Actor-network Theory Approach Research Articles

Биология техники: анализ эволюционных подходов в современной техносфере

The article examines the prospects of biological evolutionary approaches in technosphere in the context of philosophic issues. Consideration of these prospects is based, on the one hand, on methods and research in the field of philosophy of technology, as well as historical epistemology, and on the other hand, on the analysis of modern research on the application of biological ap­proaches in Internet technologies. The author examines the organics and the technics concept genesis, starting with Ernst Kapp, and dwells on the work of Georges Canguilhem on machines and organisms. Then the article discusses the work of Ray Paton as a researcher on biological metaphors in Internet tech­nologies, and two technical papers describing the cases of evolutionary ap­proaches in network processes. In conclusion, the author analyzes the reduc­tionist concept of technical and biological evolution by Adrian Bejan, who considered the unity of evolution of the human-machine species, and notes the importance of actor-network theory approaches, working on a symmetric language for people and machines description. The author demonstrates the prom­ise of biological approaches to network technologies, emphasizing, neverthe­less, first, the greater complexity of the biological in comparison with the con­trolled technical, and, secondly, the need for interdisciplinary consideration, within the framework of which the methodological and conceptual problems of such studies become apparent.

The utilization of village-information system for integrated social welfare data management: actor-network theory approach in Gunungkidul regency

As the main reference to poverty alleviation in Indonesia, the policy of integrated welfare data management by the Ministry of Social Affairs still contains many inaccuracies. This has an impact on beneficiary groups as the target of the implementation of national programs on poverty reduction. This study shows how Integrated Social Welfare Data management by the local government in Gunungkidul Regency, Special Region of Yogyakarta, can solve the inaccuracy. The analysis was conducted with qualitative methods, based on actor-network theory. Data collection, verification, and validation are processed by integrating Village Information System (SID BERDAYA) and Regency Information System (SIKAB) in Gunungkidul at the local level, with the Social Welfare Information System - Next Generation (SIKS-NG) by the Ministry of Social Affairs in national level. This integration is needed to improve the quality of data accuracy and validity. Strengthening the participation and transparency of social interaction between government agencies at every level (from the village level to the national level) and the community people are important since communities are the beneficiaries. These processes will develop a reflective scheme, to make sure the quality of planning and development program on poverty alleviation is running with accurate and valid data.

Controversies in an information technology startup: A critical actor-network analysis of the entrepreneurial process

This article critically investigates the controversies involved in the entrepreneurial process of an IT venture using the Actor-Network Theory (ANT). While ANT and other processual approaches have been used to assess entrepreneurship, little emphasis has been placed on addressing the controversies involved in the entrepreneurial process. To overcome this bias, we used the Cartography of Controversies (CC), an ANT's applied method, to highlight the impacts of conflictual relationships on the organizing process of an IT venture. We based our analysis on a pluralistic corpus of primary data, including interviews, focus groups, field journals, and other documents. We found five main critical issues related to the entrepreneurial process, being them: sociodemographic biases, reproduction of economic and cultural inequalities, conflicts among organizational elites, disputes between owners and workers, and overdependence of startups on larger technological firms. In line with the ‘ANT and After’ literature, we demonstrated how the critical use of ANT sociological approach avoids excessively aggregated categories often present on other critical studies. Finally, we conclude that the critical use of ANT can contribute to more sophisticated and well-built forms of criticism, orienting the research empirically and considering the critical capacities of the actants themselves.

Universal Design and Low-Vision Rehabilitation: The Case for a Holistic Lighting Assessment.

