Notes on the Theory of the Actor Network
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Forty Years After Laboratory Life*
Philos Theor Pract Biol (2020) 12:3 RESEARCH ARTICLE Forty Years after Laboratory Life* Joyce C. Havstady There is an ongoing and robust tradition of science and technology studies (STS) scholars conducting ethnographic laboratory studies. These laboratory studies—like all ethnogra- phies—are each conducted at a particular time, are situated in a particular place, and are about a particular (scientific) culture. Presumably, this contextual specificity means that such ethnographies have limited applicability beyond the narrow slice of time, place, and culture that they each subject to examination. But we (STS scholars) do not always or even often treat them that way. It is beyond common for us to speak about what one or another laboratory study reveals about the laboratory, or “science” much more broadly. Given the contextual specificity of our ethnographic laboratory studies, what justifies this presumed generalizability? Initially, this manuscript surveys typical responses to this question, but then it pursues an unusual one: the potential replicability of ethnographic results. This potential is hereby explored, via an ethnographic replication attempt—one designed and conducted in order to test the generalizability of a particular laboratory study, that of Latour and Woolgar’s classic Laboratory Life (1979). The results of the ethnographic replication attempt are reported, and a remarkable degree of replicability is established. Keywords ethnography • generalizability • Laboratory Life • laboratory studies • replicability • science and technology studies 1 The Motivating Question Ethnographic laboratory studies are an important part of the ongoing science and technology studies (STS) tradition. But to what extent can the results of a particular laboratory study be generalized to other contexts? In other words, do STS ethnographies have any so-called “external validity” (Campbell and Stanley 1966; Calder, Phillips, and Tybout 1982), or perhaps *In 1988, Ian Hacking wrote: “Soon it will be time to write ‘Ten Years after Laboratory Life’ ” (Hacking 1988, 277). -
Actor Network Theory and Media: Do They Connect and on What Terms?
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by LSE Research Online Nick Couldry Actor network theory and media: do they connect and on what terms? Book section Original citation: Originally published in Hepp, A., Krotz, F., Moores, S. and Winter, C. (eds.), Connectivity, networks and flows: conceptualizing contemporary communications. Cresskill, NJ, USA: Hampton Press, Inc., 2008, pp. 93-110. ISBN 9781572738577 © 2008 Hampton Press, Inc. This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/52481/ Available in LSE Research Online: Sept 2013 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s submitted version of the book section. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Six ACTOR NETWORK THEORY AND MEDIA Do They Connect and on What Terms? Nick Couldry Actor Network Theory (ANT) is a highly influential account within the sociology of science that seeks to explain social order not through an essentialized notion of “the social” but through the networks of connec- tions among human agents, technologies, and objects. -
The Routledge Companion to Actor-Network Theory
The Routledge Companion to Actor-Network Theory This companion explores ANT as an intellectual practice, tracking its movements and engagements with a wide range of other academic and activist projects. Showcasing the work of a diverse set of ‘second generation’ ANT scholars from around the world, it highlights the exciting depth and breadth of contemporary ANT and its future possibilities. The companion has 38 chapters, each answering a key question about ANT and its capacities. Early chapters explore ANT as an intellectual practice and highlight ANT’s dialogues with other fields and key theorists. Others open critical, provocative discussions of its limitations. Later sections explore how ANT has been developed in a range of so cial scientific fields and how it has been used to explore a wide range of scales and sites. Chapters in the final section discuss ANT’s involvement in ‘real world’ endeavours such as disability and environmental activism, and even running a Chilean hospital. Each chapter contains an overview of relevant work and introduces original examples and ideas from the authors’ recent research. The chapters orient readers in rich, complex fields and can be read in any order or combination. Throughout the volume, authors mobilise ANT to explore and account for a range of exciting case studies: from wheelchair activism to parliamentary decision-making; from racial profiling to energy consumption monitoring; from queer sex to Korean cities. A comprehensive introduction by the editors explores the significance of ANT more broadly and provides an overview of the volume. The Routledge Companion to Actor-Network Theory will be an inspiring and lively companion to aca- demics and advanced undergraduates and postgraduates from across many disciplines across the social sciences, including Sociology, Geography, Politics and Urban Studies, Environmental Studies and STS, and anyone wishing to engage with ANT, to understand what it has already been used to do and to imagine what it might do in the future. -
