scholarly journals A REVIEW ON ACTOR-NETWORK THEORY AS A POTENTIAL TOOL FOR ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-60
Author(s):  
Busra Dilaveroglu ◽  
◽  
Cigdem Polatoglu ◽  
Aysen Ciravoglu ◽  
◽  
...  

Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is an ontological approach, emerging from science and technology studies. As an ontological frame, ANT proposes that the work of science does not differ from other social processes, and sociality should not be understood as a priori knowledge. Instead, ANT offers a lens to see science as an assemblage of social, technical, conceptional, and textual processes entangled with human and non-human entities by looking at their material nature. ANT proposes to follow traces of material relations and how that material nature constitutes social. There has been a considerable increase in the threshold of ANT and Architecture studies. ANT seems to offer new perspectives to understand architecture by looking at architecture from its own material reality. Thus, this study aims to reveal the whole picture of the studies in the threshold of ANT and architecture by analyzing ANT concepts implemented in architecture. By relating ANT concepts to the architectural field, this systematic review aims to understand ANT and its implications of architectural studies. Visualizing the relations of ANT and architecture related categories, the review is supposed to reveal gaps and the most studied fields of ANT in architecture.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Σπήλιος Κούνας

Η παρούσα διατριβή διερευνά την οντολογία των τροπικών μοντέλων της μουσικής στις πρώιμες ηχογραφήσεις του ελληνόφωνου αστικού λαϊκού τραγουδιού, λαμβάνοντας υπόψη τις ιδιαιτερότητες που απορρέουν από τον προφορικό τους χαρακτήρα, καθώς και από την διαπολιτισμική τους φύση. Οι «δρόμοι» που αποτελούν τον θεμέλιο λίθο αυτής της τροπικότητας είναι ένα πεδίο εξαιρετικού μουσικολογικού ενδιαφέροντος, που ωστόσο αντιστέκεται στην συστηματική προσέγγιση. Ποιος είναι ο βαθμός συνέπειας στην χρήση της σχετικής ονοματολογίας και πώς αυτή μπορεί να αξιολογηθεί ως εργαλείο για την σύνθεση, τον αυτοσχεδιασμό και την εν γένει αισθητική του εν λόγω ρεπερτορίου; Η παρούσα έρευνα προτείνει την συγκριτική ανάλυση των σωζόμενων ιστορικών ηχογραφήσεων, εκκινώντας από την a priori κατηγοριοποίηση ανά μουσικό τρόπο, η οποία προκύπτει από τις σχετικές ενδείξεις που συνοδεύουν την αναγραφή του τίτλου στις ετικέτες των δίσκων 78 στροφών.Οι αναγραφές αυτές προσφέρουν μια πολύτιμη ένδειξη από την πλευρά των ίδιων των κοινωνικών δρώντων. Η ένδειξη αυτή είναι μοναδική, δεδομένου του ότι δεν διαθέτουμε άλλες αναφορές στον τρόπο με τον οποίον χρησιμοποιούνται οι σχετικές ονοματολογίες, αφού δεν μας έχει παραδοθεί καμιάς μορφής θεωρητικό πόνημα ή σχόλιο σύγχρονο της υπό μελέτης περιόδου.Με αφετηρία την ως άνω κατηγοριοποίηση, επιχειρείται στη συνέχεια μια συστηματική μουσικολογική ανάλυση των ηχογραφημάτων που αυτο-κατατάσσονται στην κατηγορία ματζόρε, μέσα από την καταγραφή και τον σχολιασμό της μορφής και του συντακτικού τους. Με τον τρόπο αυτό, η «αρχαιολογία» των μουσικών τρόπων προσφέρει τη δυνατότητα θεώρησης ζητημάτων τα οποία αφορούν την μουσική υφολογία και επιτέλεση. Μεταξύ αυτών συγκαταλέγονται ο ρόλος του οργανολογίου, της σύνθεσης ορχήστρας και των συνθετών στην διαμόρφωση των ειδολογικών μουσικών χαρακτηριστικών, η συμβολή της βιομηχανίας της δισκογραφίας, η αλληλεπίδραση με μουσικές ετερότητες και ο ρόλος των μουσικών δικτύων, καθώς και η επίδραση ιστορικών και κοινωνικών φαινομένων.Το εγχείρημα της σκιαγράφησης μουσικών έξεων και κατ’ επέκταση συλλογικών γνωστικών δομών, λόγω της συνθήκης της προφορικότητας των μελετώμενων πολιτισμικών πρακτικών, δεν είναι εφικτό χωρίς μια διεπιστημονική προσέγγιση, η οποία διασφαλίζεται εδώ με την αξιοποίηση μεθοδολογικών και εννοιολογικών προσεγγίσεων των κοινωνικών επιστημών, και πιο συγκεκριμένα της Actor-Network Theory. Μέσα από το πρίσμα αυτό, η μουσικολογία του αστικού λαϊκού τραγουδιού ολοκληρώνεται με μια απόπειρα επαναδιαπραγμάτευσης ζητημάτων τα οποία αφορούν σε κοινωνικές και πολιτισμικές πρακτικές που σχετίζονται με το ρεπερτόριο που χαρακτηρίζεται στον τρέχοντα λόγο ως «ρεμπέτικο».


Author(s):  
Carina Assuncao

The Pokémon franchise has been targeted and has been successful with males and females (Tobin, 2004). In it, cute-looking creatures with superpowers fight each other for the fame and glory of their masters (the players). The franchise includes a plethora of entertainment media. This essay will focus on the recent release, Pokémon GO. This particular game and its location-based technology will be analysed using cyberfeminism and actor-network theory to explore the play space as a context for kinaesthetic awareness and embodiment. The cyberfeminism herein exploited is that of “the utopian tradition of imagining a world without gender” (Haraway, 2000, p. 292). Actor-network theory, a strong methodological tradition in science and technology studies, sees actors and the networks they create as completely ‘flat’ and non-hierarchical. ANT has been criticised for its lack of concern with politics and gender (Lagesen, 2012) but, in combination with a feminist lens, ANT has the potential to uncover issues that other approaches in game studies cannot. This original framework can help game studies scholars to see gameplay processes in a new light by following the many actors involved in game design and use.


