Image source: http://www.bruno-latour.fr/biography.html
French philosopher and social scientist Bruno Latour passed away on March 9 at the age of 7553. Latour is one of the most prestigious thinkers of the present, especially for his contributions to the field of science and technology research. He won the 20130133 3 013 3 years Holby Award for "producing a grand analysis and reinterpretation of modernity and challenging the relationship between fundamental concepts such as modernity and premodernity, nature and society, humans and non-humans". His representative works include "We Never Be Modern", "Labor Life", "Scientists in Action", etc.
Latour, together with Caron and Lao, developed the actor-network theory paradigm. We specially compiled an introduction article about the actor-network theory paradigm to commemorate it.
What is an actor-network theory paradigm
actor-network theory (Actor-NetworkTheory) advocates construct it as a completely different path to study the world. It originated from the complex interdisciplinary fields of Science and Technology Studies, which began in the 1970s and developed particularly in France and the United Kingdom, with its influence spreading across social sciences in the 1990s (Latour 2000). The main scholars who proposed actor-network theory include French scholars Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, and British sociologist John Law.
From the very beginning, actor-network theory has opposed the way of thinking seen as standard in social sciences. Some early research (Latour and Woolgar 1979; Latour 1987, 1988) challenged the conventional idea that “science” is to some extent a special undertaking that exists outside of everyday practice. Through ethnographic fieldwork, actor-network theory collects and examines a large number of details to explore how scientific facts are "made" in laboratories and other places, indicating how these facts are created in the network of scientists and the equipment they use to study natural phenomena. Conventional ideas are challenged provocatively, such as actor-network theory, which puts forward the following assertion: the "facts" of science are accepted as facts not because they are "true", but because scientists have done all kinds of work to make them appear stable and "factual". Researchers should not focus on the "facts" (facts) that everyone has identified as true, but on how those "facts" are created in the laboratory. "Facts" are not false, but they are made by a joint (or network) of humans (scientists) and non-humans (machines used by humans, objects of research).
With the development of actor-network theory, this close attention to practice, union and network has been refined, developed and changed in various ways, but its provocative style has been maintained. Sometimes its proponents describe what actor-network theory wants to do with rather radical images. It is described as a “machine that starts war” towards the established social science type (Law 1997). Actor-network theory is a “good way to get rid of illusions” that include grand concepts like nature, society, or power, all considered too abstract to have no meaning or use (Latour 2011: 803). Of course, the Walker-Net theory has been working to subvert conventional thinking, such as its famous view that non-human creatures like microbes and shellfish have the ability and interests to act like humans (Bloor 1999).
According to the views of authors such as Caron, Latour and Law, actor-network theory is not a "theory" at all, at least not the kind of pre-determined entity that can be applied ready-made to all situations to be studied. Instead, they claim that actor-network theory is more like a general approach to analyzing the reality created by actors. Actor-network theory draws on some elements from ordinary methodology, claiming to avoid imposing preset concepts on the actual manufacturing process of actors' participation.As Latour (1999: 19-20) says, “ actors know what they are doing, and we [analysts] have to examine not only what they do, but how and why they do it. It is us—social scientists, who lack knowledge about what they do. ”
This explains why actor-network theory opposes those “explanations” of why people do what they do. The actors will not be "combed by external forces in a daze, as if those forces [can only be] recognized by the powerful eyes and methods of social scientists." The method that actor-network theory attempts to develop and the concept of neutrality or "minimum" is not to "replace the rich vocabulary of actor practice", but only " method, systematically avoiding the replacement of actor's sociology, metaphysics and ontology with social scientists' sociology, metaphysics and ontology " (ibid.).
According to this view, what the actor-network theory wants to avoid is based on explanations of assumptions and concepts that are considered wrong and attempts to provide a detailed description of specific activities at a particular location (descriptions). " actor-network theory does not tell the outline of what it will depict...but only tells people how to start so that they can systematically record the world-building capabilities of the site they want to archive and register...[It] does not claim to explain the behavior and reasons of the actors, but only finds steps for actors to negotiate through each other's world-building activities " (Latour 1999: 21).