We Have Never Been Modern Pdf Free Download
WE HAVE NEVER BEEN MODERN PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Bruno Latour | 168 pages | 04 May 2011 | HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS | 9780674948396 | English | Cambridge, Mass, United States We Have Never Been Modern PDF Book What difference does the scientific method make? Home About Publications Archive Index. We often encounter attempts to gauge the strength of faiths and denominations Act the Man and Build. The domains interact with one another, but they cannot, ought not, be confused. Skip to search form Skip to main content You are currently offline. View 4 excerpts, cites background. We have to keep up appearances, because being modern simply is the pretense that We are not Them. This forms the basis for Harman's Object Oriented Ontology. Church and ministry leadership resources to better equip, train and provide ideas for today's church and ministry leaders, like you. On March 24, I submitted the final copyedits for my new book …. Childish primitives that they were and are , pre-moderns muck everything up. With the rise of science, we moderns believe, the world changed irrevocably, separating us forever from our primitive, premodern ancestors. For moderns, the purification process is overt, while hybrids are denied even though modernity proliferates them. The imbroglios and networks that had no place now have the whole place to themselves. Inauguration and Vocation. Paradox 2: Nature is immanent, we construct it in a lab; society is not out construction, it is bio-fact that transcends us. Latour's book is largely a rumination on the phenomenon of modernity and how to create for ourselves a nonmodern world by ending the divide between social life and natural life. -
D Moats Thesis Final 7 Jan 2016 Full
DECENTRING DEVICES: Developing Quali-Quantitative Techniques for Studying Controversies with Online Platforms David Moats Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 2015 1 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Wherever contributions of others are involved, these are clearly acknowledged. David Moats 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As STS scholars are well aware, any research project is always a distributed accomplishment, but this is more obviously the case in the Wild West of digital research. Firstly, I am grateful to the ESRC for funding such an experimental project and of course to my brilliant supervisors Noortje Marres and David Oswell who set the bar very high and continued to make insightful and challenging comments throughout. I could not have asked for a better pair of voices jostling in my head. A different version of the argument in Chapter II and the tool developed in Chapter VI have appeared in the article Mapping Controversies with Social Media: The Case for Symmetry with Noortje Marres (2015). I also want to thank the entire team at the Digital Methods Initiative and the Média Lab for their support, both technical and intellectual. I have benefitted considerably from discussions with Richard Rogers, Tommaso Venturini, Bernhard Rieder, Sabine Niederer and Carolin Gerlitz. A collaboration with Erik Borra led to the creation of the URL sequencer in Chapter VI, which he was kind enough to incorporate into the DMI TCAT interface. Gabriele Colombo, Federica Bardelli, Carlo di Gaetano and Alessandro Brunetti from Density Design all made helpful suggestions on the visualisations presented. -
Review Essays
CAPITALISM NATURE SOCIALISM VOLUME 16 NUMBER 1(MARCH 2005) REVIEW ESSAYS Politics of Nature: A Review of Three Recent Works by Bruno Latour Bruno Latour: Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004a. Bruno Latour: “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern,” Critical Inquiry, 30, 2, 2004b. Bruno Latour: War of the Worlds: What About Peace? Chicago: Prickly Paradigm, 2002. Bruno Latour is widely known for his contributions to science studies,1 debates about postmodernism,2 and, through the spread of his “actor-network theory,”3 methods in the social sciences. While one can draw connections between these works, it is hard to pigeonhole Latour. His originality, style of argumentation, and aversion to being defined vis-a` -vis other thinkers make Latour enigmatic. More recently, Latour has called into question elements of his earlier project, arguing in his 2002 treatise, War of the Worlds: What About Peace?, that critique has “overshot its target” 4 and asking “why has critique run out of steam?” in a 2004 essay of the same name.5 That puts Latour, who urged us to follow scientists to understand social life, under the microscope himself. Latour’s Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences Into Democracy,6 (hereafter “Politics”) comes to the English-reading audience in the midst of the debate over Latour’s doubts about critique. This coincidence is auspicious, since it allows us to 1See especially Bruno Latour and S. Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (Los Angeles: Sage, 1979); Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1987); and Latour, Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999a). -
