Concepts Of Actor-network Theory Research Articles

Mapping the Memories of “Living on Light”

In this article a case study of the phenomenon of “living on light” is presented. The interlocutor “Eva” shares her memories from the period when she did not eat material food. Actor-network theory (ANT) is adopted to analyse the interview. This methodological framework sheds light on the connections between interacting human and non-human entities and thus reveals their agency. The phase of living on light appears to Eva as part of her personal spiritual progress. At the same time, relations with the family become ambivalent since Eva does not want to share her true spiritual devotion. Eva’s experiences are demonstrated and re-imagined by mapping them with ANT concepts such as “intermediary” and “centre of calculation”. Eva’s period of living on light is discussed in three different forms of processuality. Characteristic of both the phenomenon of living on light and of ANT reading is the renovative quality of the ongoing processuality.

Negotiating Actors

This paper intends to address social robotics from the Actor-network theory (ANT) perspective. Starting from the critique of Seibt’s approach and the distinction between anthropomorphing and sociomorphing, the paper proposes a new methodological approach based on ANT and negotiation concepts. This approach allows us to: a) assume a more symmetrical ontology in which robots are considered as social agents, like humans; b) consider all the interactional elements as of equal importance; and c) overcome the dualistic limit that is often imposed on social robotics studies, i.e., the tendency to consider only the one-to-one relationship, one man-one robot, inside the laboratory. Anthropomorphing and sociomorphing are the results of a negotiation process that cannot be reduced to a series of degrees of simulation, but must be understood as a complex interactional process between many agents and material mediations.

The Problem of Applying the Actor-Network Theory Method in Media Theory and Media Communication

For more than three decades, media researchers have seen Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a suitable approach to form a new theory of media roles and to study communication technologies as actors, but this relationship has been surprisingly understudied. A review of recent articles on the use of ANT in media theory and related fields shows that there are explications of networks and translations, but it is the key method of uncertainty or contraversion that has not yet been integrated into communication theory.
 The aim of this article is to integrate the method of contraversion into the structure of communication, the conceptual model of communication, which will allow us to nuance networks and collectives, to see the unnoticed entities that “knock” to be seen and accounted for. This is the essence of the politics of participation of non-human actors, nonhumans, according to Latour.
 The model allows to follow the process of differentiation of socio-technical hybrid objects in communication. The unfolding of this process of becoming represents the stages of communication development, which can be roughly divided into 4 stages, and focus both on the whole process of assemblage and on its stages, in order to notice the influencing entities. In the ANT concept, all assemblages, hybrid entities, consist of actors or non-figurative actants, and all actants are themselves assemblages. In the process of zooming in and describing phenomena, one should go after the actors on the one hand and determine the level of complexity of the network on the other.
 The conceptual model of communication, complemented by the ANT contraverses, helps to map reality and is an influential political tool as it reveals hidden actors and shows the asymmetry of influence.

Accounting infrastructure and promissory sustainable extractive industries: an actor-network theory analysis

PurposeThis study aims to articulate the conceptual foundations of the role of accounting infrastructure (calculative practice and the communicative dimension of accounting) in extractive industries (EIs) towards a sustainable orientation from an actor-network theory (ANT) perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis study is a literature-based analysis of the calculative property and communicative dimension of accounting in EIs, using the concepts of calculability, assemblage and other related concepts from ANT to identify potentialities and limits of the roles of accounting in this sector.FindingsWhile accounting infrastructure can influence social and environmental outcomes, it has not, as yet, led to ecologically and socially sustainable practices in EIs. Calculative properties and the communicative dimension of accounting infrastructure have capabilities to foster the phenomenon of “sustainability” in EIs by valuing, disclosing (reporting) and governing EIs towards a sustainable orientation. Conceptualizing sustainable EIs as a promissory economy, accounting infrastructure serves as a tool not only to represent past performance but also to enact the future: it helps to shape a sustainable future for the industry by informing and triggering behavioural decisions of EIs firms towards sustainable practices.Research limitations/implicationsThis conceptual paper is anticipated to stimulate future sustainability accounting research. The research agenda discussed in this paper can be used to enrich our understanding of the role of accounting in sustainability.Originality/valueThis paper charts a direction for future research by interpreting the role of sustainability accounting within networks of sociotechnical relations, using ANT concepts which attach importance to the dualism of nature and society. Conceptualizing sustainability accounting and reporting as an infrastructure, which draws more attention to the relationality characteristic of accounting, the study goes beyond the traditional interpretation of accounting as a mediation device and draws on a contemporary view of accounting by invoking the dynamic relation between accounting and society, in the context of EIs.

