Translating participatory budgeting in Russia: the roles of inscriptions and inscriptors

This article presents a study describing the agency of non-human entities within a mathematics education practice involving a teacher and seven high school students from a Brazilian public school. Data collected through observations were analyzed using Actor-Network Theory, mainly drawing on Bruno Latour's sociological insights. The analysis suggested that viewing mathematics education as a complex network of interconnected human and non-human actors allows us to understand how non-human agents contribute to performing a mathematics task. This study provided valuable insights into the role of these agents, revealing whether they act. Elements such as computers, calculators, the task itself, and the computer lab did not operate as mere tools but as active agents that influenced decisions, generated conflicts, and redirected the learning process in mathematics. The analysis also suggests that these non-human and human actors take on different roles, sometimes as intermediaries when their influence goes unnoticed, and sometimes as mediators when they actively intervene and alter the course of action. Furthermore, the study highlights the instability of hybrid association networks, showing how students’ leadership and strategies are constantly reshaped through interactions with various material objects.

This article presents the overview of a section of the scientific practical conference “Social engineering: how social engineering changes the world”. The examination was conducted on the aspects of development of the participatory practices in Russia, namely the participatory budgeting (PB). Reports of the speakers demonstrated the path travelled by participatory budgeting in Russia over the recent years, transforming from a financial instrument into social influence, and becoming a field for active and entrepreneurial citizens. Inclusion of sociologists into the PB processes means better feedback from society and increased quality of project management. The research explores the questions of organization of practices of participatory budgeting, key discoveries and current challenges: absence of digitalization, difficulties with urban practices, involvement of population. Residents of the experimental territories demonstrate higher level of satisfaction with the quality of the infrastructure and work of the municipal and urban engineering, improvement in the dialogue with the local authorities, increase in the level of trust towards the leadership of the town and regional authorities overall.

A variety of healthcare robots for elderly care have been developed. However, as the elderly and caregivers experience psychological resistance towards not only new technologies but specifically to robots, the adoption of healthcare robots has scarcely progressed. This article aims to develop a service design method, which consists of a design process including design tools to identify jobs in an elderly care facility and to reveal what kinds of jobs to assign to service robots and to caregivers. This article develops a design method which is composed of six steps and adopts original design tools to identify jobs needed in elderly care facilities and assign them to human and non-human actors, including service robots. The tools include an actor map to visualize the Actor to Actor (A2A) network, a current jobs to be done (JTBD) worksheet to visualize existing jobs, a new JTBD worksheet to visualize new jobs, and an actor worksheet to summarize information about each actor including their philosophy. With this design method, we conducted a series of workshops with the aim to develop a service fulfilled by humans and non-humans at an elderly care facility in Shizuoka prefecture in Japan. The results of questionnaires administered to the workshop participants demonstrated the effectiveness of all the tools except the new JTBD worksheet. Also, the results of interviews with employees in the elderly care facility indicated the effectiveness of the approach, which reveals visible and invisible regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements through interviews with human actors, and embeds them in the service design process. The design method including the original design tools proposed in this article contribute to a service design method for the use of robots in elderly care facilities by allocating jobs to human actors and non-human actors appropriately, and it also contributes to the issue of psychological resistance to the adoption of service robots in these facilities, which brings efficiencies to society. The contribution of this article is to reframe the issue of resistance to the adoption of service robots in elderly care facilities to the issue of what kinds of jobs in an elderly care facility should be assigned to service robots or caregivers, and the development of a service design process including original design tools.