Actor-Network and Translation in Engineering Laboratory: a Case Study of Universitas Indonesia Civil Engineering Testing Laboratory
MASYARAKAT Jurnal Sosiologi Vol. 24, No. 2, Juli 2019: 187-209 DOI: 10.7454/MJS.v24i2.9229 Actor-Network and Translation in Engineering Laboratory: A Case Study of Universitas Indonesia Civil Engineering Testing Laboratory Fazar Ramdhana Sargani Purusha Research Cooperatives E-mail: [email protected] Abstrak Penggunaan Teori Aktor-Jaringan (TAJ) di Indonesia telah diterapkan di berbagai bidang, seperti kajian kredit mikro, budi daya terumbu karang, kontestasi energi terbarukan, dan relasi sipil-militer. Namun, di Indonesia TAJ masih sangat jarang digunakan untuk meneliti laboratorium sebagai perkumpulan (assemblage) yang berjalan, kendati peranan- nya yang penting dalam memproduksi pengetahuan teknis. Guna mengisi kekosongan tersebut, artikel ini bertujuan untuk menggambarkan penerapan TAJ pada kerja labora- torium, khusus di Laboratorium Struktur dan Material serta Laboratorium Uji Teknik Sipil Universitas Indonesia menggunakan konsep proses translasi. Artikel ini menemukan bahwa laboratorium tersusun bukan hanya oleh aktor manusia, seperti ahli-ahli yang otoritatif, tetapi juga aktor non-manusia –cth. gedung dan peralatan atau mesin. Seiring performanya, laboratorium membentuk asosiasi, yang tidak hanya menbangun tetapi juga memutus atau memilih relasi sesuai dengan kebutuhan jaringan tanpa harus seluruh aktor menyadari akan proses tersebut. Hal ini mengindikasikan keterbatasan ANT dalam men- deteksi ihwal-ihwal di luar tindakan dalam pembentukan jaringan. Pendekatan metode kualitatif diterapkan mengingat itulah yang paling tepat untuk dapat menerapkan prinsip pelacakan aktor dalam TAJ. Abstract Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has been implemented to study various topics in Indone- sian contexts such as microcredit, coral reef, contestation within the sustainable energy project, and civil-military relations. However, ANT is seldom used to examine laboratories as working assemblages in Indonesia, despite its crucial role in producing technological knowledge. -
The Ordering of Things: Organization in Bruno Latour
The ordering of things: Organization in Bruno Latour Jan Harris Introduction: From science in action to actor networks Bruno Latour has become an obligatory point of reference for many working in the social sciences. This situation can be attributed to a unique combination of theoretical and methodological novelty – an engagement with the ‘real’ has inspired Latour’s theory, and in turn this theory has transformed what we under- stand as the ‘real’. Latour has not been afraid to get his hands dirty, to enter into the ignoble world of things and the human networks that surround them and in so doing call this very distinction into question. Arising directly from the kind of challenges encountered in the study of human organizations, we do not (as with so many theorists) have to engage in a procrustean struggle with Latour’s thought in order to render it applicable to concerns of this field. The evolution of this project might be seen in terms of a passage from ethno- graphic studies of the working practices of scientists and technicians to an increasingly wide ranging meta-theorization that has addressed itself to issues as varied as ontology, ecology, technology, epistemology and ethics. This chapter will seek to demonstrate the irreducible centrality of the problematic of orga- nization and organizations in Latour’s project. In addition this reading will explore the attendant problematic of the status of objects in organizations, which although not entirely outside the purview of organization studies have only recently begun to receive the attention they warrant. In identifying and illu- minating the ontological blind spot that is the constitutive role of objects, Latour’s thought holds out the possibility of revolutionizing our understanding of organizations and their components. -
Actors and Networks in the Megacity
