Actor-network Research Articles

Conceptualizing disaster waste governance using network governance perspectives

The establishment of an effective disaster waste management (DWM) system is necessary for a resilient and sustainable society. Although some DWM guidelines have been developed and there has been some progress in DWM research, little progress has been made in developing a theory of how the various aspects of DWM relate to each other and lead to effective, collaborative DWM. Here, we present a new conceptual model of disaster waste governance. Empirical studies on DWM were reviewed to clarify the current understanding of how DWM operation is affected by other nontechnical aspects. This knowledge was then incorporated into the disaster waste governance model, based on the perspectives of network governance theory, to capture the collaborative nature of DWM. The new model assumes that waste governance competency, consisting of actor capacity and network competency, rests at the core, connecting waste management after disasters with solid waste management, preparedness, and mitigation in normal times. A detailed description of this disaster waste governance model is further provided by drawing on examples from recent disasters in Japan and other countries. The proposed model allows stakeholders to comprehensively understand the relationship between key aspects of collaborative DWM, which can serve as a common framework to compare DWM experiences from different cities/countries and as a tool to help identify gaps in policies when aiming to achieve an effective and collaborative DWM system.

Facing Climate Vulnerability in Mountain Areas: The Role of Rural Actors’ Agency and Situated Knowledge Production

Climate change is challenging in mountain areas, and initiatives to define resilience programs appear essential to face global warming impacts. Despite the participatory strategy being primarily considered the best solution to involve local actors in adopting resilience actions, the literature stresses how mountain dwellers, like farmers, are often considered passive subjects, and their ability to understand climate change and the actions to adopt is inadequate. Based on this consideration, we aim to highlight the relevance of the mountain actors’ agency, their “lay” situated knowledge, and the epistemology for co-defining resilience actions. Adopting a “weak version” of the Actor-Network Theory as the research posture, we argue that farmers’ perceptions of climate vulnerability is based on their experience of it, and their resilience actions or suggestions are coherent with their endowment resources (financial and knowledge) and their position in the economic system. In this sense, local actors’ initiatives to face climate change can be limited by their specific position in the socioeconomic contest-related value chain and their specific relationship with local natural settings. A participative strategy to co-define resilience actions can help identify more effective initiatives according to the context between actors. Moreover, it can contribute to the knowledge exchange among “lay” local actors, experts, and policymakers, benefiting everyone; farmers could identify suitable solutions to face climate vulnerability, experts could increase their knowledge of local contexts, and policymakers could define adequate policies. Focusing on a specific area in “Alto Molise” (Italy), we present research results to contribute to the debate on climate resilience in mountain areas, stressing the significance of the local actors’ agency, the presence of the different epistemologies put in play (lay and expert ones), the co-production of knowledge, and the need to actively involve local actors in designing practices and policies to face climate change.

Multi-Agent Multi-Target Pursuit with Dynamic Target Allocation and Actor Network Optimization

In this paper, we consider the cooperative decision-making problem for multi-target tracking in multi-agent systems using multi-agent deep reinforcement learning algorithms. Multi-agent multi-target pursuit has faced new challenges in practical applications, where pursuers need to plan collision-free paths and appropriate multi-target allocation strategies to determine which target to track at the current time for each pursuer. We design three feasible multi-target allocation strategies from different perspectives. We compare our allocation strategies in the multi-agent multi-target pursuit environment that models collision risk and verify the superiority of the allocation strategy marked as POLICY3, considering the overall perspective of agents and targets. We also find that there is a significant gap in the tracking policies learned by agents when using the multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithm MATD3. We propose an improved algorithm, DAO-MATD3, based on dynamic actor network optimization. The simulation results show that the proposed POLICY3-DAO-MATD3 method effectively improves the efficiency of completing multi-agent multi-target pursuit tasks.

