Editing Actor–network theory (section)

=== A material semiotic method ===
Although it is called a "[[Philosophical theory|theory]]", ANT does not usually explain "why" a network takes the form that it does.<ref name="RtS" /> Rather, ANT is a way of thoroughly exploring the relational ties within a network (which can be a multitude of different things). As Latour notes,<ref name="technology" /> "explanation does not follow from description; it is description taken that much further." It is not, in other words, a theory "of" anything, but rather a method, or a "how-to book" as Latour<ref name="RtS" /> puts it.

The approach is related to other versions of material-semiotics (notably the work of philosophers [[Gilles Deleuze]], [[Michel Foucault]], and feminist scholar [[Donna Haraway]]). It can also be seen as a way of being faithful to the insights of [[ethnomethodology]] and its detailed descriptions of how common activities, habits and procedures sustain themselves.  Similarities between ANT and [[symbolic interactionist]] approaches such as the newer forms of [[grounded theory]] like situational analysis, exist,<ref>Fernback, J., 2007. "Beyond the Diluted Community Concept: A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective on Online Social Relations." ''New Media & Society'', 9(1), pp.49-69. [[doi:10.1177/1461444807072417]]</ref> although Latour<ref>Blok, A, & Elgaard Jensen, T. (2011). ''[http://www.excursions-journal.org.uk/index.php/excursions/article/download/100/134 Bruno Latour: Hybrid thoughts in a hybrid world] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150524023006/http://www.excursions-journal.org.uk/index.php/excursions/article/download/100/134|date=May 24, 2015}}''. Suffolk: Routledge.</ref> objects to such a comparison.

Although ANT is mostly associated with studies of science and technology and with the sociology of science, it has been making steady progress in other fields of sociology as well.  ANT is adamantly empirical, and as such yields useful insights and tools for sociological inquiry in general. ANT has been deployed in studies of identity and subjectivity, urban transportation systems, and passion and addiction.<ref>See e.g. Gomart, Emilie, and Hennion, Antoin (1999) "[https://www.academia.edu/866668/A_Sociology_of_Attachment_Music_Amateurs_Drug_Addicts A Sociology of Attachment: Music Amateurs, Drug Users]". In: J. Law and J. Hassard (eds.) Actor Network Theory and After.
Oxford: Blackwell, 220–247; Valderrama Pineda, Andres, and Jorgensen, Ulrik (2008) "Urban Transport Systems in Bogota and Copenhagen: An Approach from STS." Built Environment 34(2),200–217.</ref> It also makes steady progress in political and historical sociology.<ref>See e.g. Carroll, Patrick (2012) "Water and Technoscientific State Formation in California."
Social Studies of Science 42(2), 313–321; Shamir, Ronen (2013) Current Flow: The Electrification of Palestine. Stanford: Stanford University Press</ref>