However, a major feature of distinguishing between actor-network theory and ordinary methodology is that "actors", or in the term "actants", can be non-human - such as technical elements, machines, animals and microorganisms - and humans. Furthermore, actor-network theory has always focused on redefining what a “man” is, not seeing a person as some kind of individual essence given to consciousness, but rather as an element in a network composed of diverse (or in the term “heterogeneous”) elements of actor network theory. Actor-network theory is against " humanism " - humanism believes that "human" has a recognizable field, and there are only "individual people" among them. Human beings are neither special nor privileged nor unique. They are just one of many actors. They themselves are made up of different elements - they are never just simple "people". Action-network theory resonates here with structuralism and poststructuralism . But what is unique about the actor-network theory is that it hopes to replace humanism with a focus on the “heterogeneity” of things in the world (Munro2009).
In a broader sense, actor-network theory is a practice that fundamentally redefines the terms used in social sciences. It is considered a major challenge to what it calls “mainstream” theories and methods, which are regarded as severely flawed and misleading. We are going to see how successful the challenge has been is a controversial question.
Actor-network theory is not what
If you want to list what 'is' of the network theory, you will encounter many problems and many reasons.
First, since its proposal in the late 1970s and early 1980s by Caron, Latour and Woolgar and his collaborators (Latour and Woolgar 1979), the actor-network theory has encompassed a large number of works that have evolved and complicated over the past four decades. It is not easy to simply say "this is actor-network theory" because the term "actor-network theory" refers to it and faces controversy, which comes from both supporters and critics. We will show some ways in which actor-network theory evolves over time. To put it bluntly, , early actor-network theory research usually takes "generalized symmetry" as the central concept, that is, when analyzing specific areas of life, non-human actors and human actors receive equal attention.Recently, starting from the late 1990s, some influential actor-network theory research has begun to focus on ontology and “ontological politics” issues (Almila 2016; Nimmo 2016).
Secondly, the authors of actor-network theory are often dissatisfied with their works in the form of overview, especially those of those who disagree with the overview of actor-network theory. They argue that this overview misses the complexity of actor-network theory and the true purpose of the way it is researched. The textbook overview is seen as a misunderstanding and presentation of actor-network theory because it presents it only as “another social theory”, while its advocates emphasize that it is definitely not. For Law (1999), any presentation of actor-network theory is bound to be inconclusive, especially because actor-network theory itself is a kind of "performance" - that is, what is practiced and completed, and what is changed from practice to this.
Indeed, some advocates of actor-network theory sometimes say that it is not a "social theory" in the general sense at all. Part of the reason is that it is a “descriptive rather than fundamental illustrative term” (Law 2007:1). That is, unlike other theories, it does not seek to "explain" what it sees, nor does it cite how things are. Instead, it attempts to provide as comprehensive as possible description (rather than description ). Latour (Latour 2004:65) pointed out that " description, focusing on specific situations, and making a unique and sufficient description of the established situation " is the significance and goal of actor-network theory. This can be achieved through detailed field work. It can be said that actor-network theory is more like an method of looking at things , rather than a theory.
Actors-Advocates of network theory say it is not a “social theory”—or at least not a standard theory—and also because they believe that actor-network theory does not focus on common issues that social theory usually deals with, such as the relationship between “structure” and “activity”, the relationship between the macro and micro levels of social life (Latour 1999). To actor-network theory, these standard terms and dualism are meaningless and will even lead us to see things in a helpless way.