Like private companies, public service establishments are seeking to improve their performance by adopting management control tools. However, their acceptance in this context raises specific challenges. Unlike the private sector, where profitability is often the main driver for the acceptance of such tools, the public sector has to deal with more complex organizational dynamics involving many actors. This article examines the reasons underlying the acceptance of a management control tool, in particular a management accounting system, in the Moroccan public sector. The research is based on a qualitative case study carried out in a Moroccan public establishment that recently introduced a management accounting system, using the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), also known as the translation theory, developed by Callon and Latour in the 1980s. Traditionally mobilized to analyze the innovation diffusion process, this approach is used in our research to study the pre-adoption, or ex-ante, phase of innovation introduction. The results of this study highlight the complex dynamics of management accounting acceptance in the Moroccan public sector, showing how non-human actors play a crucial role in the pre-adoption phase of management control instruments. Our research reveals the decisive influence of the tax variable, as a non-human actor, on the acceptance of the management accounting system. This link between taxation and management accounting is a significant contribution, particularly due to the lack of studies on legal and fiscal variables in management control. These results underscore the importance of considering both non-human and human actors equally in the translation process (generalized symmetry).

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how nonhuman actors contribute to solidarity in independent new film production. Specifically, it examines independent new film productions from a relationalist perspective, using actor-network-theory (ANT), which considers humans and nonhumans as equivalent actors and analyzes phenomena based on their interactions with each other. The research method used was ethnography with a focus on participant observation. One of the authors, a filmmaker and researcher, observed the inner workings of the filmmaking activity, while the other author observed the observer from an anthropologist’s perspective. In a previous paper, we found from the process of translation that the two nonhuman actors of the film’s original story and funding are inextricably linked, and the agency of the human actors surrounding them interacts with and transforms the nonhuman actors (Coney and Ito, 2021). In the present study, we analyzed the interaction with the solidarity among human actors in the process of film production by closely following the linkage of nonhuman actors such as provisional publicity materials, in addition to funds and scripts. In the process of filmmaking, the nonhuman actors often encounter unforeseen circumstances such as budget adjustments and filming postponement, but despite the setbacks, the nonhuman actors form a network in which they accept each other’s roles, and filmmaking is promoted by solidarity as human actors of the film become more interdependent through the agency working as an inclusive collective. The results of the study revealed that the human actors in film are interdependent and that their solidarity promotes filmmaking.

Learning sciences have emphasized teaching practices that engage the student in deeper and more demanding processes. The resulting learning activities are inherently complex, particularly in modern, digitally intensive science classrooms where students actively engage in collaborative investigations with digital tools. The resulting complex learning settings challenge current research methods. Inspired by methodological and theoretical developments in science education research, namely network analysis and materiality, we present a new methodological approach that is based on a combination of social network analysis and actor-network theory. Actor-network is conceptually different from social network, however it is possible to introduce the non-human actors of actor-network theory into social networks and then apply methods of social network analysis. The methodological development is presented through a case in which three students use computer-based data logging and investigate the motion of a car on a track. From this case, we report the roles, importance, and interaction patterns of actors engaged in collaborative knowledge construction. The results show the benefits and the importance of including the non-human actors from actor-network theory in quantifying the importance and the roles of the different actors. This combination allows better understanding of learning in a complex setting of human and non-human actors.

Subject. The article considers theoretical and methodological aspects of participatory budgeting development in Russia. Objectives. The aim is to substantiate the effects of using the participatory budgeting under economic instability. Methods. The study draws on general scientific methods of cognition (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison, and analogy), and special methods of cognition (comparison of theoretical and practical material, expert method, systematization, and classification). Results. Changes in methodological aspects of budget planning significantly affected the implementation of budget policy. Budget planning is influenced by internal and external factors, and by entities with which public legal entities have to interact at the subnational level. The paper focuses on financial aspects of participatory budgeting, like the total amount of funding for participatory budgeting projects, the average cost per project, the number of funded projects, sources of funding. I investigated options for including participatory budgeting in the budget process of Russian regions and municipalities and identified two main ones used by public legal entities. Conclusions. The study substantiates why participatory budgeting is advisable to apply in conditions of economic instability and uncertainty. It highlights the effects of the development of participatory budgeting practices and specifics of their implementation at the municipal level. The findings can be useful for public authorities, local governments, and those involved in participatory budgeting.