Unemployment in the United StatesEconomic Inequality in the Context of Industrial-technological Upgrading and Outsourcing in the United States Since the 1990s

There is significant concern that industrial-technological upgrading and outsourcing in the United States have led to increased economic inequality since the 1990s. In the fourth Industrial Revolution, computerization, automation, and artificial intelligence allowed American companies to preserve their technological core competencies and outsource non-core activities to foreign countries. This paper aims to provide the classical vocabulary on this topic, an analysis of the U.S.s industrial-technological upgrading and outsourcing circumstances, and an explanation of their influence on the widening economic gap since the 1990s. This paper found that the three trends share a synchronous and reinforcing relationship, which can find support in Bruno Latours actor-network theory. Businesses that engaged in outsourcing activities benefited financially. While low-skilled and high-skilled workers are both at risk of losing their jobs because of improved technology, the former is more vulnerable. Industrial-technological upgrading facilitates outsourcing, and outsourcing facilitates the former in return. They both contribute to a widening economic gap. This paper was written when many questions arose on the subject. It connects industrial-technological upgrading with outsourcing, which previous research failed to do.

Using actor–network theory to revisit the digitalized tool in social design

The actor–network theory assumes that human and non-human actors co-act in dynamic networks. As the boundaries between them change according to their connections, the design plays a constructive societal role and can help rebuild and reform societies. Through a case study of China’s health code, this study explains how a heterogeneous network in the social design structure assists institutions in actively or passively transforming a digitalized tool to rebuild and rewrite a part of social orders. It can aid human users operating in communities; however, it can also be used by powerful policymakers as an auxiliary tool. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the conflict between a hierarchical network and a co-acting network. As social issues become more complicated and unpredictable, the design can either help resolve the problem and guide us towards a more open, equal, and coordinated future, or it can do the opposite.

Mind the gap! Building bridges between institutional work and critical sensemaking

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to address research gaps relating to agency and institutionalism in new institutional theory (NIT) and institutional work (IW) and use the critical sensemaking (CSM) approach to bridge the debates around agency, especially on issues of language and discourse, actor network theory (ANT) and history.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual analysis of the literature is performed to discuss issues of agency in IW and CSM in organizations, and examples of empirical studies are used to illustrate connectivity, contrast and fusion.FindingsThe analysis illustrates points of distance (rather than disconnect), but most importantly, connectivity and the potential for further developments between the literature on IW and CSM.Social implicationsDiscussion around new possibilities to focus on agency has the potential to contribute to humanist thinking about the (agentic) character of organizations and the potential for social change.Originality/valueThe article contributes to the discussion of agency in the organization through a starting point (i.e. CSM) outside of NIT.

Towards a model of sports franchise leverage for destination marketing

This research investigates the leverage of sports franchises by destination marketing organisations for their tourism potential. Leverage in this instance is manifested by the opportunities afforded DMOs to co-opt the often global recognition of professional sports clubs to enhance the profile of a destination for the benefit of the wider stakeholder environment and not simply as a tool to attract additional sports tourists. It adds to the literature in covering a hitherto under scrutinised field of tourism enquiry focusing on the role of internationally acclaimed professional football teams as catalysts for tourism in the cities that host them. In doing so the study links theory to practice and provides policy makers with options for implementing initiatives in collaboration with sports franchises, resulting in benefits across the wider stakeholder environment.The study, focusing on the cities of Amsterdam and Manchester, identifies elements of best practice and crucially the factors that hinder optimal leverage strategies when it comes to the use of major commercially oriented sports franchises. A compelling case is made for the leverage of these entities in locations where the circumstances permit, with the research proposing a way forward under the guise of a model for sports franchise leverage. The model adds to the literature on tourism leverage and has significant implications for DMOs in providing a practical template characterised by its flexibility and applicability in wider settings. In providing insights into how stakeholder theory, destination marketing, actor network theory and cooperative marketing enjoy an almost symbiotic relationship in the tourism sphere, the study represents a first of its kind and should elicit the interest of policy makers, sports franchises and researchers.

“Fractional” Vocational Working and Learning in Project Teams: “Project Assemblage” as a Unit of Analysis?

Situated and Activity theories have exercised a significant influence in the field of vocational learning for some considerable time, both sharing a focus on bounded forms of work and forms of learning that facilitate learning in, or to changes to, bounded forms of work. Yet much learning occurs in unbounded contexts often referred to as projectification, where collaborations occur only for the life of a project thereby creating new contingent contexts for learning . Given the existence of this form of working and learning, what type of unit of analysis (UoA) is required to analyse that vocational working and learning in the context of projectification? To address this question, the paper advances the following inter-theoretical argument. Firstly, it is timely to develop a new unit of analysis (UoA) to capture the fractional (intermittent, discontinuous and concurrent) working and learning dynamics associated with the forms of projectification, where funding has to be procured in order to commence. Secondly, that unit of analysis is constituted by the concept of project assemblage, which is based on ideas from Actor Network Theory, Cultural-historical Activity Theory and Cultural Sociology. Thirdly, this new UoA enables researchers to identify the way in which project teams, where members are coming in-and-out, learn to use their different forms of specialist activity to enact objects, why team members will have different backgrounds and understandings of their work, why objects may not cohere, even though team members may treat them as unified and coherent, and how team members learn to incorporate one another’s insights and suggestions, and establish a finalized object.