Numeric work: The efforts of calculation actors to make numbers count in climate and energy policy

AbstractPolicy documents suggest that quantitative information is important in the development of climate and energy policy. This is supported by quantitative studies research into the use of numbers in governance, which tends to assume that numbers have sufficient epistemic authority to be used by policymakers because they are believed to be trustworthy since they are produced through mechanical objectivity. This paper questions such assumptions, by analysing the extent of extra-calculative work when providing numeric information to policymakers. We term such efforts numeric work and analyse the extent and content of such work based on interviewed experts who are engaged with calculating climate and energy issues in the context of policymaking in Norway. Numeric work shares features with the actor–network theory concept of translation but differs due to the dialogic interaction between calculation actors and policymakers that includes efforts to improve the transparency of calculation, which counters a complete black-boxing of calculation results.

Revisiting agency and medical health technology: actor network theory and breast cancer survivors' perspectives on an adherence tool.

Optimal treatment adherence is critical in the management of breast cancer patients/survivors taking hormonal therapy. However, lack of adherence is common. Many technologies have been developed to encourage medication intake, such as reminders on phones or digital pills, with varying degrees of success. To explore the role of technology in medical adherence requires a framework that considers all complexities of technology, from software to the end user's beliefs. Actor Network Theory (ANT) defines technology based on its technical, social, and abstract components. We conducted three focus groups, which we analyzed using a thematic analysis to determine topics in breast cancer survivors' discussions of these technologies. We also conducted a deductive content analysis using ANT concepts as codes. In discussing the use of technology to improve medical adherence, participants had an empowering view of technology (48.8%) a neutral one (41.5%) or a disempowering view (9.8%). When it comes to their medication adherence, breast cancer survivors taking hormonal therapy perceived technology as something on which they could assert agency while their own agency dictated their adherence behaviors. In line with a non-technologically deterministic view of medical technologies, this finding shows that technology can be both constraining and enabling, depending on the specific context of human use. This networked understanding of technology in terms of social dynamics has relevant implications in designing interventions that use technology to improve adherence.

Sustainability through Resilient Collaborative Housing Networks: A Case Study of an Australian Pop-Up Shelter

The UN Sustainable Development Goal “Sustainable Cities and Communities” foregrounds access to adequate, safe, and affordable housing. However, housing as a sector has faced significant sustainability challenges. Countries such as Australia face unaffordable house prices, bottlenecks in social housing supply, and escalating homelessness. To address these challenges, the sector has turned to traditional government-led interventions meant to influence supply and demand. We argue that alongside these traditional approaches, there is a need for multi-stakeholder collaboration in resilient networks that create novel niche solutions, one being pop-up shelters or dwellings established in vacant structures. This study’s main aim is to identify key elements of these resilient, collaborative actor–networks. We mobilise actor–network theory concepts in a qualitative case study involving one of Australia’s first pop-up shelters. Findings from semi-structured interviews suggest that resilient networks exhibit distributed leadership, the ability to selectively interrogate entrenched routines, and the ability to mobilise differentiated levels of convergence. Such resilient networks play an important role in the development of environmentally and socially sustainable housing solutions. While often ad hoc, these networks can be made systematic through the selective use of digital technologies which do not compromise the more contingent, adaptive features of networks which are critical to resilience.

Application of basics of actor-network approach to sociology of professions

The article is devoted to theoretical approaches in the domain of sociology of professions and in particular the application of the concepts of actor-network theory in the study of the phenomenon of professions. Social transformations of the late XX — early XXI centuries, and, in particular, changes in the professional structure of society lead to criticism of the profession as a category of analysis and the existing analytical apparatus of "social sociology" in the study of professions and occupations. The article lists and considers the main paradigms and approaches to the study of the phenomenon of professions in the sociological perspective, the main angles and emphases within these approaches. The text presents the basic terms and ideas of the actor-network approach as one of the sociological perspectives, presents the basic terms and concepts of this area of sociological theorizing. An attempt was made to apply the concepts of actor-network approach to the profession as a socio-technical actor network and the formation of the profession (professionalization) as a process of translation and creation of the actor network, "monopolization of expertise" by the profession as an extended network. The article presents examples of consideration of the activities of professionals and their interactions in socio-technical systems in the research of the actor-network approach and considers the possibility of applying the principles of actor-network theory in the context of research professions and professional structure of society. An attempt is made to generalize the characteristics and activities of professionals carried out in the framework of research in the actor-network approach and find potential starting points for the study of professions in line with actor-network theory. Socio-technological nature of professions, the existence of the profession as a network of interactions and at the same time a professional as an actor in other networks, the length of networks of expert knowledge as the dominant way to explain phenomena, can be considered as general principles of professional activity.

