The Construction of a Network Technology: Electronic Livestock Auction Markets

1998 ◽  
Vol 02 (02) ◽  
pp. 183-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Graham
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Network Technology ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Network Building ◽  
The Social

This paper uses Callon's actor network theory (ANT) to analyse the emergence of an inter-organisational network innovation: electronic livestock auction systems in the United Kingdom. It is based on a study of the development of these systems by drawing on interviews with developers, operators and users of the competing systems and focusing on the social networks that evolved in their conception and adoption. The validity of ANT as a framework for the analysis of innovation is critically considered. The paper concludes that complexity and barriers to network building led the networks to be constructed from existing components and social linkages, thereby limiting the potential of the innovation to incorporate radical change in the social structure.

Entanglement, Materiality and the Social Organisation of Construction Workers in Classical Athens

2018 ◽  
pp. 512-528
Author(s):  
Diane Harris Cline
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
The Social ◽  
Building Program

This chapter views the “Periclean Building Program” through the lens of Actor Network Theory, in order to explore the ways in which the construction of these buildings transformed Athenian society and politics in the fifth century BC. It begins by applying some Actor Network Theory concepts to the process that was involved in getting approval for the building program as described by Thucydides and Plutarch in his Life of Pericles. Actor Network Theory blends entanglement (human-material thing interdependence) with network thinking, so it allows us to reframe our views to include social networks when we think about the political debate and social tensions in Athens that arose from Pericles’s proposal to construct the Parthenon and Propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis, the Telesterion at Eleusis, the Odeon at the base of the South slope of the Acropolis, and the long wall to Peiraeus. Social Network Analysis can model the social networks, and the clusters within them, that existed in mid-fifth century Athens. By using Social Network Analysis we can then show how the construction work itself transformed a fractious city into a harmonious one through sustained, collective efforts that engaged large numbers of lower class citizens, all responding to each other’s needs in a chaine operatoire..

Marriage and Dowry

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Cowan
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Roles ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Sciences Sociales

The history of marriage is inseparable from the history of the family as an institution and from the history of the female experience. Thematically, it falls into four linked categories, the making of marriages, the ceremonies surrounding marriage (Marriage Rituals), which were both religious and secular and could span lengthy periods of time, the functioning of marriage within the couple, and the social and economic roles of widows and widowers. Dowries, the sums of money and material goods which were normally transferred to the husband or his family at the time of getting married but later returned to widows, played a central role in all four of these categories. Interest in these issues first emerged in the 1960s and found a place among the historians linked to the journals Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations in France (see Annales: Histoire, Sciences sociales, cited under Journals), Quaderni Storici in Italy (also cited under Journals), and the Cambridge Group for the Study of Population and Social Structure in the United Kingdom. Multiple studies from all parts of Europe have blossomed as a result.

scholarly journals De yngste barna og tingene deres – en ANT-analyse av lek i småbarnsavdelinger

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dag Øystein Nome
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Group Activities ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Function

Artikkelen presenterer en mikro-etnografisk undersøkelse av barns forhold til tingene i to småbarnsavdelinger i norske barnehager. Hensikten er å forstå hvordan barns relasjoner til ting virker inn på deres mulighet til deltagelse og sosial posisjonering i gruppen. Undersøkelsen er basert på Aktør-Nettverk-Teori som vektlegger tingenes betydning som agens i sosiale nettverk og tingenes funksjon som forlengelse av barnas kropper. Undersøkelsen viser at tingene har betydning som legitim inngangsbillett til deltagelse i lekegrupper og at tingenes innbyrdes hierarkiske orden bidrar i å uttrykke den sosiale orden mellom barna som inngår i relasjon med dem. The article presents a micro-ethnographic study on toddlers’ relationship to the material artefacts in two Norwegian kindergarten groups. The purpose of the study is to understand how their relationship with objects influences their possibilities for participation in peer groups. The study is based on Actor-Network-Theory. A main point is that material artefacts have agency in social networks surrounding us and function as extensions of our bodies. The study indicates that material artefacts serve as entrance tickets for participation in group activities and that the hierarchic order between the objects in the room, influences the social order among the children using them.  

scholarly journals Facebook Event as a platform to promote engagement in social movements

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-69
Author(s):  
Carolina Figueiredo ◽  
Caio Santos
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Research Result ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Communication Processes ◽  
The Social

This paper reflects on the application of the Theory of Performativity in complex communication processes as those emerged from the Social Networks. Austin’s (1975) theory of Speech Acts and the concept of Performativity stated by Butler (1997) are recovered to find mechanisms of analysis in utterances that are intrinsic to websites tools. In parallel, the Latour Actor-Network Theory (2017) is also used. As a research result we came to the conclusion that the use of Facebook Event tool implies in performativity, once that by pressing the “Going” and “Interested” buttons the user express different meanings. To put it succinctly, performativity allows the production of effects through language (speech acts) on digital Social Networks. Keywords: Facebook Events. Performativity. Speech Acts.