Fault Recovery Methods for a Converged System Comprised of Power Grids, Transportation Networks and Information Networks

Recently, triple-network convergence systems (TNCS) have emerged from the deep integration of the power grid, transportation networks, and information networks. Fault recovery research in the TNCS is important since this system’s complexity and interactivity can expand the fault’s scale and increase the fault’s impact. Currently, fault recovery focuses primarily on single power grids and cyber–physical systems, but there are certain shortcomings, such as ignoring uncertainties, including generator start-up failures and the occurrence of new faults during recovery, energy supply–demand imbalances leading to system security issues, and communication delays caused by network attacks. In this study, we propose a recovery method based on the improved twin-delayed deep deterministic algorithm (TD3), factoring in the shortcomings of the existing research. Specifically, we establish a TNCS model to analyze interaction mechanisms and design a state matrix to represent the uncertainty changes in the TNCS, a negative reward to reflect the impact of unit start-up failures, a special reward to reflect the impact of communication delay, and an improved actor network update mechanism. Experimental results show that our method obtains the optimal recovery decisions, maximizes restoration benefits in power grid failure scenarios, and demonstrates a strong resilience against communication delays caused by DoS attacks.

Analisis Jaringan Aktor: Upaya Pemerintah Mendorong Masyarakat Belanja Produk UMKM Lokal (Studi pada Kantor Pelayanan Pajak Cirebon Satu)

This study aims to describe the experience of the stages of translation in actor network theory: (1) problematization, (2) interessment, (3) enrollment and (4) mobilization that have been carried out by the Cirebon Satu Tax Service Office in realizing an online shopping day for SME products (Harbolkum) in the city of Cirebon. This study uses a narrative qualitative approach to explore the social experience of a single character or main actor, the Head of the Cirebon Tax Office. The results of this study indicate that at the stage of (1) problematization, the main actor it is special person to be able to formulate the main issues that only possible implemented and also the results are useful with the supporting actors (2) interessment, optimizing strategies to attract and encourage the interest of supporting actors, (3) enrolment, the role of delegation without any disturbing between authority and (4) mobilization, the main actors together with the coalition invite elite figures in built solid frame to reach a broad impact on mobilization.

On the Path to Decolonizing Health Care Services: The Role of Marketing

Despite considerable investment, health outcomes for First Nations people are well below those of the rest of the population in several countries, including Canada, the United States, and Australia. In this article, the authors draw on actor-network theory and the case of Birthing on Country, a successful policy initiative led by First Nations Australians, to explore the decolonization of health services. Using publicly available archival data and the theoretical guidance of actor-network theory, the analysis offers insight into how marketing techniques and technologies can be deployed to achieve improved health outcomes and implement decolonized approaches. The insights provided have theoretical implications for marketing scholarship, social implications for understanding and implementing an agenda of decolonization, and practical implications for health care marketing.

Translating teachers as leaders of educational change: briefcases, biscuits, and teacher participation in policymaking

ABSTRACT Global policy discourse promotes teachers as leaders of educational change who should have a voice in policy formation. ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’, a major teacher education reform in Scotland, feeds off this vision. Taking an Actor-Network Theory inspired Critical Policy Analysis approach, I unpack the participation of human and non-human actors within the National Partnership Group, a network established by the Scottish Government to plan the enactment of the reform. I utilise Callon’s four moments of translation and Latour’s concept of the token to identify and examine spaces of interest translation. Drawing on interviews with human actors from the network, I discuss the involvement of classroom teachers, and demonstrate the multiple ways that the materiality of the policy process shaped their participation in the network, limiting their ability to inform further development of the policy agenda. I consider the implications of this for education reform and democratic policymaking.

