The poet as fractional object ontological politics in the reception of Ady Endre around 1909

In recent years the approach to social theory known as Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has been adopted within a range of social science fields. Despite its popularity, ANT is considered a controversial approach in that it appears to promote a sociological perspective that lacks substantive political critique. This is argued to be particularly true in ANT’s ‘translations’ in management and organization studies (MOS). In this article, we argue that the ‘ANT and After’ literature offers the potential to develop such a political critique. In particular we suggest it presents the opportunity to develop an approach that de-naturalizes organization(s), has the ability to deliver critical performativity, and at the same time offer a reflexive approach to management and organizational knowledge. Using organizational examples, we argue that ANT and After can offer insights relevant to the development of a critical perspective on MOS, notably through its advocacy of a ‘political ontology’ of organizing.

A virtual integration—The management control system in a multinational enterprise

This chapter juxtaposes political ontology to recent discussions of ontology in International Relations (IR). As a decolonial approach, political ontology exposes a pluriverse of different worlds (understood as performative ontologies and stories) beyond IR’s universe of modernity or mere societal and cultural multiplicity. Drawing on actor-network theory and other posthumanist social theories and philosophies as well as Ranciere’s conception of politics, political ontology highlights the performative (or processual-relational) and political character of ontologies often elided in scholarship on ontology in IR. The present intervention addresses three aspects of political ontology with relevance to IR; broadly, its underlying conception of politics, a certain form of self-reflexivity, and the potentials for a universalism and cosmopolitics of a different kind. First, it shows how Ranciere’s politics of disagreement, equality, and alterity may inform political ontology. Second, it suggests that the move from a universe to a pluriverse of ontologies (including non-modern ones) also implies a “deconstructive self-estrangement” of Eurocentric ontologies/modernities (for instance, by attending to their stories or by understanding these through political theology). Third, it provokes the (Schmittian-derived) notion of the pluriverse by pointing to Sergei Prozorov’s “void universalism” as a possible ante-grounding for cosmopolitics within a pluriverse.

In this article, we demonstrate how Actor–Network Theory has been translated into tourism research. The article presents and discusses three concepts integral to the Actor–Network Theory approach: ordering, materiality, and multiplicity. We first briefly introduce Actor–Network Theory and draw attention to current Actor–Network Theory studies in tourism with a focus on how the approach is sensitive toward heterogeneous orderings. The following section discusses how more recent Actor–Network Theory approaches emphasize multiplicity and thus multiple versions of every ordering attempt. This leads us toward ontological politics, which have bearings on how we approach and understand research methods and how we perform tourism research. In conclusion, we argue that Actor–Network Theory enables a radical new way of describing tourism by critically investigating its ontological conditions.

This chapter addresses polycentric governing with concepts from actor-network theory (ANT). ANT explains how and with what effects contemporary governing is increasingly performed through seemingly neutral socio-material practices of expertise, such as indicators, standards, or assessments. ANT originated in the 1980s, when sociologists started ethnographic examinations of the mundane laboratory practices of natural scientists. Already this early work proposed certain radical claims: for example, that objects have agency, that science is politics by other means, and that micro-practices have macro effects. These propositions have subsequently inspired scholars across the social sciences and humanities. Reflecting ANT’s focus on case studies, this chapter provides three inroads into polycentric governing. First, it elaborates on the novel techniques of governing-by-expertise, such as certification schemes or experiments in polycentric governing which draw heavily on black-boxed expert knowledge. Second, inquiring into forms of power, the chapter examines how science-policy networks generate and fix knowledge about global environmental problems. In so doing, they engage in ‘ontological politics’ that describe the power to normalize specific constructions of reality and inevitably exclude other actors and other governing logics. Third, a vignette regarding the United Nations Security Council elucidates the politics of legitimation when Colin Powell tried to convince the world of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This case exemplifies how legitimation is closely coupled with practices of evidence making.

Cinematic tourism is an expanding phenomenon that examines the interaction between audiovisual products and tourist behavior, and their impact on destinations. This field investigates how films and TV shows shape perceptions of destinations and attract visitors, creating new tourism flows and economic opportunities. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) provides a nuanced approach to this study by considering the complex networks of human and non-human actors involved. Developed by Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, and John Law, ANT highlights the significance of these networks in shaping social and economic phenomena. Applying ANT to cinematic tourism reveals how films, tourists, destinations, and local actors are interconnected. This theoretical perspective involves using various research methods, including interviews, discourse analysis, and field observations, to understand how audiovisual representations influence tourist attraction and how destinations respond. ANT helps identify gaps and opportunities in the tourism sector, such as the underutilization of the audiovisual sector by many destinations. Van der Duim, Ren, and Jóhannesson (2013) emphasize ANT’s focus on multiplicity and ontological politics, arguing that tourism is composed of multiple realities and organizing attempts. They suggest that ANT provides a richer understanding of tourism dynamics by analyzing diverse interactions. Paget, Dimanche, and Mounet (2010) demonstrate how new associations between human and non-human actors, facilitated by a "leader translator," can drive a company’s success within a tourist destination by reconfiguring resources into innovative products. Chen and Wu (2013) further illustrate this by using ANT and social affordance to analyze how postmodern attractions, like those themed around Jimmy, are constructed through relational networks. This approach offers a dynamic perspective on tourism attractions, revealing how various actors shape their development.

