Consciousness and Amnesia

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Martek ◽  
Mirjana Lozanovska
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
Master Plan ◽  
Project Duration ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Participants

After the decimation of the urban fabric resulting from the 1963 earthquake, Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, became a center of town planning and architectural activity. The aftermath response was unprecedented, with eighty-five countries offering aid and thirty-five nations raising Skopje to a priority status within the United Nations (UN). The acclaimed Japanese architect, Kenzo Tange, was awarded first prize in the subsequent UN competition for the reconstruction master plan and was asked to work with the second prize winners, Zagreb firm Miscevic and Wenzler. The design and rebuilding produced one of the greatest collaborative and visionary realizations of a complete city concept undertaken in history. Yet, the significance of Skopje’s reconstruction has slipped from architectural consciousness. “Actor network theory” (ANT) offers insights into the social dynamics of large-scale projects and provides a lens by which to investigate five features of the reconstruction of Skopje: (1) the social process, including problematization, interessement, enrollment, and mobilization; (2) the key participants; (3) the project scale; (4) artifacts; and (5) project duration. ANT proves to be a useful tool for understanding both the heroic achievement and the subsequent neglect of Skopje reconstructed.

Discontinuity and After: the Social Dynamics of Technology Evolution and Dominance

2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamal A. Munir ◽  
Matthew Jones
Keyword(s):  
Technology Management ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Technology Evolution ◽  
The Social ◽  
Management Literature ◽  
Work Done

While there has been much discussion of the social dynamics of technology evolution within the technology management literature, this has made relatively little use of work done by sociologists on similar issues. In this article, the potential of sociological research to inform our understanding of technology evolution and dominance is explored, focusing in particular on the contribution of actor network theory. The bringing together of questions posed by technology management theorists and insights offered by social theorists provides new insights on technology evolution, and generates several important implications for both research and practice.

scholarly journals Duše předmětu a tělo modlitby aneb zkoumání sociologických nejistot na případu Sóka Gakkai International

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Petra Tlčimuková
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Black Boxes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Soka Gakkai ◽  
The Relationship

This case study presents the results of long-term original ethnographic research on the international Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai International (SGI). It focuses on the relationship between the material and immaterial and deals with the question of how to study them in the sociology of religion. The analysis builds upon the critique of the modernist paradigm and related research of religion in the social sciences as presented by Harman, Law and Latour. The methodology draws on the approach of Actor-Network Theory as presented by Bruno Latour, and pursues object-oriented ethnography, for the sake of which the concept of iconoclash is borrowed. This approach is applied to the research which focused on the key counterparts in the Buddhist praxis of SGI ‒ the phrase daimoku and the scroll called Gohonzon. The analysis deals mainly with the sources of sociological uncertainties related to the agency of the scroll. It looks at the processes concerning the establishing and dissolving of connections among involved elements, it opens up the black-boxes and proposes answers to the question of new conceptions of the physical as seen through Gohonzon.

Nonhuman Actors, Hybrid Networks, and Conflicts Over Municipal Waste Incinerators

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Magnani
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
Waste To Energy ◽  
Natural Material ◽  
Environmental Conflicts ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Waste Incinerators

This article seeks to make an original contribution to the study of environmental conflicts on waste management infrastructures by applying concepts derived from actor-network theory in an empirical case study. The article is organized into three main parts. The first highlights how the bulk of the literature on the subject has systematically ignored the role of natural/material factors. The second part analyzes the theoretical and methodological contribution of actor-network theory to the analysis of environmental conflicts. Finally, the third part focuses on a case study from northern Italy concerning a conflict over a project for a large-scale municipal waste-to-energy incinerator. The author shows how the outcome of the conflict, namely the failure of the project notwithstanding a convergence of powerful interests, can only be fully understood by adopting a relational definition of agency that sees it as the effect of the process of building associations between humans and nonhumans.

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..

Uncertainties Revisited

2019 ◽  
pp. 216-237
Author(s):  
Liesbeth Huybrechts ◽  
Katrien Dreessen ◽  
Selina Schepers
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Uncertainty Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Matters Of Concern ◽  
Uncertainty Models ◽  
Do So

In this chapter, the authors use actor-network theory (ANT) to explore the relations between uncertainties in co-design processes and the quality of participation. To do so, the authors investigate Latour's discussion uncertainties in relation to social processes: the nature of actors, actions, objects, facts/matters of concern, and the study of the social. To engage with the discussion on uncertainties in co-design and, more specific in infrastructuring, this chapter clusters the diversity of articulations of the role and place of uncertainty in co-design into four uncertainty models: (1) the neoliberal, (2) the management, (3) the disruptive, and (4) the open uncertainty model. To deepen the reflections on the latter, the authors evaluate the relations between the role and place of uncertainty in two infrastructuring processes in the domain of healthcare and the quality of these processes. In the final reflections, the authors elaborate on how ANT supported in developing a “lens” to assess how uncertainties hinder or contribute to the quality of participation.

