Editing Actor–network theory (section)

==Key concepts ==

=== Actor/Actant ===
An actor (actant) is something that acts or to which activity is granted by others. It implies no motivation of human individual actors nor of humans in general. An actant can literally be anything provided it is granted to be the source of action.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Jackson|first=Sharon|date=2015|title=Toward an analytical and methodological understanding of actor-network|url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/293865084.pdf|journal=Journal of Arts and Humanities|volume=4|issue=2|pages=29–44}}</ref> In another word, an actor, in this circumstance, is considered as any entity that does things. For example, in the "Pasteur Network", [[microorganism]]s are not inert, they cause unsterilized materials to ferment while leaving behind sterilized materials not affected. If they took other actions, that is, if they did not cooperate with [[Louis Pasteur|Pasteur]] – if they did not take action (at least according to Pasteur's intentions) – then Pasteur's story may be a bit different. It is in this sense that Latour can refer to microorganisms as actors.<ref name=":1" />

Under the framework of ANT, the [[principle of generalized symmetry]]<ref name="Scallops">{{Cite journal |last=Callon |first=Michel |date=May 1984 |title=Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00113.x |journal=The Sociological Review |language=en |volume=32 |issue=1_suppl |pages=196–233 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00113.x |s2cid=15055718 |issn=0038-0261|url-access=subscription }}</ref> requires all entities must be described in the same terms before a network is considered. Any differences between entities are generated in the network of relations, and do not exist before any network is applied.

==== Human actors ====
Human normally refers to human beings and their [[human behavior]]s.

==== Nonhuman actors ====
Traditionally, [[Non-human|nonhuman]] entities are creatures including plants, animals, geology, and natural forces, as well as a collective human making of arts, languages.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo9826233.html |title=Beyond Nature and Culture |publisher=University of Chicago Press |language=en}}</ref> In ANT, nonhuman covers multiple entities including things, objects, animals, natural phenomena, material structures, transportation devices, texts, and economic goods. But [[nonhuman actors]] do not cover entities such as humans, supernatural beings, and other symbolic objects in nature.<ref name="Sayes" />

=== Actor-Network ===
As the term implies, the actor-network is the central concept in ANT. The term "network" is somewhat problematic in that it, as Latour<ref name="RtS" /><ref name="technology">Latour, B. (1999). [http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/46-TECHNOLOGY-DURABLE-GBpdf.pdf "Technology Is Society Made Durable"]. In Law, J., ed., ''Sociology of Monsters''.</ref><ref name="on">{{Cite journal|last=Latour|first=Bruno|date=1996|title=On actor-network theory: A few clarifications|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40878163.pdf|journal=Soziale Welt|volume=47|issue=4|pages=369–381|jstor=40878163}}</ref> notes, has a number of unwanted connotations. Firstly, it implies that what is described takes the shape of a network, which is not necessarily the case. Secondly, it implies "transportation without deformation," which, in ANT, is not possible since any actor-network involves a vast number of [[#Translation|translations]]. Latour,<ref name="on" /> however, still contends that network is a fitting term to use, because "it has no a priori order relation; it is not tied to the axiological myth of a top and of a bottom of society; it makes absolutely no assumption whether a specific locus is macro- or micro- and does not modify the tools to study the element 'a' or the element 'b'." This use of the term "network" is very similar to Deleuze and Guattari's [[Rhizome (philosophy)|rhizomes]]; Latour<ref name="technology" /> even remarks tongue-in-cheek that he would have no objection to renaming ANT "actant-rhizome ontology" if it only had sounded better, which hints at Latour's uneasiness with the word "theory".

Actor–network theory tries to explain how material–semiotic networks come together to act as a whole; the clusters of actors involved in creating meaning are both material and semiotic. As a part of this it may look at explicit strategies for relating different elements together into a network so that they form an apparently coherent whole. These networks are potentially transient, existing in a constant making and re-making.<ref name="RtS" /> This means that relations need to be repeatedly "performed" or the network will dissolve. They also assume that networks of relations are not intrinsically coherent, and may indeed contain conflicts. Social relations, in other words, are only ever in process, and must be [[Performativity|performed]] continuously.