Food for Thought on Conducting Research Projects on Media Accessibility During the Covid-19 Pandemic and the New Normal

The following practice report is based on observational experiences of a project group running a research project on accessibility during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project aimed to provide accessibility using plain language in children’s programs on a public television channel. The project included three groups of end-users: Deaf, hard of hearing, and visually impaired children. An overview of the project is presented to provide background for the practice report. The second part of the report deals with changes encountered in the running of the project during the pandemic: compensating for the lack of interactivity, social interaction and collective experience; using video conferencing; monitoring research; at-home research spaces and technological availability; network availability and performance; dealing with home computers; communication load; workload and work-life balance. Some key concepts of actor-network theory are used to analyse new actors, networks and shifts encountered in the process of implementing the project in the “new normal” in comparison to its planned implementation pre-COVID-19. In conclusion, a summary of possible options is cited to provide food for thought in running such projects. Lay summary The following practice report is based on the observations of a group running a research project on accessibility for Deaf, Hard of Hearing and blind children to children’s programs during the Covid-19 pandemic. We aimed to provide accessibility using plain language (easy to understand and easy to follow language in subtitles, through sign language and audiodescription) in children’s’ programs on a public television channel. Initially, an overview of the project is presented to provide background, then the changes encountered in the running of the project due to the pandemic are studied. Some of the issues discussed are: How to compensate for the lack of interactivity and social interaction since there was no face-to-face interaction; using video conferencing, monitoring research; at home research spaces and technology availability; issues about network availability and performance; dealing with home computers; communication load, and workload. Some key concepts of the actor-network theory (ANT) are used to explain changes. ANT is concerned with exploring how networks come into existence, looking into which relations exist, how those relations are sustained, how actors come together to constitute and maintain a network and how networks maintain impermanent stability. In conclusion, a summary of possible options is cited to provide food for thought in running such projects.

A REVIEW ON ACTOR-NETWORK THEORY AS A POTENTIAL TOOL FOR ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES

Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is an ontological approach, emerging from science and technology studies. As an ontological frame, ANT proposes that the work of science does not differ from other social processes, and sociality should not be understood as a priori knowledge. Instead, ANT offers a lens to see science as an assemblage of social, technical, conceptional, and textual processes entangled with human and non-human entities by looking at their material nature. ANT proposes to follow traces of material relations and how that material nature constitutes social. There has been a considerable increase in the threshold of ANT and Architecture studies. ANT seems to offer new perspectives to understand architecture by looking at architecture from its own material reality. Thus, this study aims to reveal the whole picture of the studies in the threshold of ANT and architecture by analyzing ANT concepts implemented in architecture. By relating ANT concepts to the architectural field, this systematic review aims to understand ANT and its implications of architectural studies. Visualizing the relations of ANT and architecture related categories, the review is supposed to reveal gaps and the most studied fields of ANT in architecture.

High-Tech Urban Agriculture in Amsterdam: An Actor Network Analysis

The agriculture and horticulture sector in the Netherlands is one of the most productive in the world. Although the sector is one of the most advanced and intense agricultural production systems worldwide, it faces challenges, such as climate change and environmental and social unsustainability of industrial production. To overcome these challenges, alternative food production initiatives have emerged, especially in large cities such as Amsterdam. Some initiatives involve producing food in the urban environment, supported by new technologies and practices, so-called high-tech urban agriculture (HTUA). These initiatives make cultivation of plants inside and on top of buildings possible and increase green spaces in urban areas. The emerging agricultural technologies are creating new business environments that are shape d by technology developers (e.g., suppliers of horticultural light emitting diodes (LED) and control environment systems) and developers of alternative food production practices (e.g., HTUA start-ups). However, research shows that the uptake of these technological innovations in urban planning processes is problematic. Therefore, this research analyzes the barriers that local government planners and HTUA developers are facing in the embedding of HTUA in urban planning processes, using the city of Amsterdam as a case study. This study draws on actor-network theory (ANT) to analyze the interactions between planners, technologies, technology developers and developers of alternative food production practices. Several concepts of ANT are integrated into a multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions (MLP) to create a new theoretical framework that can explain how interactions between technologies and planning actors transform the incumbent social–technical regime. The configuration of interactions between social and material entities in technology development and adoption processes in Amsterdam is analyzed through the lens of this theoretical framework. The data in this study were gathered by tracing actors and their connections by using ethnographic research methods. In the course of the integration of new technologies into urban planning practices, gaps between technologies, technology developers, and planning actors have been identified. The results of this study show a lacking connection between planning actors and technology developers, although planning actors do interact with developers of alternative food production practices. These interactions are influenced by agency of artefacts such as visualizations of the future projects. The paper concludes that for the utilization of emerging technologies for sustainability transition of cities, the existing gap between technology developers and planning actors needs to be bridged through the integration of technology development visions in urban agendas and planning processes.