However, as the influence of actor-network theory becomes greater and greater, it will definitely be taught by as social theory in universities. Its advocates have also been working to popularize it in the social sciences and beyond. But more importantly, social theorists need to know the theory of actor-network theory authors on their thoughts, mainly because it often criticizes the philosophical assumptions and ways of understanding things in social theory, and has been set up as a radical choice different from social theory. Over time, actor-network theory swings between two choices: either ignore theories it regards as “mainstream” and its criticism of itself, or harshly refute them. The criticism of this theory by non-actor-network theory authors is often overlooked on the grounds that these criticisms are based on the assumption that the academic concept of actor-network theory has proven to be false and therefore criticism is meaningless. But the fact that actor-network theory authors want to criticize other theories means that they do see themselves as competitors to a series of severely flawed theories. Bourdieu's vocabulary is often specifically picked out for attacks and is seen as carrying a series of failures on epistemology, including failure to understand the role of objects and non-humans in the composition of the social world (Prior 2008).
It is difficult and not pleasing to summarize actor-network theory. The third reason is that it is diverse in itself. For some researchers, " is more like ontological or metaphysical than sociology" (Latour 1996: 370). Different versions of actor-network theory explained by different authors, although overlapping and echoing each other, have different emphasis.The version elaborated by Bruno Latour (1996) is closely linked to the ideas of some philosophers such as Michel Serres and Isabelle Stengers—many social theorists are quite unfamiliar with these scholars, at least before actor-network theory made their work widely known. Compared with other actors-network theory scholars, Latour's version is obviously more "philosophical". Compared with other ideas that benefit from ordinary methodology, Latour's version of actor-network theory also more clearly admits that it is affected by it, forbidding analysts to only use the observed actor (actor) definition of the situation, and do not forcefully impose a series of theories and concepts of first on the actors. However, some critics find that in Latour’s work, the above orientation does not match his “grand theorization” (e.g., Latour 1993), and his own concepts proliferate, and seem to be more like the “mainstream theory” he vehemently criticized (Amsterdamska 1990). However, it cannot be said that all actor-network theory thinkers have this disconnection problem, which illustrates the fact that they have differences in focus and orientation, which also makes it a difficult problem to describe actor-network theory from a holistic perspective.
The last question facing the actor-network theory is its advocates’ dissatisfaction with the term “actor-network theory” itself. As Latour (1999:15) said, " has four words that don't fit with the theory of actor-network: the word actor, the word network, the word theory, and the connection number! They will ruin the theory. " Although Latour and his collaborator Caron invented the term in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at least Latour was never satisfied with the term. For Latour, it is a pity that the connection number in the "Actor-Net" reminds sociologists of the structural/agency distinction that the actor-Net theory wants to avoid because it believes that such distinction is ineffective, if not outright stupidity. One would think that "actor" corresponds to the standard concept of agency and "network" corresponds to "structure", but this is by no means the intent of actor-network theory, because it regards it as a meaningless argument and naturally there is no interest in contributing to it (unless it is pointed out that it is meaningless).
Latour believes that the criticism of actor-network theory throughout the 1980s and 1990s did not hit the nail on the head because they always chose one of the two ends, claiming that actor-network theory is too biased toward one end. But actor-network theory has nothing to do with either, because it wants to ignore or skip rather than “solve” the agency-structural dilemma. In Latour's view, agency and structure are not good concepts, but just "double dissatisfaction" created by each other. Some social theorists have invented the concepts of microscopic social relations, while others have criticized them for being too specific and tiny to capture the “macro” phenomena they created. But in turn, concepts at the macro level like “social” or “social structure” are criticized as being too large and abstract, and ignore “real people.” For Latour, all of these arguments are based on misconstructed concepts, thus a waste of time. There is no "structure", "activity", "macro" and "micro" - only social scientists' erroneous imaginations of it. Actor-network theory is not a general theory about "social". But if a definition is necessary, the authors of actor-network theory might say that "society" is not composed of structures and activists, as mainstream theory believes (it is the mainstream theory's assurance of structures and activists' reality that makes it mainstream, and therefore is also wrong). In fact, it is composed of the flow of all types of actors.