The Pasteur story that was mentioned above introduced the patterned network of diverse materials, which is called the idea of '[[Heterogeneous network|heterogenous networks]]'.<ref name=":1" /> The basic idea of patterned network is that human is not the only factor or contributor in the society, or in any social activities and networks. Thus, the network composes machines, animals, things, and any other objects.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Law|first=John|date=1992|title=Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogeneity|url=http://m.heterogeneities.net/publications/Law1992NotesOnTheTheoryOfTheActorNetwork.pdf|journal=Systems Practice|volume=5|issue=4|pages=379–393|doi=10.1007/BF01059830|s2cid=38931862}}</ref> For those [[Non-human|nonhuman]] actors, it might be hard for people to imagine their roles in the network. For example, say two people, Jacob and Mike, are speaking through texts. Within the current technology, they are able to communicate with each other without seeing each other in person. Therefore, when typing or writing, the communication is basically not mediated by either of them, but instead by a network of objects, like their computers or cell phones.<ref name=":2" />

If taken to its logical conclusion, then, nearly any actor can be considered merely a sum of other, smaller actors. A car is an example of a complicated system. It contains many electronic and [[machine|mechanical]] components, all of which are essentially hidden from view to the driver, who simply deals with the car as a single object. This effect is known as ''punctualisation'',<ref name=":2"/> and is similar to the idea of [[Encapsulation (object-oriented programming)|encapsulation]] in [[object-oriented programming]].

When an actor network breaks down, the punctualisation effect tends to cease as well.<ref name=":2"/> In the automobile example above, a non-working engine would cause the driver to become aware of the car as a collection of parts rather than just a vehicle capable of transporting him or her from place to place. This can also occur when elements of a network act contrarily to the network as a whole. In his book ''[[Bruno Latour#Pandora's Hope|Pandora's Hope]]'',<ref name=":4" /> Latour likens depunctualization to the opening of a black box. When closed, the box is perceived simply as a box, although when it is opened all elements inside it become visible.

=== Translation ===
{{main|Translation (sociology)}}Central to ANT is the concept of translation which is sometimes referred to as '''sociology of translation''', in which innovators attempt to create a ''forum'', a central network in which all the actors agree that the network is worth building and defending. In his widely debated 1986 study of how marine biologists tried to restock the [[Saint-Brieuc|St Brieuc]] Bay in order to produce more scallops, [[Michel Callon]] defined 4 moments of translation:<ref name="Scallops"/>

# '''Problematisation''': The researchers attempted to make themselves important to the other players in the drama by identifying their nature and issues, then claiming that they could be remedied if the actors negotiated the '[[obligatory passage point]]' of the researchers' study program.
# '''Interessement''': A series of procedures used by the researchers to bind the other actors to the parts that had been assigned to them in that program.
# '''Enrollment''': A collection of tactics used by the researchers to define and connect the numerous roles they had assigned to others.
# '''Mobilisation''': The researchers utilized a series of approaches to ensure that ostensible spokespeople for various key collectivities were appropriately able to represent those collectivities and were not deceived by the latter.

Also important to the notion is the role of network objects in helping to smooth out the translation process by creating equivalencies between what would otherwise be very challenging people, organizations or conditions to mesh together.  Bruno Latour spoke about this particular task of objects in his work ''[[Bruno Latour#Reassembling the Social|Reassembling the Social]]''.<ref name="RtS"/>

=== Quasi-object ===
For the rethinking of social relations as networks, Latour mobilizes a concept from Michel Serres<ref>{{Cite book |last=Serres |first=Michel |title=The parasite |last2=Schehr |first2=Lawrence R. |date=1982 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0-8018-2456-2 |location=Baltimore |pages=224–234 |language=en, fr}}</ref> and expands on it in order “to locate the position of these strange new hybrids”.<ref name=":0" /> Quasi-objects are simultaneously quasi-subjects – the prefix ''quasi ''denotes that neither ontological status as subject or object is pure or permanent, but that these are dynamic entities whose status shifts, depending on their respective momentous activity and their according position in a collective or network.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vries |first=Gerard de |title=Bruno Latour |date=2016 |publisher=Polity Press |isbn=978-0-7456-5062-3 |location=Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA |pages=134}}</ref> What is decisive is circulation and participation, from which networks emerge, examples for quasi-objects are language, money, bread, love, or the ball in a soccer game: all of these human or non-human, material or immaterial actants have no agency (and thus, subject-status) in themselves, however, they can be seen as the connective tissue underlying – or even acticating – the interactions in which they are enmeshed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sonnenberg-Schrank |first=Björn |title=Actor-Network Theory at the Movies: Reassembling the Contemporary American Teen Film With Latour |date=2020 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=978-3-030-31286-2 |series=Springer eBook Collection |location=Cham |pages=141}}</ref> In ''Reassembling the Social'', Latour refers to these in-between actants as “the mediators whose proliferation generates, among many other entities, what could be called quasi-objects and quasi-subjects.”<ref name="RtS" />

Actor–network theory refers to these creations as ''tokens'' or ''quasi-objects'' which are passed between actors within the network. As the token is increasingly transmitted or passed through the network, it becomes increasingly punctualized and also increasingly [[Reification (Marxism)|reified]]. When the token is decreasingly transmitted, or when an actor fails to transmit the token (e.g., the oil pump breaks), punctualization and reification are decreased as well.