This article explores the application of actor-network theory (ANT) to the nursing profession, proposing a novel perspective in understanding nursing in the context of modern digital healthcare. Traditional grand nursing theories, while foundational, often fail to encapsulate the dynamic and complex nature of nursing, particularly in an era of rapid technological advancements and shifting societal dynamics. ANT, with its emphasis on the relationships between human and nonhuman actors, offers a framework to understand nursing beyond traditional paradigms. This article makes two key arguments: first, that nursing can be viewed as a highly organised social assemblage, where both human (nurses, patients and policymakers) and nonhuman actors (technologies, medical equipment, institutional policies) play a crucial role, and second, that ANT can be used to enhance existing nursing theory to better understand the role of technology in nursing practice. The article considers how ANT can provide a more holistic and adaptable model for describing the nursing profession, particularly in an era where technology plays an integral role in healthcare delivery. It discusses the implications of viewing nursing through ANT, highlighting the need for nursing education and practice to adapt to the interconnected and technologically advanced nature of modern healthcare. The article also acknowledges the limitations of ANT, particularly its potential oversimplification of the complex ethical dimensions inherent in nursing and its focus on observable phenomena.

Rural community development in China has made progress under the rapid implementation of the rural revitalization strategy; however, it has also revealed challenges such as an overemphasis on spatial construction, severe homogenization, and low sustainability. Existing research on rural community development lacks sufficient localized experience, and there is a limited understanding of how the development process is generated, maintained, and evolved. This study examines Xiongfan Village in Dawu County, Hubei Province, using an innovative methodological integration of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Social Network Analysis (SNA). This mixed-methods approach qualitatively traces the formation of networks involving both human and non-human actors, while quantitatively mapping the collaborative structure among human actors. Qualitative analysis of actor networks identifies both human actors (such as government departments, enterprises, social organizations, and villagers) and non-human actors (such as natural and cultural landscapes) as key participants. Through processes like recruitment, mobilization, and dispute resolution, various actors have formed interest alliances centered around the core issue of “revitalizing and sustainably developing rural community resources.” Quantitative social network analysis reveals a “core-periphery” structure, with government departments and social organizations occupying central roles, while business institutions and community villagers are positioned at the periphery. This distribution contrasts with the overarching goal of community development, which seeks to enhance villagers′ intrinsic motivation. The study suggests that rural community development in this area can be improved by diversifying co-construction forms, restructuring core groups, and empowering peripheral actors. These measures will facilitate a shift from single-space development to enhanced community capacity-building, ultimately promoting sustainable rural development.

This study analyzed the growth of Airbnb, which is an excellent example of a sharing economy platform, based on the translation process of the actor-network theory. The translation process is analyzed in the order of attraction → entrapment → reinforcement. Analysis results showed that each step attracted hosts and guests, had the guests register on a web-page, and related various non-human actors to continue transactions. In other words, a network among various human and non-human actors is formed by a sharing economy platform. In particular, non-human actors played various roles in each step. First, the attraction step played exchange and trust roles, and the entrapment step played exchange, trust, and convenience roles. The reinforcement step played exchange, trust, and individual benefit roles. This study explored the possibility of the actor-network theory as a new paradigm to explain social phenomena. The actor-network theory emphasizes the relationships among non-human actors such as technology and materials instead of focusing on people and groups in society. The relationship between humans and non-humans can provide more diverse and richer explanations than from a human-oriented perspective. In the practical aspect, it showed that a non-human actor should be considered as important for growing a sharing economy platform similar to the Airbnb platform. In other words, it revealed that non-human actors should be organized and mobilized in the aspects of exchange, trust, and convenience. The results can help companies built on a sharing economy platform, which are newly emerging in the domestic tourism sector, develop successful strategies.