Table 12.1 Actors-network theory
knowledge
rejects standard social-theoretical term
nonmodernist approach
"flat" and "symmetric" ontology
material semiotics
"description", rather than "illustration"
multiple ontology
report of multivariate ontology
performing essence of research methods
structure/activity
rejects "structure" and "activity", and related terms
Focus on how human and non-human actors
how actors shape the network and are shaped by them
Modernity
rejects modernist ideas, including the modernity
Reality is a series of changing networks, which are "heterogeneous" assembly composed of different actors
is neither just "natural" nor just "social" entities surging
What is the theory of the network (or possibly what)
Below we will understand more about what actors-network theory says and does in a positive sense. Although there are various problems in expressing actor-network theory, the entire intellectual world it creates and the works it works can be outlined. Here we will look at its various elements.
An appropriate starting point is an early statement by Callon and Latour (1981: 300) on how to study things from the perspective of actor-network theory. They asked, "What is the sociologist of ...? " and replied, " A person who studies associations and dissociations... [ is just a connection between human actors ] ? Not only that, because for a long time... [ tweaked through other partners Extension and extension: Vocabulary, rituals, steel, wood, seeds, and rain [ and countless other non-human actors ] . Sociologists study all connections, especially the transformation of weak interactions to strong interactions, and vice versa. ”
Let us now examine some rough definitions of actor-network theory:
Actor-network theory [avoids any] an essentialized concept of “social”, [instead, it analyzes] the connection network between human actors, technology and objects. The entities in these networks, whether human or non-human, acquire power through the number, breadth and stability of their connections, rather than other avenues. These connections have occurred accidentally in history (they are not naturally generated), but if successful, a network can gain power from "nature": in terms of actor-network theory preference, it is black-boxed. (Couldry 2008: 93)
Actors-network theory is an inherently different family of material semiotic tools, sensations and analytical methods that treat everything in society and nature as the continuous generation of effects in the network of relationships in which it is located. It assumes that things do not have reality or form beyond those relationships established. Its research explores and describes the practice of networks and bearers. Like other material semiotic approaches, actor-network approaches will thus describe the establishment of completely heterogeneous relationships in material and discourse, which produce and reshape various actors, including objects, subjects, humans, machines, animals, "nature", ideas, organizations, inequality, scope, size, and geographical distribution.(Law 2007: 1)
From this, it can be seen that actor-network theory includes the following concept: if a thing is "social", it is composed of networks; these networks themselves are composed of different elements ("heterogeneous assembly"); the actors in the network are human or non-human; in a given network, the characteristics of entities (actors) do not preceded by the network, but are generated by the network and are therefore also the effect of the network; the powers possessed by an entity (actor), including power over other entities, are effects of the network and do not exist before it is in the network; although a series of actors form the network, the network makes the actors what they are; the network is fragile and can be changed; but through some technologies, the network can be stabilized and become relatively lasting, and "black boxing" is one of the main technologies; the network consists of symbolic (discourse) and material (body) things and the relationship between things.
According to Lao's observation, we can say that actor-network theory is a kind of "material semiotics" practice. That is, just as a vocabulary in a language can only obtain meaning from its position in the entire language, an entity (actor) can only obtain its shape and substance when it is in a specific network (Law 1999). Entities are always changing shapes: they are like "a site that has never been constructed" (Callon and Latour 1981: 295).