Prachi More Actors and Networks in the Megacity Urban Studies Prachi More (PhD) taught at the English Studies Department at the University of Tubingen, Germany. Her research interests include New Materialisms, Smart Cities and Weird Fiction. Prachi More Actors and Networks in the Megacity A Literary Analysis of Urban Narratives An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative de- signed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN for this book is 978-3-8394-3834-3. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Na- tionalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 (BY-NC-ND) which means that the text may be used for non-com- mercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ To create an adaptation, translation, or derivative of the original work and for commer- cial use, further permission is required and can be obtained by contacting rights@ transcript-verlag.de Creative Commons license terms for re-use do not apply to any content (such as graphs, figures, photos, excerpts, etc.) not original to the Open Access publication and further permission may be required from the rights holder. -
Chapter 1 Seems to Me to Be a Step in the Right Direction Toward Dissipating the Mystery That Is Believed to Surround Our Activity
14 LABORATORY LIFE scientists in general, is often understood only in a sort of magical or mystical way. Even if we do not agree with the details of this book, or if we find it slightly uncomfortable or even painful in places, the present work Chapter 1 seems to me to be a step in the right direction toward dissipating the mystery that is believed to surround our activity. I feel certain that in the future many institutes and laboratories may well include a kind of in-house philosopher or sociologist. For myself, it was interesting to have Bruno Latour in our institute, which allowed him to carry out the first investigation of this kind of which I am aware and, most interestingly, to have observed the way in which he, and his approach, was transformed by the experience. It would be very useful for this critique itself to be criticized. This would both help the authors (and other scholars with similar interests and background) to assist scientists to understand themselves through the mirror provided, and help a wider public understand the scientific pursuit from a new and different and rather refreshing point of view. —Jonas Salk, M.D. 5 mins. John enters and goes into his office. He says something very quickly about having made a bad mistake. He had sent the review of a paper.... The rest of the sentence is inaudible. S mins. 30 secs. Barbara enters. She asks Spencer what kind of solvent to put on the column. Spencer answers from his office. Barbara leaves and goes to the bench. -
Building on Faults: How to Represent Controversies with Digital Methods
Building on faults Tommaso Venturini To cite this version: Tommaso Venturini. Building on faults: how to represent controversies with digital methods. Public Understanding of Science, SAGE Publications, 2012, 21 (7), pp.796-812. 10.1177/0963662510387558. hal-01064260 HAL Id: hal-01064260 https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01064260 Submitted on 15 Sep 2014 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Building on Faults How to Represent Controversies with Digital Methods Tommaso Venturini (Public Understanding of Science, Forthcoming) Abstract: In a previous article appeared in this journal, I1 introduced Bruno Latour’s cartography of controversies and I discussed half of it, namely how to observe techno-scientific controversies. In this article I will concentrate on the remaining half: how to represent the complexity of social debates in a legible form. In my previous paper, we learnt how to explore the richness of collective existence through Actor-Network Theory. In this one, I will discuss how to render such complexity through an original visualization device: the controversy-website. Capitalizing on the potential of digital technologies, the controversy-website has been developed as a multilayered toolkit to trace and aggregate information on public debates. -
Public Relations and Social Theory
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) On Latour Actor-networks, modes of existence and public relations Verhoeven, P. DOI 10.4324/9781315271231 Publication date 2018 Document Version Final published version Published in Public relations and social theory Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Verhoeven, P. (2018). On Latour: Actor-networks, modes of existence and public relations. In Ø. Ihlen, & M. Frederiksson (Eds.), Public relations and social theory: Key figures, concepts and developments (2nd ed., pp. 99-116). (Routledge communication series). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315271231 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:27 Sep 2021 PUBLIC RELATIONS AND SOCIAL THEORY Key Figures, Concepts and Developments Second edition Edited by Øyvind Ihlen and Magnus Fredriksson 6 ON LATOUR Actor-Networks, Modes of Existence and Public Relations Piet Verhoeven Public relations plays a key role in the communication processes that forge alliances and coalitions in order to strengthen the position of the organization in society.