

@neil Imagine social networks as having parts which are sentient, having developmental changes over time and by context. @sociology

@Delib Thanks, that's very helpful to know that it can help understand developmental changes over time as I'm very interested in that. (any pointers to names of concepts within ANT that deal specifically with those developmental changes?)

@neil @sociology, It was too long ago that I studied this, to give you concrete references. I remember lectures and readings on problems with structuralist explanations not taking in account the living nature of nodes in social networks. They are actors with agency, not static things. They have life cycles, so actions like peripheral participation and expertise development and retirement and meme diffusion all take place. Sorry my current vocabulary probably doesn't match theirs

@neil politicsofnature.org is pretty interesting imo