Here, it is very important to understand the concept of "actor". Acter-network theory does not agree with the assumption that there is a human "actor", where "actor" is a common meaning in English, that is, an individual human with conscious and intentional behavior. On the contrary, actor-network theory examines "actants". The term was originally proposed by structuralists in analyzing literary texts, but was later extended by actor-network theory thinkers to be able to cover all types of situations (Jones 2010). An actor is “an acted or given to action by others. It does not imply the particular motivation of any human actor…[It] can be anything as long as it is considered the source of action” (Latour 1996: 375). Therefore, the actor can be human or non-human. The non-humans considered in the study of actor-network theory include microorganisms (Latour 1988) and scallop larvae (Callon 1986). If something "exerts an influence" on the situation in which it is located, then it is an actor. Treating humans and non-human actors equally and having no preference for human actors when analyzing is the principle of "general symmetry" of actor-network theory. It aims to ensure that actors and networks are viewed in an impartial manner and avoid anthropocentric preferences of mainstream social theory.
now let us turn to another question, the criticism of “mainstream” social theory by actor-network theory. If "the entity has no inner nature", then " essentialism 's differences also [must] be put into the fire of dualism. Truth and falsehood. Large and insignificant. Agency and structure. Human and non-human...material and social. Activity and inertia" (Law 1999: 3). Actor-network theory claims that entities have no essential properties and properties that can only be obtained by being present in a particular network, and that if they leave the network or disintegrate the network, these characteristics and properties will disappear again, and if so, then all the above divisions will be false assumptions (Law 1999: 3). Focusing on the process of “assembly” allows us to see which powers and attributes of entities and actors are generated through specific network arrangements (Munro 2009).
For actor-network theory, nothing in the world is inherently "structural" or related to "activity", and likewise, nothing is essentially "macro" or "micro", big or small, powerful or fragile. When it comes to what they are or can be, it all depends on what network the entity exists in. Therefore, entities are never essential. Instead, they are in a specific network, in which they have relationships with other entities and perform through them.This is why “everything is uncertain and reversible, at least in principle” because as the network changes, the entities (actors) as part of it also change (Law 1999: 4). This is one reason why actor-network theory thinkers reject any concept of "social system" and will not call networks "systems" because these terms underestimate the vulnerability of networks, which are sudden, often unstable and constantly changing.
In addition, there is no pure "social" relationship between people, no pure "technical" relationship between machines, and no pure "natural" relationship between natural phenomena. On the contrary, we "never [just] face the object or social relationship, we are facing a chain formed by humans...the union with non-humans...no one has ever seen the social relationship itself...and not a [pure] technological relationship" (Latour 1991: 110). Before starting observation, analysts should not decide what they will find, nor should they assume that the things they observe are "social", "technical", "natural" or any other type. Instead, they should start by observing and tracing connections and disconnections, “whether they are produced by actors.” Analysis “only by examining all connections with the same courage as the actors connected to production is vivid and productive” (Callon and Latour 1981: 292).
exists as is an network, which consists of various entities at the same time. And, entities are never essential “human” or “machine” or “animal” or anything else—entities are mixtures and hybrids, precise mixes brought by the specific networks that operate. Therefore, all entities are "monsters" (impure, mixed, heterogeneous), and the network is "heterogeneous assembly" of different kinds of things, which themselves are formed from different kinds of materials. The work of actor-network theory is to describe these networks in as detailed as possible.
However, there is a subtle problem involved here. According to Latour (Latour 2011: 801) in terms of the research approach of actor-network theory, "network" itself is not a "real" thing, but a way of describing things. Actors-network theory is a "exploration mode, learning how to list the necessary, unexpected things that are [as in court] for the existence of an entity. A network... is... like the count you get through the Geiger counter, and every element that was previously invisible by the counter clicks when it is presented by the counter."
In another way, “ actor-network theory is more like…a pencil or brush than the name of an object to be portrayed or depicted. [It] allows you to produce some effects that are not available from any other social theory ” (Latour 2004: 63, 64). Therefore, for actor-network theory, “the term network is used as a tool to evoke images, a conceptual inspiration, and methodology. The network is a metaphor for the stream of translation that actors pass through when they make connections with each other.” The term "network" refers to "the traces left by certain moving actives." Actor-network theory is to track down the networks left by those agents (Latour 2005: 131-132). Therefore, actor-network theory research is not about finding existing and visible networks. Instead, it is a method of examining what an actor is doing, and the results of the exam are described as “network” (Mutzel 2009: 877). Actor-network theory is basically a special way of observing what an actor does.