1. After ANT: Complexity, Naming and Topology: John Law (Lancaster University). 2. On Recalling ANT: Bruno Latour (Ecole des Mines de Paris). 3. Perpetuum Mobile: Substance, Force and the Sociology of Translation: Steven D. Brown (Keele University) and Rose Capdevila (Nene University College). 4. From Blindness to blindness: Museums, Heterogeneity and the Subject: Kevin Hetherington (Brunel University). 5. Ontological Politics: A Word and Some Questions: Annemarie Mol (Twente University). 6. Who Pays? Can We Pay Them Back?: Nick Lee (Keele University) and Paul Stenner (Bath University). 7. Materiality: Juggling Sameness and Difference: Anni Dugdale (Australian National University Canberra). 8. Staying True to the Laughter in Nigerian Classrooms: Helen Verran (Melbourne University). 9. What is Intellectual Property After?: Marilyn Strathern (Cambridge University). 10. Actor--Network Theory -- The Market Test: Michele Callon (Ecole des Mines de Paris). 11. Good Passages, Bad Passages: Ingunn Moser (University of Oslo) and John Law (Lancaster University). 12. A Sociology of Attachment: Music Amateurs, Drug Users: Emilie Gomart and Antoine Hennion (Ecole des Mines de Paris).

A key aspect of diaspora research in international relations should be on the ontological politics of naming migrants, travelers, nomads, guest workers, minorities, their relations, and their politics “diasporic.” Academic debates about the definitions of diaspora are endless; not only is this quest largely a waste of time, but it marginalizes a more important issue—namely, the politicality of defining a population or a set of relations as “diasporic.” I draw here on the notion of “ontological politics,” as developed within actor network theory by John Law and Annemarie Mol (Mol 1999). In her work on clinical practices, Mol demonstrates that a disease such as anemia is not a single reality. It is performed in at least two different ways that depend on the methods through which it is diagnosed and therefore “made real”: (i) the analysis of external symptoms by a doctor and (ii) the analysis of hemoglobin levels in a laboratory. What Mol shows is that these are not just different ways at getting at the same preexisting phenomenon but rather that the two methods produce two broadly similar yet distinct realities. For example, a patient might present with the external symptoms of anemia but display healthy hemoglobin levels. Similarly, a patient might feel perfectly fine yet present alarming levels of hemoglobin. Given such a context, in which ways should anemia be diagnosed? Detecting anemia with the first method implies personal one-on-one meetings with doctors as well as a large system for screening the population. The second method implies broad laboratory tests and statistical calculations. Moreover, one method will probably omit a fraction of the population that does not show signs of anemia according to the other method. This is what is entailed by “ontological politics”: Ultimately, competing enactments of reality determine the conditions of possibility for political choices. …

This is a chapter that asks questions about where we are with politics now that actor network theory and its semiotic relatives have reshaped ontology. They have reshaped it by underlining that the reality we live with is one performed in a variety of practices. The radical consequence of this is that reality itself is multiple. An implication of this might be that there are options between the various versions of an object: which one to perform? But if this were the case then we would need to ask where such options might be situated and what was at stake when a decision between alternative performances was made. We would also need to ask to what extent are there options between different versions of reality if these are not exclusive, but, if they clash in some places, depend on each other elsewhere. The notion of choice also presupposes an actor who actively chooses, while potential actors may be inextricably linked up with how they are enacted. These various questions are not answered, but illustrated with the example of anaemia, a common deviance that comes in (at least) clinical, statistical and pathophysiological forms.