Among various approaches to handling friction between (dis)abilities and the built environment, universal design (UD) has emerged as an interdisciplinary field for research and practice. However, while the literature denotes UD as a design concept, practice, and strategy for rehabilitation, its true impact is still largely unknown. To explore the rehabilitative potential of UD and determine how to evaluate its impact, this paper seeks to turn the tables. It investigates a case regarding low-vision rehabilitation, in which a group of consultants developed a holistic lighting assessment (HLA) that embraced the social and the physical contexts of the visually impaired. The lighting assessment was performed using participant observations from 15 consultations, document analysis, and interviews with the low-vision consultants. Based on an actor-network theory (ANT) approach, the analysis reveals the contextual knowledge of participants, environments, and the interaction between them. The combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in HLA enabled a range of different understandings of light: as a quantitative measure, as an individually perceived aspect of the home environment, as something that enables or disables daily activities, and as a social factor of great importance for social practices. While traditional lighting assessments generally resemble the accessibility approach, with its measures of visual acuity translated into recommendations for an overall lux value, the holistic approach more closely resembles the UD methodology. One finding of this paper is that the concepts of rehabilitation and UD are committed to slightly different levels of abstraction. Rehabilitation focuses on specific individuals and specific environments, with patient rehabilitation as the main goal. UD focuses on user groups and design principles, with design and architectural solutions as the main objectives. While the concepts of UD and HLA represent different fields and different levels of abstraction, the two approaches can enhance both respective practices and theoretical frames.

Проблема техносубъекта: о субъектности «сущностей-конструкторов»

The article is devoted to the analysis of one of the most critical points of our time - the crisis of human subjectivity caused by the emergence of an alternative form of agent of social life in society - a techno-object with artificial intelligence and signs of subjectivity. The author’s goal is to justify the possibility of interpreting the nature of these devices as subject-like objects. The study is based on the explication of the concepts of the subject and subjectivity contained in both classical theories and the actor-network theory and related approaches (B. Latour, J. Law, A. Mol), in the object-oriented ontology of G. Harman, ‘onticology’ of Levi R. Bryant, theories of assemblage of M. DeLanda and complexity of E.Morin, in the concepts of the machine unconscious N. Land and techno-subject V. Mazin. An integrated characterization of a person as a subject is used: an individual being with active beginning, physicality, physicality and length, consciousness, personality characteristics and self-awareness. The criteria for categorizing some techno-objects as a type of techno-subject: autonomy and intelligence are introduced. Such techno-objects are artificial entities, assemblies, ready for transformation into techno-subjects. The difference between ‘weak’ techno-subjects (without artificial intelligence) and techno-subjects themselves (with artificial intelligence) is discussed. It is claimed that techno-subjects, genetically remaining technical entities, are in the transitional zone from one entity – ‘entity-constructor’ to another - organic techno-matter, similar to man. Accumulating components and functions of an active artificial system, techno-objects acquire the quality of subjectivity. It has been established that the artificial entity-subject manifests itself (a) in passive entity-actants; (b) in active proto-subject entities; and (c) actually in ‘entity-constructor’ - techno-subjects with the ability to integrate data, analyze it in a situation of uncertainty, reprogramming themselves and creating new algorithms.

The Tale of Two 1001-Night Cities An Actor-Network View on the Role of Social Structures and the Motives and Intentions of Agents in Spatial Development of the Medieval Bagdad and Isfahan

This contribution analyses the urban identity and historical patterns of spatial development in ancient Baghdad and Isfahan, according to Actor Network Theory (ANT) and Actor-Relational Approach (ARA). In the case of two different historical urban hubs (Baghdad and Isfahan).This article demonstrates how in the course of history, those interactions between various path-dependent networks have produced various, but specific types of urbanity in this region. It aims to show how ANT could clarify the embeddedness of dynamic actor-networks within the Middle Eastern urban spaces. This contribution argues that the institutional settings, customs, and use might even be more crucial for the issue of local identity, precisely because in effect they influence and shape urban living, institutions, form and infrastructures through time.