BSC and long-term deployment: an actors' perspective

PurposeThis paper examines the roles of the balanced scorecard (BSC) in a long-term perspective and with a large deployment along numerous hierarchical levels. For this purpose, we use a longitudinal analysis of an implementation in a mutual insurance company.Design/methodology/approachWe combine actor–network theory (ANT) with interventionist research (IVR) to analyze the interrelation between human and non-human actors. Our study is based on various materials like interviews, meeting reports, graphs and so on.FindingsThe BSC is considered as a non-human actor which influences the human actors and provides specific benefits from a long-term use, due to various roles played by this tool (a mediator role, completed by a role of translator and revealer).Research limitations/implicationsResearch based on larger cross-sectional studies are necessary to more deeply validate our results based on a single case study.Practical implicationsThis paper gives some insights on processes and on actors an organization can mobilize to maintain the benefits provided by a large BSC use in the long run.Originality/valueIn line with the ANT concepts, our main contribution is to explain the outcomes of an innovation in management accounting by the consequences of adaptation mechanisms grounded on actors, translations, alliances and trials of strength.

Meta-Modern City: the Problem of Authenticity

The aim of the article is to analyze the urban research paradigm that has developed at the turn of the XX and XXI centuries in the works of Western experts and the possibility to use it for domestic research. Methodologically, the author relies on the heritage of the Manchester sociological school, which effectively applied the concepts of actor-network theory to analyze the sociology of a city. The city is considered as a single object complex. Its main characteristics are contingent and contextual. The author analyzes the city as a derivative of stable sets of objects and networks of relations. A change in the components that make up a city leads to a change in the entire object. The article notes that in modern urbanism there is another way of classifying cities not according to the principle of geographical location, economic structure, or national identity, but according to the system of forming networks of relations. The author analyzes the linguistic metaphors system, which is used to describe urban space. The problems of metaphor, code and reading, perception of urban space in the form of text are analyzed. The concept of "language" and "text" allows you to create a system of describing a city as a complex phenomenon. In this case, the constructs "modern", "postmodern", "meta-modern" are presented as a system of grammar and punctuation for interpreting the phenomenon of the city. The article notes the difficulties of using the characteristics of a postmodernist and metamodernist city for domestic research. The author suggests that the development of the domestic city in the twentieth century took place according to the scenario of a more radical modernism. As a result, we got a post-Soviet city with a different rationality, which is combined with the modernist principles of architecture and urban planning. The article provides examples of the semiotic analysis of architectural objects. The author concludes that the mental image of the city restructures the physical space, turning it into a personalized network of human life relations.

The "Script" of a New Urban Layout: Mobility, Environment, and Embellishment in Lisbon's Streets (1850-1910).

This article is at the crossroads of two scholarly traditions: the history of technology studying urban infrastructures and the history of urban planning. Using Actor Network Theory's concept of "script," it analyzes the strategic role played by the street to overcome nineteenth-century urban problems. The street was simultaneously the epicenter of the "urban question" and the key to its solution. This role explains why urban planning played a unifying part in the agenda of urban improvements, as a response to mobility, environment, and embellishment problems. However, urban planners did not dictate the evolution of Lisbon. This article argues that Lisbon's transformation was the result of tensions and compromises between different actors (public authorities, technicians, businessmen), and of diverse impulses (sanitary, economic, and emulative). Moreover, it argues that the heterogeneous character of nineteenth-century Lisbon demonstrates the need to zoom in on the street. ANT provides the heuristic framework for understanding these interactions.

Concetti socio-materiali e critica sociale

The development of ICT has important consequences on social experience and on the processes of subjectivation. These changes have contributed to undermining some assumptions of sociological theory, such as the status of subject and object of knowledge, the concepts of actor, action and the social, the conditions of possibility of social criticism. The paper reconstructs some of the main logic of transformation of these assumptions, moving from a discussion of L. Gallino’s theses on the relationship between subjectivity, socio-technical change of the web, changes in the elaboration of knowledge and new forms of social criticism. It shows how the epistemic shift generated by these changes leads to an anti-essentialist critique of sociological categories. In this line some critical potentialities of the Actor-Network Theory concepts, of the Goffmanian category of frame and of the infra-empirical perspective proposed by the socio-analysis are shown.

