scholarly journals Empiricist Interventions: Strategy and Tactics on the Ontopolitical Battlefield

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-70
Author(s):  
Anders Kristian Munk ◽  
Sebastian Abrahamsson
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
Desirable Outcome ◽  
History Of ◽  
Parliamentary Procedure

Recent papers by prominent scholars in science and technology studies (notably John Law and Bruno Latour) have crystallized a fundamental disagreement about the scope and purpose of intervention in actor-network theory or what we here choose to bracket as empirical philosophy. While the precept of agnostic description is taken as a given, the desired effects of such descriptions are highly debated: Is the goal to interfere with the singularity of the real through the enactment of multiple and possibly conflicting ontologies? Or is it (also) to craft new and comprehensive common worlds supported by notions of due process and parliamentary procedure? In this paper we think about this disagreement as a question of research strategy (a normative discord about the desirable outcome of an intervention) in order to assess its implications for research tactics (a descriptive accord about the practical crafting of an adequate account). A key point here is to challenge the impermeability of such a division and show how the strategic dispute, if to be taken seriously, invariably spills over to swamp the level of tactics. To illustrate this point, we draw upon materials from our recent doctoral research projects and to facilitate the discussion we make two deliberate caricatures: Firstly, we operate with a simplified history of actor-network theory in which a strategy of epistemological critique has been replaced by two contending agendas for ontological intervention. Secondly, we address these two contending agendas as distinct options which map on to the positions of our two main interlocutors. In doing so, it becomes possible to compare their respective tactical implications as we work through two examples of what might constitute an empiricist intervention.

scholarly journals Informaatiokäytäntöjen tutkimuksen teoreettisia ja metodologisia mahdollisuuksia

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaakko Louhivuori
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Information Practices ◽  
History Of

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.

scholarly journals Is Pokémon GO Feminist? An Actor-Network Theory Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carina Assuncao
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Pokémon Go ◽  
Politics And Gender ◽  
And Gender

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.

scholarly journals Dramatic Networks: Marginalized Economics and Labour in The Norwich Grocers’ Play

Early Theatre ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery G Stoyanoff
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Salvation History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

Using actor-network theory, this essay argues that the Norwich Grocers’ Play creates a dramatic network among the city of Norwich, the actors of the play, and the marginal audience members from Norwich and its surrounding countryside when read in light of the Norwich Corporation assembly minute of 1527 and the history of social unrest culminating in Kett’s Rebellion of 1549. The staging, costuming, and language of the play all function to ally the audience with the salvation history presented in the play and, in so doing, ensure the continued peace and prosperity of Norwich in the later 1560s despite challenges that could have led to unrest mirroring that experienced in the 1540s.

Ecological Democracy and the Co-participation of Things

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Disch
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Material Politics ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Ecological Democracy

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.

scholarly journals Governing Uncertainty or Uncertain Governance? Information Security and the Challenge of Cutting Ties

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Slayton
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Information Security ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Security Governance ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Information Security Governance

Information security governance has become an elusive goal and a murky concept. This paper problematizes both information security governance and the broader concept of governance. What does it mean to govern information security, or for that matter, anything? Why have information technologies proven difficult to govern? And what assurances can governance provide for the billions of people who rely on information technologies every day? Drawing together several distinct bodies of literature—including multiple strands of governance theory, actor–network theory, and scholarship on sociotechnical regimes—this paper conceptualizes networked action on a spectrum from uncertain governance to governing uncertainty. I advance a twofold argument. First, I argue that networks can better govern uncertainty as they become more able not only to enroll actors in a collective agenda, but also to cut ties with those who seek to undermine that agenda. And second, I argue that the dominant conception of information security governance, which emphasizes governing uncertainty through risk management, in practice devolves to uncertain governance. This is largely because information technologies have evolved toward greater connectedness—and with it, greater vulnerability—creating a regime of insecurity. This evolution is illustrated using the history of the US government’s efforts to govern information security.

On the Definition of Cultivated Ecology

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-201
Author(s):  
Diane E. Pataki ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Urban Ecology ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultivated Plants ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
History Of

Sagoff (2017) critiqued the exclusion of cultivated plants and animals from much of the body of work in ecology. However, there is a history of attempting to incorporate cultivated landscapes in ecology that goes back at least two decades, particularly in urban ecology. The subdiscipline of urban ecology has received relatively little attention in philosophy, although some of its methodologies, such as coupled human-natural systems research, have been critiqued. Here I will attempt to explicitly address the conceptual limitations in ecology for studying cultivated ecosystems and evaluate these limitations in the context of coupled human-natural systems and socioecological research, urban ecosystem services frameworks, and actor-network theory. I argue that the history of cultivated organisms is highly germane to their ecology, necessitating the incorporation of human agency into ecological theory. However, human agency and nonhuman nature exist along a continuum of nature vs. culture. As a result, dualistic approaches to studying the role of human agency in ecosystem processes, such as socioecology and ecosystem services assessments—which explicitly separate humans from nature—have had limited success in cultivated landscapes. More fully integrated frameworks such as actor-network theory may better address ecological research questions in cultivated landscapes.

Reviewing the Actor-Network Theory

2011 ◽  
pp. 1375-1380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Figueiredo
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Dynamic Interaction ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Study Analyse ◽  
Broad Domain ◽  
Technical Systems ◽  
Social Entities

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).

scholarly journals What makes a robot ‘social’?

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 556-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raya A Jones
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
Social Robotics ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Level Of Analysis

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.

scholarly journals The Mummy's Complaint: An Object-Biography of the Egyptian Mummies in New Zealand Museums, 1885-1897

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ryan Brown-Haysom
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Museum Studies ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Object Biography ◽  
History Of

<p>Recent years have seen a revival of interest in material objects in the humanities generally, and in Museum Studies in particular. Although the influence of this 'material turn' is still in its early stages, one of the manifestations of the renewed interest in the 'life of things' has been the growth of interest in Actor-Network Theory, a branch of sociological analysis which attempts to reconstruct the networks of agency through which social existence is created and maintained. One of the more controversial aspects of Actor-Network Theory (or ANT) is its willingness to concede a level of agency to non-human and inanimate actors in these 'assemblages'. For Museum Studies, the relevance of this theoretical framework lies in the analysis of museums both as assemblages in their own right, and as actants in a network of other sites, institutions, technologies, ideologies, and objects. Museum objects, long viewed as inert, can be seen instead as participants in the 'shuffle of agency' that constitutes institutions and inducts them into wider patterns of social activity.  This dissertation uses the case study of Egyptian mummies in New Zealand museums to gauge the usefulness of an ANT-based approach to writing the 'life-history of objects'. Borrowing the concept of the 'object biography' from Kopytoff and Appadurai, it attempts to construct such a history of the five complete Egyptian mummies in New Zealand’s public museums. Using the principles of Actor-Network Theory, it attempts to trace the ways in which mummies have been constituted as 'meaningful objects' through the examination of the ways in which they have moved through different assemblages, both globally and within New Zealand, during the twelve years from 1885 to 1897. This was the period during which all five Egyptian mummies entered New Zealand collections, traversing networks of imperialism, scientific knowledge, religious knowledge, and exchange. In the course of their movement through these diverse assemblages, the meaning of mummies – inside and outside the public museum – could be construed in radically different ways.  This dissertation considers the usefulness of such a methodology for Museum Studies and Material Culture Studies, and considers the potential benefits and pitfalls of writing about assemblages for those who want to consider the life-history of objects.</p>

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