What is ANT?

Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is an approach that is closely related to the works of Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law (Callon, 1986; Callon, 1997; Harman, 2009; Ivakhiv, 2002; Latour, 1993; Latour, 2004; Latour, 2005; Law, 1992; Law, 1999; Law, 2000; Lee & Brown, 1994; Lee & Stenner, 1999). It is an analytical lens that aims to not separate the world into two houses, one society and one nature (Harman, 2009; Latour, 2004; Latour, 2005; Lee & Stenner, 1999). Rather it aims to bypass any social natural divide by arguing that “nature and society are two

collectors that are a premature attempt to collect in two opposite assemblies one common world” (Latour, 2005:245).161 _{Further it is argued that “it is a grave}

methodological mistake to limit in advance...the range of entities that may populate the social world” (Latour, 2005:227) by limiting it to only humans, as it is

“counterintuitive to try and distinguish what comes from viewers and what comes from the object when the obvious answer is to go with the flow” (Latour, 2005:237).

160_{This argument is also made by Briers and Chua (2001), Castree (2002), Latour (2005) and is one of, if}

not, the central message of Latour’s (1993) book ‘We Have Never Been Modern’.

161_{To an extent this argument is similar to that offered by Tinker, et al., (1982) who outline that “the}

subject-object split is a false assumption: observers (subjects) are a product of the reality (objects) they observe (and so therefore are their models of observation and perception)” (ibid:173). Similarly Gibson (1986) when discussing his ecological approach to vision and the concept of affordances makes a similar claim as does Guattari (1989) when highlighting nothing is separate from the assemblage that brought it into being. Whereas McEvoy and Zarate (2007) discuss the properties of light and the relationship between the observer and what is observed.

Furthermore Latour (2005) claims “no amateur ever alternated between subjectivity and objectivity” (ibid: 240) so why should social scientists be forced into this

“artificial quandary” (ibid: 240). This statement from Latour (2005) aside, the argument being made is illustrated by Law (1992) where he argues that there is no distinct domain that is social, and if, with reference to himself “you took away my computer, my colleagues, my office, my books, my desk, my telephone, I wouldn’t be a sociologist writing papers...I’d be something quite other” (Law, 1992:4). Hence “social agents are never located in bodies and bodies alone, but rather an actor is a patterned network of heterogeneous relations” (Law, 1992:4) between the human and the non-human and is social natural in form (Callon, 1986; Castree, 2002). Further all the attributes that may normally be ascribed to human beings “are generated in networks that pass through and ramify both within and beyond the body” (Law, 1992:4).162_{Thus humans cannot be seen in isolation from that which} makes them purposeful; humans and non-humans are intermeshed (O’Connell, et al., 2009; Steen, et al., 2006) and thus actor-networks (Law, 1992).

Consequently ANT brings within its analytical view all entities (humans and non- humans) and explicitly sets out to “clear the slate of nature-culture dualism”

(Ivakhiv, 2002:391) treating all entities symmetrically. In this regard ANT has been described as a form of “ultra-liberalism” (Callon, 1997:2) as it is fair to all entities (Ashmore, et al., 1994; Callon, 1997; Fox, 2000; Ivakhiv, 2002; Lee & Brown, 1994; O’Connell, et al., 2009). Further, because ANT treats everything as equal from the outset, the analyst is then in a position to follow the production of inequalities (Ashmore, et al., 1994; Lee & Brown, 1994). However, it is important to note that this non recognition of fundamental differences is “an analytical stance, not an ethical position” (Law, 1992:4). It is not intended that in applying ANT objects become endowed with ethical or moral agency (Law, 1992). Rather, it is about not imposing asymmetry between humans and non-humans in the analysis (Latour, 2005) and giving “due consideration and recognition of [both] the non-human and human” (O’Connell, et al., 2009:20) in analysis. Thus to reiterate ANT is about

showing how humans and non-humans are intermeshed (O’Connell, et al., 2009) and

162_{In this regard, this concept is similar to that offered by Newton (2002) where people are seen as}

“hominess aperti” (ibid: 530) a concept counter to the notion of homo clausus a “person closed in on himself (sic)” (ibid: 530). Callon (1997) makes a similar claim regarding ANT not promoting homo clausus and also argues that the concept of economic embeddedness (Granovetter, 1985; Granovetter, 2005) is an “emerging theory of the actor-network” (Callon, 1997: 4) as it opens up the frame of concern for economic actions to include social elements beyond pure economic rationality.