How to achieve a ‘revolution’: assembling the subnational, national and global in the formation of a new, ‘scientific’ assessment in Japan

ABSTRACT This paper traces the complexities, contingencies and tensions involved in the creation of a new, ‘scientific’ assessment in what we call Prefecture A in Japan. We start with a thick, granular description of the complicated and ongoing narrative of a new policy emergence. This descriptive account serves as a precursor to our application of an Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach, particularly the concepts of assemblage and assembling, while at the same time eschewing its depoliticising effect of a flat ontology. Our account details that much work and strategising went into achieving the new assessment but also into holding it in place. This included, strategising inside and across the Prefecture, with the National Ministry, with edu-businesses that had psychometric expertise, with politicians and the board of education and with the OECD and the Director of its Education and Skills Directorate. The analysis illustrates the complex, multi-directional and topological cartographies of power that now work in contemporary education policy processes. As such, we suggest a way to transcend the binary of methodological nationalism and methodological globalism evident in much policy sociology in education work.

Duše předmětu a tělo modlitby aneb zkoumání sociologických nejistot na případu Sóka Gakkai International

This case study presents the results of long-term original ethnographic research on the international Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai International (SGI). It focuses on the relationship between the material and immaterial and deals with the question of how to study them in the sociology of religion. The analysis builds upon the critique of the modernist paradigm and related research of religion in the social sciences as presented by Harman, Law and Latour. The methodology draws on the approach of Actor-Network Theory as presented by Bruno Latour, and pursues object-oriented ethnography, for the sake of which the concept of iconoclash is borrowed. This approach is applied to the research which focused on the key counterparts in the Buddhist praxis of SGI ‒ the phrase daimoku and the scroll called Gohonzon. The analysis deals mainly with the sources of sociological uncertainties related to the agency of the scroll. It looks at the processes concerning the establishing and dissolving of connections among involved elements, it opens up the black-boxes and proposes answers to the question of new conceptions of the physical as seen through Gohonzon.

Developing a methodology to assess the financial market security based on the actor-network theory

Subject. The article addresses problems related to assessing the level of the national financial market security in condition of strengthening the inter-system connections between financial and non-financial sectors of the economy. Objectives. The aim is to develop a methodology to assess the security of the national financial market through the application of the actor-network theory approach to the analysis of occurring processes. Methods. The study rests on methodologies of the actor-network theory and the theory of complex adaptive systems. Results. The study underpins the applicability of the actor-network theory for assessing the financial market security. It highlights the system properties of the financial market that determine the level of its security, i.e. structural complexity, functioning efficiency, sensitivity, and adaptability. It also offers an approach to assessing the security of the financial market. Conclusions. The proposed approach to assessing the security of financial market function will enable to develop priorities of its reform by the market regulator and the professional community, through early identification of risks and threats caused by the increasing role of the financial market in the socio-economic development, and the interpenetration of financial and non-financial economic sectors.

Interactive documentary as relational media: exploring an actor-network theory approach

ABSTRACT This paper explores Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a framework for understanding interactive documentary. It examines Adrian Miles’s work in this area, where he uses ANT as a way of conceptualising interactive documentary as socio-technical media assemblages and consequently to question the relationship between human and non-human agency as understood within the field. After introducing ANT and reviewing Miles’s position, the paper engages in a detailed discussion of ANT’s key concepts in the context of specific interactive documentaries showing how these concepts operate and examining the insights they provide. This discussion supports and extends Miles’s position while also broadening and deepening interactive documentary’s engagement with ANT through a more detailed and systematic engagement with its concepts than has been attempted previously. The paper concludes by raising issues concerning the adaption of ANT’s concepts to the field, including the question of whether they offer a complete theoretical framework for understanding interactive documentary and by suggesting future lines of enquiry to address these issues.