The Social Structure of the Liquid Self: Exploratory Lessons from Israeli Flight Attendants

Sociology ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 992-1007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hagar Hazaz-Berger ◽  
Gad Yair
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Flight Attendants ◽  
Structural Elements ◽  
Multiple Selves ◽  
Personal Morality ◽  
The Social

This paper provides an empirical investigation of Israeli flight attendants in order to characterize the structural underpinnings of the liquid self, and their resultant phenomenological consequences on personal morality, conceptions of self and interpersonal relations. The study touched upon the motivations and behaviours of flight attendants, how they juggle family and personal commitments, and the internal persona they adopt vis-à-vis their own selves. By contextualizing their narratives through the structural elements of their jobs, the study exposes the attendants’ ambivalent and incoherent lives and the complex ways in which they manage their social networks across place and time. While flight attendants evince chameleon-like selves and fluid morality in their interpersonal relations – taking advantage of their ability to stage different selves in different ports of life – they maintain their multiple selves in functioning ways.

The Social Relations of Business Representation and Devolved Governance in the United Kingdom

2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (10) ◽  
pp. 1853-1876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Raco
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Cooperative Networks ◽  
Regional Governance ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policymaking And Implementation ◽  
And Performance

The reform of regional governance in the United Kingdom has been, in part, premised on the notion that regions provide new territories of action in which cooperative networks between business communities and state agencies can be established. Promoting business interests is seen as one mechanism for enhancing the economic competitiveness and performance of ‘laggard’ regions. Yet, within this context of change, business agendas and capacities are often assumed to exist ‘out there’, as a resource waiting to be tapped by state institutions. There is little recognition that business organisations' involvement in networks of governance owes much to historical patterns and practices of business representation, to the types of activities that exist within the business sector, and to interpretations of their own role and position within wider policymaking and implementation networks. This paper, drawing on a study of business agendas in post-devolution Scotland, demonstrates that in practice business agendas are highly complex. Their formation in any particular place depends on the actions of reflexive agents, whose perspectives and capacities are shaped by the social, economic, and political contexts within which they are operating. As such, any understanding of business agendas needs to identify the social relations of business as a whole, rather than assuming away such complexities.

Reconfiguring professional autonomy? The case of social work in the UK

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Chandler ◽  
Elisabeth Berg ◽  
Marion Ellison ◽  
Jim Barry
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Professional Autonomy ◽  
The Third ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk

This chapter discusses the contemporary position of social work in the United Kingdom, and in particular the challenges to what is seen as a managerial-technicist version of social work. The chapter begins with focus on the situation from the 1990s to the present day in which this version of social work takes root and flourishes. The discussion then concentrates on three different routes away from a managerial-technicist social work: the first, reconfiguring professional practice in the direction of evaluation in practice, the second ‘reclaiming social work’ on the Hackney relationship-based model and the third ‘reclaiming social work’ in a more radical, highly politicised way. Special attention is devoted to a discussion about how much autonomy the social workers have in different models, but also what kind of autonomy and for what purpose.

scholarly journals Ethiopian and Eritrean Immigrants in Britain

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Campbell ◽  
Solomon Afework
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
Immigrant Settlement ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Refugee Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Aspects

This paper explores key aspects of the immigrant experience of 50,000-plus Ethiopians and Eritreans who live in the United Kingdom. We seek to understand the extent to which immigrant life in the UK has acted ‘as a kind of pivot’ between integrating in their country of settlement and enduring forms of connection with their country of origin. This question is explored by an examination of immigrant organising in the UK – in Refugee Community Organisations – and through interviews about their life in the UK and evolving ideas about self-identity. We argue for an open-ended approach to understand immigrants which sidesteps assumptions about forms of collective identity and which asks how the social and policy context has affected immigrant settlement and integration in the UK.

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