the relationships between entities (human and non-human) or the associations between them.163_{In this regard, ANT is putting the analyst in the middle of the} action where “connections are continuously being made” (Steen, et al., 2006:207) and remade. In other words asking the analyst to decentre everything and think relationally rather than separations (Castree, 2002). In so doing Calas and Smircich (1999) argue that ANT “defamiliarizes what we may otherwise take for granted” (ibid:663) and everything, including the entities themselves, become “an effect of an array of relations, the effect, in short, of a network” (Law, 2000:1).164

Consequently, within ANT boundaries and differences are not only dissolved but they are effects rather than being given in the natural order of things (Latour, 2005; Law, 1992; Law, 1999; Law, 2000; McLean & Hassard, 2004; Newton, 2002). Thus

“cultures and ecologies...[are]...not some essential bounded wholes but at best only analytically distinguishable moments within the fluid activity of network building” (Ivakhiv, 2002:399) and all is performance rather than a final or original state (Calas & Smircich, 1999). In sum, ANT could be described as being about viewing “the world as consisting of heterogeneous and dynamic networks that are constantly being made and remade through practice” (Ivakhiv, 2002:393).

Thus ANT brings forward a world of work, movement and flow165_{where everything is} a relational field. This can be a challenging aspect to ANT as “order becomes an effect generated by heterogeneous means” (Law, 1992:3), not some final or end state. Further rather than order, within ANT what is occurring is ordering (Newton, 2002; Steen, et al., 2006) where some discernable entities or things happen to be more or less enduring (Newton, 2007) but ultimately entities or things are a form of punctualisation (Law, 1992). This analysis of the work of ordering or more

particularly the translation166_{occurring between heterogeneous entities generates} ordering effects such as devices or organisations167 _{and is central to ANT analysis} (Law, 1992).

163_{A focus on associations prompted Latour (2005) to state that ANT should be renamed “associology”}

(ibid:9)

164_{Consequently within ANT “an actor is also, always, a network” (Law, 1992:4). Further as Callon (1997)}

states “language is an effect of distribution and not an inherent property” (ibid: 2).

165_{This ANT world of work movement and flow highlights a central difficulty for any ANT account as “any}

system of representation...automatically freezes the flow of experience and in so doing distorts what it strives to represent” (Cuganesan, 2008:99 citing Harvey, 1989:206)

166 _{Translation has been described by Law (1992) as the generation of ordering effects such as devices,}

institutions and organisations. Appendix 8, Table A8.2 provides descriptions of various ANT terms.

167_{Within ANT, an organisation can be described as “an achievement, a process, a consequence, a set of}

resistances overcome, a precarious effect” (Law, 1992:8). In this regard there is congruence with open systems theory which reinforces the processual nature of organisations (Burrell & Morgan, 1979).

A further difficulty with ANT and its emphasis on everything being in flow, nothing ever being complete, final or autonomous (Law, 1992) and all being a relational field (Ivakhiv, 2002), is how can an analyst identify any fixed points or entities between which to analyse processes of work, movement and flow. As if the ANT lens is accepted, everything is atomized and the analyst is asked to concentrate on the relationships in between, but the relationships in between what? As with ANT everything is a network and in flow. To escape this quandary, Law (2000) outlines that when using ANT the analysis can occur at varying levels of magnification. In discussing his ANT analysis of Portuguese imperialist expansion in the 15th_century, Law (2000) outlines that the analysis can be done at the level of an individual vessel and its “network of hull, spars, sails, ropes, guns, food stores” (ibid: 3) through an increased magnification to focus on the navigational system of a ship and its network or through a decreased magnification to consider the Portuguese imperial system as a whole and its “ports, ...its vessels, its military dispositions [and] its markets” (ibid: 3).

8.2.1 Some Implications of ANT

Some implications of passing significance to this study that arise from ANT and its opening up the frame of analysis to include all things (human and non-human) is notions of the special status of humans, freedom and paradigms. Taking each in turn, by opening the frame of analysis to include all things, humans no longer have special status. Humans are reduced to being things which also happen to describe (Latour, 2004; Latour, 2005), in short they are actors and describers. Second, with regard to freedom, because with ANT everything is a relational field this indicates that humans do not exist by themselves but rather they exist in chains of association with other things. Consequently freedom is not an absence of associations but

abundance of associations (Latour, 2005) or in alternative terms an abundance of options. Third, this research study explores paradigms along a spectrum of

anthropocentrism, sustaincentrism and ecocentrism. Castree (2002) highlights that neither ecocentrism nor anthropocentrism are consistent with ANT as each of these paradigms either biases nature over humanity or vice versa whereas ANT favours a “hybrid basis” (ibid: 120) for the relationship between nature and humans. Thus it is perhaps plausible, although this would be an ambitious claim that this researcher can