The Role of Built Environment in Collective Learning: The Case of Rumah Sahabat Salman

The built environment relates to the important value of an environment as part of the learning process. Collective learning refers to the process of knowledge creation that continue through the association movement among human actors and technical object. By taking the case of Rumah Sahabat (RuSa) program, this paper maps and identifies the role of built environment in collective learning using Actor-Network Theory (ANT) approach. RuSa is a program of Salman ITB mosque to train students as cadres by facilitating them rent houses in the nearby settlement. Students, in turn, have to serve and deliver Islamic values to the local communities. The assembly of RuSa program is mapped into three moments: RuSa trainees teach Quran to the children in the local mosque; children bring home the homework and discuss them with their parents; RuSa trainees and local citizens developed the “Reading Terrace” in community main hall. The research result shows that the socio-technical approach can guide the development of built environment to improve and sustain the learning since it depends on human and non-human actors involved.

An actor-network theory approach to multiplicity of space: a case study of Fortune Street Park and Kingston Market Square in London

An actor-network theory approach to multiplicity of space: a case study of Fortune Street Park and Kingston Market Square in London

Under surveillance: An actor network theory ethnography of users’ experiences of electronic monitoring

Electronic monitoring (EM) tags are a punishment that utilizes surveillance to enforce curfews. This capacity has drawn debate as to whether it simply enforces the penalty or exists as a punishment itself. However, little empirical work has been conducted on users regarding the experience. The encroaching presence of mass surveillance has also been increasingly debated within criminology, amidst concerns concerning the capabilities of technologies to monitor and control citizens. This article will explore the impact of surveillance as a specific feature of EM to investigate how being monitored is experienced by users during sentences. It will principally draw upon the ethnographic approach of actor network theory – which argues that humans and non-human technologies ‘relationally’ coexist with each other – to explore this phenomenon.

Actor-network theory and ethnography: Sociomaterial approaches to researching medical education.

Medical education is a messy tangle of social and material elements. These material entities include tools, like curriculum guides, stethoscopes, cell phones, accreditation standards, and mannequins; natural elements, like weather systems, disease vectors, and human bodies; and, objects, like checklists, internet connections, classrooms, lights, chairs and an endless array of others.We propose that sociomaterial approaches to ethnography can help us explore taken for granted, or under-theorized, elements of a situation under study, thereby enabling us to think differently. In this article, we describe ideas informing Actor-Network Theory approaches, and how these ideas translate into how ethnographic research is designed and conducted. We investigate epistemological (what we can know, and how) positioning of the researcher in an actor-network theory informed ethnography, and describe how we tailor ethnographic methods—document and artefact analysis; observation; and interviews—to align with a sociomaterial worldview.Untangling sociomaterial scenarios can offer a novel perspective on myriad contemporary medical education issues. These issues include examining how novel tools (e.g. accreditation standards, assessment tools, mannequins, videoconferencing technologies) and spaces (e.g. simulation suites, videoconferenced lecture theatres) used in medical education impact how teaching and learning actually happen in these settings.

Analysis of Stakeholder Engagement in the Regional Water Supply System of Jatigede Project: A Study of Actor-Network Theory

Water is important things that must be provided to support the survival and economic improvement of a region. The rapid development in eastern West Java causes the need for water is increasing. The purpose of this paper is to identify stakeholders' involvement and the impact of changes in cooperation schemes in the project. This study uses a qualitative method with the Actor-Network Theory approach to explore stakeholders. The implementation of the Water Supply System project arose several problems, such as indications that the regional government wanted to change the Public-Private Partnership scheme to Business to Business. It has an impact on the lack of integration and coordination among stakeholders because there is no coordination management for the stakeholders involved.

Student-Led Improvement Science Projects: a praxiographic, actor-network theory study

ABSTRACTImprovement science methodology is promoted in the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland for implementing rapid change in hospital practices. Student-Led Improvement Science Projects (SLISPs) have been developed as a result of this, where medical students work with clinical teams to identify, implement and monitor quality improvements in the workplace. Working with improvement science in real-life working practices in a hospital environment presents opportunities for different ways to conceptualise learning, for both educators and students. This paper draws from ethnographic and praxiographic methods combined with the sociomaterial approach of actor-network theory (ANT) to investigate the pedagogies of improvement science. The research concludes with three implications for medical education and education in general: (1) conceptualising learning as a network effect can guide educators and students towards a broader range of pedagogies for improvement science; (2) treating human and non-human elements of the network equally can lead to noticing details of practice that might otherwise be overlooked; (3), instead of collapsing improvement science into a singular meaning, multiple worlds allows for different enactments of improvement science to co-exist.