A Dynamic Model of Personal Adaptive Potential in the Conditions of Media Ecosystem

Relevance. The modern stage of information and communication technology development is attracting more and more researchers’ attention to the problem of risk causing factors that arise during the process of digitalization and mediatization. The category of adaptive potential that is used in various fields of socio-humanitarian knowledge appears to be an adequate conceptual instrument for media ecosystem risk problematization. However, in the framework of humanitarian and scientific digitalization discourse this concept is underdeveloped, and this fact determines the relevance of the theoretical construction(model) of personal adaptive potential in the conditions of media ecosystem, as well as the promising directions of its application.The purpose of the article is theoretical substantiation and construction of a dynamic model of an individual's adaptive potential to the risks of the media ecosystem.Objectives: to reveal the theoretical and methodological foundations of personal adaptive potential conceptualization in the conditions of media ecosystem; to specify the contents of adaptive potential levels; to describe adaptive potential dynamic interrelations with the corresponding parameters of the media ecosystem.Methodology. In the article sociological theories that focus on the socio-constructionist nature of modern technologies (actor-network theory, social construction of technology theory) are applied; as well as a number of basic general scientific methods (inductive and deductive methods, structural and functional approach). Special attention is paid to the methods of analogy and modeling, which made it possible to create a dynamic model of the adaptive potential of the individual in the media ecosystem and to lay the foundations for further operationalization of this category.Results. Basing on the results of the theoretical sources study, the author has constructed a dynamic model of personal adaptive potential. The article describes the value, dispositional and practical levels of adaptive potential, as well as their relationship with the corresponding parameters of the media ecosystem (institutional norms and habituses, patterns, affordances).Conclusions. The dynamic model constructed can be used as a methodological basis for theoretical and applied research. A promising direction is further operationalization and empirical verification of the model presented, as well as explication of adaptive potential structural elements.

Network Nature of Translation Constellations: Translation Department at a Regional Commercial Enterprise

This article presents an exploratory study conducted using functional and sociocognitive approaches in light of the “material turn” in Translation Studies. It provides a review of works that apply actor-network theory (ANT) and the concept of distributed cognition to the study of translation activities. It also explores the possibility of adopting in translation research the data collection, processing and visualization techniques developed to describe activities in hybrid environments combining face-to-face and mediated interaction. The authors discuss a way of including the artifacts in the translation situation model, following the positions of ANT, visual net-work analysis, and M. Zwilling’s concept of a translational constellation. The objective of the paper is to evaluate a complex method-ology aimed at describing translators’ work-place conditions and their network interactions in a realistic way. The study is based on a semi-structured interview (120 min) with a representative of the translation department at a commercial enterprise in Chelyabinsk, Russia. It shows how specific tasks are performed in a distributed cognitive network, what role is played by such artifacts as a server solution, a terminology database, and email; and how the translation commissioners’ intention can be distributed in a network of interconnected entities.

Visual Representations of Sexual Minorities in Chinese Newspapers

Same-sex sexuality remains a prevalent taboo in many cultures and societies globally. In the past decade, scholars from various fields have increasingly examined how sexual minorities (SMs) are represented. The present paper contributes to this growing research by addressing two notable gaps. First, since much of the existing research centers on Western contexts, there is limited study on the portrayal of SMs within the Chinese cultural framework. Second, past studies emphasize verbal portrayals, often sidelining the importance of visual representations. This article will report and analyze the photos gathered from two prominent Chinese newspapers, China Daily and Global Times, pertaining to SMs in mainland China. By drawing on Van Leeuwen’s visual social actor network, the article reveals that Chinese SMs most often are visually represented as victims, disguisers, warriors, and elitists. Finally, we explore the socio-cultural influences behind these representation patterns.

Doing responsibilities in entangled worlds

ABSTRACT In this article, we locate and trace responsibility from a posthuman standpoint. We start by reviewing philosophical origins of responsibility and depict views of responsibility in HCI and Interaction Design. Arguing that prevalent notions of responsibility fall short in covering the complexity of realities that are not least a consequence of entanglements of humans with emerging technologies, we make use of posthumanist perspectives (in particular actor-network theory, agential realism and postphenomenology) to rethink where responsibilities sit or are enacted within hybrid assemblages of relations. Considering responsibility as “being done” within such assemblages allows to understand it as something fluid, rooted in relations rather than entities, and being temporally dispersed, responsibility starts within different milieus of innovation, is found in design practice as well as in use and appropriation. We discuss how the notion of doing responsibilities can serve different purposes, such as looking at how change is induced within an assemblage, and conclude by sketching methodological, theoretical, and designerly consequences.