This article is devoted to the history of the principle of generalized symmetry in the actor-network theory (ANT), and, especially, in the particular, Bruno Latour’s approach.The starting points for generalized symmetry are the semiotic concept of the Paris Semiotician School (in particular, the concept of actants), D. Bloor's strong program (especially the principle of symmetry, which in actor-network theory was spread beyond the explanations of sciences to the explanations of human and non-human actors) and anthropology.The principle of generalized symmetry allows us to give symmetrical explanations of the agency of human and nonhuman actors, describing them in the same terms. It also allows you to switch between the reducibility and the irreducibility of the same actant, or entity.However, it brought some problems: the unification of heterogeneous actants, implicit preservation of the dichotomy culture-nature, from which Latour tried to move back even in his earlier texts.The rejection of generalized symmetry, however, does not solve the problems of actor-network theory, in particular, the role of human and non-human entities, in various texts (including Latour’s), varies between dissolution of actions and self-referencing (which is a special case, and does not receive satisfac- tory conceptualization within ANT).

Mixed Messages: Tacit Communication Emanating from Non-human Actants in Disaster Contexts

“Trump Shit Goes into Overdrive”: Tracing Trump on 4chan/pol/

We compare the scheme for educational dialogue analysis (SEDA) to the actor-network theory (ANT) for the analysis of educational dialogues. We show that ANT unearths the socio-material structure of classroom talk as networks in which human and non-human actors (texts, diagrams, instructions, etc.) exert power on each other. The application of ANT to classroom talk led us to identify (non-)dialogic networks when human actors are not subordinated (resp. subordinated) to other actors. Roles in networks are not predetermined but translated in interactions, and networks are often blackboxed, as the original process and circumstances of their creation might be ignored. We show then that the adoption of ANT (resp. SEDA) uncovers phenomena that SEDA (resp. ANT) did not identify. SEDA helps observe the co-construction of ideas and describe shifts from the dialogic to the non-dialogic but does not explain the mechanisms that lead to these shifts. ANT explains shifts from one network to another, as it conveys the change of power relations between the different actors, role of non-human actors, and shows how they shape the dynamics of networks in classroom talk. We draw from this comparison implications both for research and educational practice in dialogic education.

The study of academic reading and writing has moved away from a predominantly cognitive focus towards one which views academic meaning-making as a complex set of socially-situated practices, (in work associated with the research fields of new literacy studies and multimodality). These fields of study acknowledge that literacy practices enrol social actors in (reflexive) processes of meaning- making and constitution of subjectivities via a range of semiotic resources, also recognising that these practices take place in increasingly multimodal contexts, additionally involving (complex processes concerning communication across the digital and the analogue). However, the agentive role of nonhuman actors and artefacts in these processes has received less attention in the literature. In particular, little research has been conducted into the embodied and material practices of meaning-making in contexts characterised by the presence of complex combinations of digital and print texts and artefacts. This paper will argue that within the contemporary university, meaning-making and textual practices have become saturated by digital mediation; raising research questions around the resultant role of nonhuman actors in the form of objects such as laptops, notebooks, mobile phones and books in the formation of texts, and also in the construction of student subjectivities. Drawing on posthuman and actor-network theories, this paper will report on a funded project investigating the day-to-day embodied and textual practices of 12 adult postgraduate students over a six month period, using multimodal journalling and in-depth case study interviews. The analysis will focus specifically on the ways in which mobile devices, screens and print literacy artefacts were variously enrolled in a complex set of posthuman semiotic practices. I will argue for the utility of Hayle’s (1999) notion of the posthuman and Latour’s (2005) concept of nonhuman actor as mediator in the analysis. Particular attention will be paid to the agentive roles these nonhuman actors play in the constitution /reconstitution of texts in settings where semiotic practices are distributed across multiple domains of practice such as university, public transport and home, and also across multiple networked devices and technologies of inscription. Illustrating these points with textual data, images and drawings, it will explore in particular the transcontextual boundary of digital / print and how objects act not only to create new assemblages – complex and evolving networks of human and nonhuman actors - but also to enable transitions across contextual boundaries, leading to blurring of binaries around authorship, presence and persistence of text.