The Researcher As Unreliable Narrator: Writing Sociological Crime Fiction as a Research Method

This article discusses the potentials and pitfalls of creating fiction as a social research method, through reflecting on the sociological crime fiction I wrote between 2015 and 2017. Following the ontological premise that our research methods produce rather than represent our objects of investigation, I draw on poststructuralist and feminist thought to demonstrate the process, ethics, and rationale for writing fiction as a method of social research. Drawing on actor-network theory (ANT) approaches, I argue that ‘translating’ research data into artistic forms is particularly productive for poststructuralist approaches to the research of complex and emotive social phenomena like crime. Taking up the concept of ‘enforced narratives’ from the work of Carolyn Steedman, I discuss the ethics of undertaking creative and collaborative research with people who have experienced criminalisation. I argue that sociological crime fiction can reimagine the complexity of crime in ways that does not further punish the criminalised.

Market devices and structural dependency: The origins and development of ‘dark pools’

Abstract‘Dark pools’ are private, electronic share-trading systems in which participants cannot see each other's buy and sell orders. This article shows that the development of these material ‘market devices’ was strongly shaped by the structural dependency of their intended clientele (fund-management firms) on the big investment banks, particularly the indirectly monetary mechanism of dependency known in the US as ‘soft dollars’. The article's underlying argument is that (a) the sociological analysis of financial markets requires bringing together the focus on materiality of, for example, actor-network theory with an emphasis on structural advantage such as that found in field theory; and (b) that both actor-network and field theory approaches could be strengthened by a stronger focus on mundane but important monetary mechanisms such as ‘soft dollars’.

Science communication is not an end in itself: (dis)assembling the science festival

ABSTRACTMuch science communication research focuses on how science is represented and how science communication products are consumed. This article instead explores the production of a set of science communication projects, arguing that actor-network theory (ANT) can be one possible tool for such research. The research focuses on a large science festival, 'Science in the City', which took place in Copenhagen in 2014. Four projects within the festival are analytically disassembled: by following their production, different actants involved in the projects are identified and attention given to the wider networks they are part of. A key finding is the diversity of actor-networks stabilised through the four science communication projects. These projects were framed as being not just ‘about’ effective communication of science, but as having other aims, including diverse personal, professional, or political endeavours. A key implication for scholarship is that, for those involved in the production of public communication, science communication is not an end in itself. The value of using ANT approaches for science communication research is also discussed.

Protentions and Retentions of Xenakis and Cage: Nonhuman Actors, Genre and Time in Microsound

This article takes an actor-network theory approach to the elusive genre of microsound. The aim is twofold: to demonstrate what ANT’s sociology of associations can offer to the study of music, and to consider what aspects would need to be rethought in order for ANT to represent a credible approach to art histories and genres. The ANT analysis traces two lines of inheritance in microsound: a ‘weak’ line associated with ‘quiet’ or ‘small’ sounds, and with strong links to John Cage; and a ‘strong’ line associated with microtime, sonic materialism, and the ‘granular paradigm’, for which Iannis Xenakis is the primary antecedent. Through an analysis of the processes involved in reinforcing and attenuating these strong and weak lines of inheritance, some absences in ANT’s analytics of mediation are identified concerning temporal mediation. The last section of the article turns to the theorisation of time and genre found in Georgina Born’s extension of the work of Alfred Gell and to Michel Foucault’s account of authorship to analyse the bidirectional mediation of art and music corpuses, genres and genealogies as they extend through time.