Contributions of science–technology studies and actor–network theory to urban studies

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs a critique of ‘Euro-American realism’, this paper draws on science–technology studies (STS) and actor–network theory (ANT) and its understanding of the social as multiple orderings of heterogeneous things that are not given but are enacted in daily practices. The STS–ANT perspective enables an exploration to be made of the multiple spaces of a place in action, deepening understandings of the notions of the quality of a place, ambience, network space, fluid space and urbanity–disurbanity. This approach is explored in relation to the material reality of Pires de Almeida Street, located in Laranjeiras neighbourhood in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, examining for this zone associations of, and tensions between, humans and non-humans and their ways of ‘being present’.