Author(s):  
Lisa Disch

Is ecological democracy possible? If so, what would it entail? This chapter first reviews the literature based in deliberative democracy that proposes to extend communicative competence to non-humans, and then traces an alternative constructivist line of environmental political thinking from its beginnings in the strand of science and technology studies pioneered by Bruno Latour and others known as actor-network theory, through two actor-network theory-inspired approaches to political theory, “object-oriented democracy” and “material politics/participation.” Whereas this alternative approach solves some of the conundrums to which the communicative model gives rise, it is neither as radical a departure from politics as it is “normally understood,” nor aspoliticalas its proponents claim.


Author(s):  
Liesbeth Huybrechts ◽  
Katrien Dreessen ◽  
Selina Schepers

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaakko Louhivuori

In this article I ponder how the actor-network theory and the practice-based studies can be applied in information practices research. The history of the actor-network theory goes back to the 1970s and 1980s and is linked to sociology as well as science and technology studies. Actually it was not intended to be so much a theory, but more like a method of combining actors into a wider story without preconceived ideas or laws of thought. In recent years, information practice research has paid more attention to the practice-based studies than to the actor-network theory. The quest for the full recognition of nonhuman factors as a part of information generation and its utilisation can be observed as a common ground with these two approaches. I believe, that if we apply the components of the actor-network theory and practice-based studies, we will get a more holistic view of information practices. These views and results may be used to review information practices and to develop the information processes further.


Author(s):  
Jose Figueiredo

Actor-network theory (ANT) is usually intended as a powerful conceptual tool to study, analyse, describe and explain socio-technical systems. These systems are built up by the interactions between humans, technology, social entities and organizations. These heterogeneous actors in dynamic interaction built networks of interaction, negotiation. ANT emanated from the science and technology studies (STS) field and is considered to be in the broad domain of social networks. Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, STS academics of the École Supérieure des Mines de Paris, are their uncontested continental parents. We can report John Law, in Lancaster University, as the leading British key proponent of ANT from the very beginning. Lancaster University provides a lot of papers’ references and sources on ANT in their site (see references).


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 556-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raya A Jones

Rhetorical moves that construct humanoid robots as social agents disclose tensions at the intersection of science and technology studies (STS) and social robotics. The discourse of robotics often constructs robots that are like us (and therefore unlike dumb artefacts). In the discourse of STS, descriptions of how people assimilate robots into their activities are presented directly or indirectly against the backdrop of actor-network theory, which prompts attributing agency to mundane artefacts. In contradistinction to both social robotics and STS, it is suggested here that to view a capacity to partake in dialogical action (to have a ‘voice’) is necessary for regarding an artefact as authentically social. The theme is explored partly through a critical reinterpretation of an episode that Morana Alač reported and analysed towards demonstrating her bodies-in-interaction concept. This paper turns to ‘body’ with particular reference to Gibsonian affordances theory so as to identify the level of analysis at which dialogicality enters social interactions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristian Terry

Los Estudios de Ciencia y Tecnología (Science and Technology Studies [STS]) y la Teoría del Actor-Red (Actor-Network Theory [ANT]), junto con la antropología “más allá de lo humano”, promueven un enfoque no antropocéntrico en las ciencias sociales, donde las entidades no humanas hacen parte del mundo social. Desde dicha perspectiva no antropocéntrica, este artículo tiene como objetivo cuestionar el uso de “distanciamiento social” como un término preciso, donde el calificativo “social” se asocia únicamente a seres humanos. Si el distanciamiento es un concepto clave para prevenir el contagio de COVID-19 entre seres humanos, sería más correcto hablar de distanciamiento físico o corporal. Al hablar de distanciamiento social, en realidad estamos distanciando lo social, reduciendo su complejidad, ya que está compuesto por entidades que no son necesariamente humanas o incluso visibles a nuestros ojos, como el nuevo coronavirus. Este artículo invita a buscar términos alternativos al concepto de “distanciamiento social” que nos permitan expresar mejor la complejidad de lo social de una manera menos antropocéntrica.


Urban History ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
BERT DE MUNCK

Few theories have left their mark on urban studies to the extent that Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has in the last few decades. Its background in Science and Technology Studies (STS), its critique of the explanatory value of such abstractions as ‘class’ and ‘society’ and its efforts to transcend society/nature and local/global binarisms inevitably challenged conventional views on cities, urbanization and urban phenomena. Economic and Marxist approaches to the city in particular have been challenged, at least to the extent that they invoke the explanatory force of the economy or capitalism as a global social system and, thus, fall back upon the binarisms under attack from ANT. The network approach questioned architectonic explanatory models (substructure vs. superstructure) and deepened our understanding of actors and agency (both emerging from networks of humans and non-humans). However, ANT has always been subject to criticism too.


Author(s):  
Dieter Mersch

The concepts of “operation” and “operational sequences” are central for Actor-Network Theory. They have also become key-terms for cultural and media studies and in specific the so-called German Media Theory. However—this is the thesis of the article—whoever starts with the assumption of operativity or privileges operational sequences in the context of cultural practices is already treading on the ground of the technical and thus has accepted what they set out to prove: the interpretation of culture solely on the basis of technical approaches and the prerequisite of an a priori of technique. Instead the article insists on the difference between operation and practice which serve as a criterion for a cultural analysis beyond any universalization of technology.


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