What sorts of things are thingy? And what sorts of thinginess are there? Notes on stuff and social construction

Abstract

Actor-network theory may help sociological studies of communication to see some things that would have been harder to see without it. It is useful and important in calling attention to the ways that “things” and not only persons can be actors (or “actants”) in the human social world. Still, it may be the peculiar hubris of the scientific laboratory that led to the presumption that things do not act in human affairs. In social criticism and in common sense, we have long known that they do. And we know also that some “things” are more “thingy” than others – obdurate, with a kind of independent agency. Hardware is more thingy than software but both are “things.” Actor–network theory (ANT) raises important questions about the place of things in social life – it does not in itself provide answers.