Actor-Network Theory and Autopoiesis

2009 ◽  
pp. 67-79
Author(s):  
Lars Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Process Analysis ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Over Time

A new knowledge management perspective and tool, ANT/AUTOPOIESIS, for analysis of knowledge management in knowledge-intensive organizations is presented. An information technology (IT) research and innovation co-operation between university actors and companies interested in the area of smart home IT applications is used to illustrate analysis using this perspective. Actor-network theory (ANT) and the social theory of autopoiesis are used in analyzing knowledge management, starting from the foundation of a research co-operation. ANT provides the character of relations between actors and actants, how power is translated by actors and the transformation of relations over time. The social theory of autopoiesis provides the tools to analyze organizational closure and reproduction of organizational identity. The perspective used allows a process analysis, and at the same time analysis of structural characteristics of knowledge management. Knowledge management depends on powerful actors, whose power changes over time. Here this power is entrepreneurial and based on relations and actors’ innovation knowledge.

scholarly journals Using ANT to Uncover the Full Potential of an Intelligent Operational Planning and Support Tool (IOPST) for Acute Healthcare Contexts

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imran Muhammad ◽  
Fatemeh Hoda Moghimi ◽  
Nyree J. Taylor ◽  
Bernice Redley ◽  
Lemai Nguyen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Operational Planning ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
The Many ◽  
Acute Healthcare ◽  
Large Scale Clinical Trial

Based on initial pre-clinical data and results from focus group studies, proof of concept for an intelligent operational planning and support tool (IOPST) for nursing in acute healthcare contexts has been demonstrated. However, moving from a simulated context to a large scale clinical trial brings potential challenges associated with the many complexities and multiple people-technology interactions. To enable an in depth and rich analysis of such a context, it is the contention of this paper that incorporating an Actor-Network Theory (ANT) lens to facilitate analysis will be a prudent option as discussed below.

scholarly journals Recovering critique in an age of datafication

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1135-1151
Author(s):  
Nick Couldry
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Questions

This article starts out from the need for critical work on processes of datafication and their consequences for the constitution of social knowledge and the social world. Current social science work on datafication has been greatly shaped by the theoretical approach of Bruno Latour, as reflected in the work of Actor Network Theory and Science and Technology Studies (ANT/STS). The article asks whether this approach, given its philosophical underpinnings, provides sufficient resources for the critical work that is required in relation to datafication. Drawing on Latour’s own reflections about the flatness of the social, it concludes that it does not, since key questions, in particular about the nature of social order cannot be asked or answered within ANT. In the article’s final section, three approaches from earlier social theory are considered as possible supplements to ANT/STS for a social science serious about addressing the challenges that datafication poses for society.

Beyond ANT

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Till Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Theoretical Design ◽  
The Social ◽  
Actor Networks

Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) offers an ‘infra-language’ of the social that allows one to trace social relations very dynamically, while at the same time dissolving human agency, thus providing a flat and de-centred way into sociology. However, ANT struggles with its theoretical design that may lead us to reduce agency to causation and to conceptualize actor-networks as homogeneous ontologies of force. This article proposes to regard ANT’s inability to conceptualize reflexivity and the interrelatedness of different ontologies as the fundamental problem of the theory. Drawing on Günther, it offers an ‘infra-language’ of reflexive relations while maintaining ANT’s de-centred approach. This would enable us to conceptualize actor-networks as non-homogeneous, dynamic and connecting different societal rationales while maintaining the main strengths of ANT.

The researcher-initiated autobiography’s work as an actant in producing knowledge about the social

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-322
Author(s):  
Jorid Krane Hanssen
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
The Social ◽  
Emotional Effects

This article addresses how a researcher-initiated autobiography’s work as an actant may offer illuminating insights into how we as humans and nonhumans are associated in networks. The aim is to discuss how the effects of these associations produce knowledge about the social. With inspiration from actor-network theory and by using an example of a researcher-initiated autobiography from the study ‘The Daughters and Sons of Rainbow Families’, the discussion firstly concentrates on how associations between the autobiography and the researcher may produce emotional effects. Secondly, the discussion focuses on how a researcher-initiated autobiography works as an actant ‘in itself’. This indicates the necessity to trace associations between the written events (actants) in the text, and discuss their effects. As an example, the article addresses how associations between written events concerning family members, produce knowledge about the relations between the members.

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