The aim of this research is to identify and analyze the local socio-technical readjustments and the heterogeneous network involved in bringing a technology for the social closer to a tecnologia social (TS) as a social construct. Technologies as a social foundation, represented by tecnologias sociais, show a way to create, develop and implement technology aimed at solving social problems. In Latin America, especially in Brazil, two visions are used to characterize tecnologia social: (i) TS as a social construct, in which the technology is built and/or readapted through socio-technical adjustments with the participation of the local community, and (ii) technology for the social, in which the technology is transferred via programs, artifacts, or methodologies that improve the lives of the assisted community. We studied a replication of an entrepreneurial education program for vulnerable young people, which is considered a technology for the social because the program has its own methodology and was not developed with the participation of the community involved. We adopted the theoretical-methodological basis of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), in its version Actor Network Theory and After (ANT and After), based on three elements: enactment, hinterland and political ontology. Our results show how a technology for the social for entrepreneurial education can be brought closer to a TS as a social construct, allowing us to elaborate two points of discussion. These points constitute a contribution both to theory, thinking about future research agendas, and to the practice of technology for the social programs, offering opportunities for socio-technical adaptations that take into account local knowledge, thus promoting social transformation. In addition, another theoretical contribution is to illustrate the use of ANT and After concepts for TS studies, meeting the need to avoid using ANT in a simplistic way, as a mere tool to study an artifact.

Theoretical concepts from Actor-Network Theory can be applied to practical mobilities’ approach resulting in a multi-layered analytical framework for studying spatially and conceptually disparate social phenomena. This article introduces findings from war and tourism–mobilities on The Plain of Jars in the Lao P.D.R., a post-conflict landscape and emerging tourism destination. Discourses centred on war–scrap architecture and artisan traditions, like war–scrap spoon making as well as the involvement of an American ethical fashion social enterprise are used to discuss how the two selected ANT concepts of im/material semiotics and ontological politics can be combined with mobilities’ concepts of the mobilities of people, things and ideas. This study shows how such an analysis based on especially on flat ontologies is intensifying mobilities, how disparate items and ideas “can be caught or not caught” and how these become materially embedded in different places, markets and agendas. It is discussed how this might find practical application for development cooperation.

This paper aims to discuss how science and technology studies (STS) can inform disability studies and challenge dominant approaches, such as the medical and the social models, in the ordering and representation of disability. Disability studies and STS have followed somewhat parallel paths in the history of ideas. From a positivist approach to their research objects to a strong social constructivism, both disciplines have moved to postmodern conceptualisations of science, technology and disability. In the same manner, this paper brings the conceptual vocabulary of actor-network theory (ANT) to the field of disability studies. ANT enables the ordering of disability as a simultaneous biological, material and semiotic phenomenon. The focus of the analysis shifts from merely defining disability as an impairment, handicap, or social construction (epistemology) to how disability is experienced and enacted in everyday practices, in policy-making, in the body, and in the built environment (ontology). This adoption of an ontological approach to disability allows the analysis to not only discuss how disability is done, but also to follow how disability groups and carriers of disability expertise and experience intervene in policy-making by developing ‘research in the wild’ and confronting scientific experts in different fora (ontological politics).

The human relation to things in the world is at stake in the so-called post-humanist era where the distinction between human and non-human is blurred, as indicated in a term like ‘the nano-self’. How should we understand the nature of our relation to things in this era? Or how can we describe an educationally meaningful relation we as human agents can make in relation to things, artificial and natural, in the face of this technologically hybrid and ever-dehumanizing tendency of society? Well-known for his actor-network theory, Bruno Latour, an influential materialist and philosopher of technology, says that ‘objects’ have agency as much as humans; so we need to be able to translate the language of things into the language of men or vice versa as a way of co-shaping the world we live in. What does this mean and how can we do so? In carefully examining his theory, the essay attempts to explore and reformulate his account of the mediating role of human agency to see if it can provide us with an educationally plausible post-humanist concept of human agency, which can lead us into an ecologically ethical and politically responsible approach to education in general, and science education in particular.

This paper explores the value of science and technology studies (STS) to management education. The work draws on an ethnographic study of second year management undergraduates studying decision making. The nature and delivery of the decision making module is outlined and the value of STS is demonstrated in terms of both teaching method and module content. Three particular STS contributions are identified and described: the social construction of technological systems; actor network theory and ontological politics. Affordances and sensibilities are identified for each contribution and a discussion is developed that illustrates how these versions of STS are put to use in management education. It is concluded that STS has a pivotal role to play in critical management education and in the process offers opportunities for new forms of managing.

This paper is located within the critical management tradition of management education and development. The paper seeks to introduce the overlooked area of Actor Network Theory and Mol’s anti-foundationalist ontological politics and demonstrates their potential to developing alternative critical pedagogy and management practice. Following a discussion of problem-based learning, the paper goes on to introduce the emergent pedagogic practice termed contingent support. Through a series of vignettes drawn from fieldwork collected from a second year undergraduate decision-making module, the paper demonstrates how the practice termed contingent support is informed by Actor Network Theory and ontological politics in particular. The paper goes on to reveal the significance of contingent support sensibilities of materiality, situatedness and performance and shows how they can give a new vigour to educators interested in developing more responsible management. Finally, the paper considers contingent support’s transformational potential and sets out an agenda for future research.