Translating value-based health care: an experiment into healthcare governance and dialogical accountability.

This article analyses an experiment into healthcare governance in Denmark inspired by principles of value-based health care and intended to re-orient the focus of healthcare governance from 'productivity' to 'value for the patient'. The region in charge of the experiment exempted nine hospital departments from activity-based financing and accountability based on diagnosis-related groups, which allegedly incentivised hospitals in 'perverse' and counterproductive ways. Instead, the departments were to develop new indicators from their local practices to support and account for quality and value for the patient. Drawing on the actor-network theory concept of 'translation', this article analyses how the experiment was received and put into practice in the nine departments, and how it established new kinds of accountability relations. We argue that the experiment provides fruitful inspiration for future governance schemes in healthcare to embrace the local complexities of clinical practices. In particular, we argue that the locally developed indicators facilitated what we call 'dialogical accountability', and we discuss whether this represents a feasible way forward for value-based health care.

An actor–network theory approach to developing an expanded conceptualization of collaboration in industrialized building housing construction

Our aim is to examine the value of selected actor–network theory (ANT) elements in contributing to the development of an expanded theoretical and empirical conceptualization of collaboration in industrialized building construction for the housing sector. A review of collaboration meta-analyses literature from different disciplines suggests that collaboration is still commonly portrayed in a limited way as a strategy of integration driven in a top-down manner by a “convenor” of human stakeholders in ways that privilege simplified notions of coherence. We use specific ANT concepts empirically grounded in five case studies of innovative housing construction projects to describe an expanded conceptualization of the infrastructure of actor-networks. We examined a range of issues with respect to collaboration in industrialized building particularly in relation to network formation and disintegration. As the collaboration networks formed they sought coherence but not conformity and aimed for the management of tensions between integration and separation as well as stabilization and destabilization. This expanded conceptualization of collaboration describes the material-semiotic characteristics arranged around industrialized building technologies that are simultaneously stabilizing yet disruptive and proposes new ways by which the ideal of integration can be pursued in a fundamentally fragmented industry.

Ekologia polityczna powietrza: o uwidzialnianiu miejskiego ryzyka

In this text the author attempts to reconstruct contemporary disputes about air quality in Poland using the language of actor-network theory (ANT). The purpose is to show the process of making urban risk visible—in this instance, the risk of polluted air—through the development of hybrid alliances and the formulation of translations aimed at the final elimination of air pollution. The article consists of three parts and a theoretical introduction in which the author discusses the basic tools and concepts of ANT, as well as Latour’s programme of political ecology. In the first part, the author sketches the map of actors and actants involved in air-pollution discussions. Then she examines the role of things—material objects—in air pollution conflicts, with special emphasis on the agency of these non-human actants. Finally, she focuses on alternative translations, which are attempts to negotiate smog’s place in the hierarchy of the collective.

Documentation for students in residential care: network of relations of human and non-human actants

ABSTRACTSwedish and international research points to serious problems for the education of students with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in the care of social welfare, for example, in residential care. The aim of this article is to elucidate how documentation, care plans (CPs) and individual educational plans (IEPs) outline the educational prospects for SEBD students in residential care. A more specific aim is to study how the form or template partakes in the production of educational trajectories. Using post-structural theory and the concepts of actor-network theory, this paper highlights the forms or templates as agentive forces in a network with students, parents, teachers and social workers. Documentation reveals few expectations that these teenagers can become capable learners and almost all of the subjects have been given a reduced curriculum. The lack of headings such as ‘Student's or parents’ opinion’ or ‘School subjects’ can be understood as indications that these topics are considered to be of less importance. Individual differences between students disappear when the electronic document enables the use of the exact same phrases and words to describe different students. These results, along with previous research, point to an immediate need to discuss both the form and content of documentation in educational practice and to consider what, for what reason and for whom to document.

Computer Users Do Gender

The so-called “digital gender divide” has encouraged studies attempting to demonstrate the co-production of gender and information technology. Vivian Lagesen has criticized many of these attempts for failing to provide fully symmetrical accounts. Here we describe and analyze beliefs and practices concerning computers, gender, and technology evinced by managers in a network of public sites (Community Access Centers) created to provide community access to digital technology in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. From those results, we argue, among other conclusions, that distinguishing more carefully between the gendered uses of new technologies and the gendered forms of attraction associated with them produces a more fully realized and more perfectly symmetric understanding of how gender and communications technologies are co-produced. We show that the concepts of actor-network theory facilitate that analysis, and so interpret the study as supporting and extending Lagesen’s program.