Scientists and remaking heritage: the case of shiitake cultivation in a globally important agricultural heritage system in Japan

ABSTRACT A growing number of traditional agricultural systems around the world have been designated Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), as they are exemplars of the accumulated wisdom of human communities and their close relationship with the local ecology. Heritage inscription is a strategy used to conserve and increase awareness of this inheritance. However, the role of scientists in the construction and inscription of the agricultural heritage has been understudied. Through a qualitative methodology and participatory-observation research, this study examines biocultural heritage construction in a GIAHS in the Kunisaki Peninsula of Oita, Japan. Drawing on actor-network theory and based on the experience of scientists who specialise in traditional log-cultivated shiitake farming, this study demonstrates the role of non-human actors – a fungus-covered chip and shiitake, in particular – in the heritagisation process and the role of scientists in stabilising and destabilising the heritage network. I find that the heritage inscription process of the tradition of log-cultivated shiitake farming has created a new form of identity and moral capital associated not only with the conservation of Japanese food and agricultural heritage but also with the continued existence of local rural villages, protection of national food security and global environmental health.

Do all roads lead to Rome? A multi-case analysis of informal learning and team innovation

PurposeIn this study, the authors use the actor-network theory (ANT) as a theoretical framework to better understand constructing learning as part of the networking process to produce innovations. Focussing on the antecedents of innovation within three teams in an engineering company, the authors propose a framework to enhance understanding of the innovative processes. The authors apply ANT to examine how informal learning is distributed amongst human and non-human actors.Design/methodology/approachBased on 27 interviews in a large Australian engineering company, the authors' qualitative investigation shows that innovation can have very different antecedents. The authors mobilised ANT as the authors' vantage point to explore inanimate actors and their effect on social processes or, more specifically, networks and informal learning.FindingsThe authors propose a framework to better understand innovative processes by exploring the network aspects of non-human actors and their connection to learning. More specifically, findings contribute towards a more granulated understanding of how networks, learning and non-human actors contribute towards innovations in organisations.Practical implicationsThis study has three significant implications for managers and organisations looking to improve their innovation processes. Firstly, fostering open communication is essential for developing successful innovation processes. Secondly, a close relationship with the customer and/or the final users has often been found to positively contribute to innovation processes. Finally, intrateam motivation is also critical when it comes to creating an environment that supports innovation processes.Originality/valueSurprisingly, leadership, communication and motivation did not give the best innovative outcome as the authors expected. Challenging traditional theorisations, low teamwork spirit and high individual performance orientation were some of the powerful drivers of highly innovative teams.

Policy translation in assemblage: networked actors mediating science teachers’ policy play

Educational policies exist as part of complex systems of many policies, all of which science teachers must make sense before using in practice. Using Actor-Network Theory to view policy translation in assemblages, we examine how networked actors mediate teachers’ policy play. Drawing on ethnographic methods and post-structural analytic tools, we identified four mediating actors: espoused practices, learning events, administrator relationships, and communities of practice. These actors interact in the assemblage to mediate teachers’ policy dilemmas and policy responses, as they play with policies. Our findings indicate a need to look more closely at the interactions of policies with one another in teachers’ policy play, policy dilemmas as learning opportunities, the importance of social relationships with administrators in teachers’ policy play, and the dangers of lethal fidelity in adoption. We see these findings as tools to assist teacher educators in planning for future teacher learning around their role as translators and implementers of policy.

Bounded Well-Being: Designing Technologies for Workers’ Well-Being in Corporate Programmes

This article examines the relationship between workers’ well-being and digitalisation at work. It is based on the findings of a qualitative study carried out in a manufacturing company, and it focuses on the development of a wearable device for well-being. Using the analytical concepts of ‘translation’ and ‘inscription’ taken from Actor-Network Theory, it explores how digital technologies for well-being are designed in corporate programmes and shows how the final technology results from processes of inscription and translation performed by the actors involved in the design phase. The end device embodies a concept of well-being that has been called ‘bounded’ to emphasise how well-being at work is limited by organisational constraints. The article invites a rethinking of hedonic well-being at work as a precondition for eudaimonic well-being so that the human being is understood as a psychophysical unit that is part of a rich social context.