Among all the major actors-network theory thinkers, Latour is perhaps most inclined to use it as a method in a broader philosophical term. For him, actor-network theory is a non-modern (rather than postmodern) way of thinking.After stating the astonishing conclusion that “we have never been modern”, Latour (1993) further argued that modernist thought (who he called the modern Constitution) completely divided the world into two parts, one part of the so-called pure human realm (centered on the social and cultural categories), and the other part of the same as assumed as pure non-human realm (centered on the natural category). Modernist thinkers “purify” the world into two realms and claim that these two realms have nothing in common at all. However, actor-network theory shows—it is its main philosophical contribution—the fact that the world is composed of impure, hybrid entities: at every moment, “science, politics, economy, law, religion, technology, novel…all cultural and natural things are stirred up” (Latour 1993: 2). Modernist thought denies that all entities in the world are hybridized by different elements that they mistakenly label “social” and “cultural”—parodic, this denial occurs during a period of proliferation of heterozygous entities. "Modern" science and technology greatly increase the quantity and influence of heterocompounds.
For example, a human individual inputting to a computer screen is not just a "social actor"; she is a hybrid of multiple elements (computer hardware and software, digital information, network electronics, etc.). In fact, this individual is a diverse combination of "social", "technical" and "natural" elements. An individual is a network and a part of the network. For Latour (2011: 802), "an actor is nothing but the network, [at the same time] a network is nothing but the actor". "Being self-sufficient - that is, being an actor, becoming completely insufficient - that is, becoming a network, these two sentences refer to the same thing." It is precisely because recognizes this that makes actor-network theory a non-modernist approach to knowledge: by tracking what it is, as part of it, making it what it is, and partly constitutes the network, which is. The things that are "invisible" because of the modernist thoughts "become visible" again, "those that seem self-sufficient [such as people, " social actors " ] have now been widely reassigned" (Latour 2011: 797-798).
(This article is excerpted from Chapter 12 of "Invitation for Social Theory" Acter-Net Theory Paradigm. For more introductions to actor-Net Theory paradigm and other paradigms, you can read this book.)
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Invitation for Social Theory
[English] David Ingris Christopher Thorpe by
He Rong Liu Yang Translated
He Rong Proof
ISBN: 978-7-100-20099-8
Content introduction:
Social theory may be difficult to understand, at least at the beginning. However, social theory is about human society, and you know a lot about it - social theory is already a part of you. Social theory is a training to tell you what you already know, but the way it tells will make your knowledge deeper and more precise. "Invitation to Social Theory" will take you to know major social theorists and theorists, not only understanding what they said, but also how they said it. You will understand the main ideas and concepts of each theoretical paradigm, see their importance to social theory, to people in the "real world", and especially critical, to you.
Author Profile:
David Inglis is a professor at the School of Social Sciences of the University of Helsinki. His research directions are classical and modern social theory, historical sociology, cultural sociology, food and wine culture, etc. He has authored "The Body" (2003), "Cultural and Daily Life" (2005), "Art and Aesthetics" (2009), "Cultural Sociology" (2012), etc.
Christopher Thorpe is a lecturer in the School of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology of the University of Exeter. His research directions are classical and modern social theory, cultural sociology, social work, etc. He has written "The Book of Sociology" (2015), "Social Theory of Social Work" (2017), "Sociology Upward View" (2017), etc.
Translator profile:
He Rong, doctoral supervisor, researcher in the Department of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His research directions are sociological theory and religious sociology; he has published monographs such as "Sociology and Economics: Max Weber and Basic Issues of Social Sciences", translated works such as "Max Weber and Economic Sociology Thoughts", and "Theoretical Logic of Sociology: Volume 3" and other translations; he has published many papers.
