This article further develops the stacked actor-networks (SAN) approach in modelling socio-economic and cultural dynamics. Following the Lee and Schiesser application of differential equation analysis in biological and social sciences, the authors used a basic SAN model. This model is composed of three subnetworks where each two subnetworks dominate over the third one to build a quantitative description that identifies three stable states in the dynamics of their interactions – cyclical development, linear, and exponential growth. Describing the latter, the notion of ‘technology growth' is introduced that bears on the pattern of hyper-fast growth.
A new book by Manuel DeLanda and Graham Harman, The Rise of Realism, is reviewed. The Rise of Realism is an introductory text that aims to clarify the difficulties that surround the philosophical concepts of realism and materialism (as well as their antitheses). This primer intended to introduce students and interested scholars to the concepts and literature on realism and its place in the continental tradition of philosophy and related social theory. The book's core methodology is to outline the various appropriations of the terms realism and materialism currently discussed in different sub-disciplines of philosophy as well as provide the reader with the authors' own unique positions on realism. The book dialogue prose is stylistically engaging, lucid and academically current, providing both novice readers and seasoned scholars with an easy-to-read exploration of current continental thought that also has far-reaching implications for other disciplines such as critical theory, social theory and science and technology studies.
With the increasing emphasis on developing graduate employability skills, termed as CoreLife Skills in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and growing use of technology in education; this research investigates the assemblage of CoreLife Skills through technological innovation in a vocational education and training (VET) institute in the UAE. This article draws on the concepts of the sociology of translation from an Actor-Network Theory as both methodological and analytical tool. The research unfolds the socio-material assemblages using existing frameworks: Levels of Teaching Innovation (LoTi) and HEAT (higher order thinking, engaged learning, authentic learning, and technology use). The research stirred the development of technology-enhanced learning and a CoreLife Skills development (TEL-CSD) framework for effective integration of technology to enhance students' CoreLife Skills. Based on the findings, two conclusions are drawn: CoreLife Skills cannot be developed independently of general learning and cognitive skills, and technology alone cannot promote CoreLife Skills.
Applying the notion of identity, the article analyses the role of real time observation of professional and amateur astronomers in the context of ongoing digitalization of research. Unveiling the importance of materiality and immediate relationships with instruments, we took a critical stance to the established research approaches to this subject, in particular the ethnography of profession and the actor-network theory (ANT). Bearing on of Julian Orr studies of professional culture and our own ANT notion of ‘heterogeneous coupling', an attempt was made to introduce a new language for analysing the two knowledge communities, based on the sociology of taste and attachment of Antoine Hennion and sociology of regimes of worth of Luck Boltanski, which allows to grasp both similarities and differences in the astronomers' identities.
The objective of this paper is to formulate new approach to entrepreneurship and its result that is challenged by appearance of novel spheres of entrepreneurial activity related to social innovations, social networks, solution for corporate management and people`s wellbeing, production of gadget for precarious wants. These items inspire the study of axiological bases of value created by entrepreneurs. This purpose suggests addressing and revisiting the notions of entrepreneurial action and value. Their complete conceptualization applying to nascent new economy is unlikely to be possible. With this in mind, we focused on searching for metaphors that can cast light on the specifics of newly-emerging phenomena related to entrepreneurial action and value created by it. Using the theory of metaphor, we find that entrepreneurial action is of metaphorical nature itself. In the article, the creation of value is described by means of the transferal of enterprising constituents of entrepreneur's identity onto produced things. We specify these constituents as referred to the different periods of entrepreneurial history. The identification of the constituents was based on the theory of pillars and carriers of institutions by W. R. Scott. The metaphors of appropriateness, utility and wellbeing were proposed for the different periods of the development of value. The metaphor of rhetoric was defined as a root metaphor for all moduses of entrepreneurial action considered as a process of convincing on the value of things produced. Special metaphors for entrepreneurial action for each period of value development were also proposed. The metaphor of performative rhetoric was considered as shedding light on dominant modus of entrepreneurial action and modus of value under conditions of knowledge society.
Innovations in biomedical research have the potential to transform the healthcare diagnostics. Human genomics research is another approach which provides new tools and techniques by which life science researchers hope will help in predicting susceptibility towards common diseases. In this backdrop, this paper attempts to explore at the intersection of health, technology and society by attempting to understand as how human genomics approach can help the life scientists to unravel the disease susceptibility in case of human genetic disorders. Actor-Network Theory has been deployed as a theoretical framework as it gives some agency to non-human actors along with human actors. It has been argued in this paper that non-human 'actants' play a decisive role in case of human genomics research. Rise of human genomics has been traced since the term 'genomics' was first coined to the present day's promise and hope generated by the advances in human genomics. Some misconceptions and clarifications regarding ANT have also been discussed in this paper.
Th? paper aims to explore the current state of a particular instance of patient activism in Bulgaria through tracing the sociotechnical network architecture of the assisted reproductive technologies. It argues that in the local context this is the patient activism, which could be assessed as successful or, in ANT's terms, it has forged heterogeneous alliances, able to sustain themselves, proliferate and enroll new protagonists. Based on interviews with patients and activists, on media representations, and online discussions, this research tries to trace the local heterogeneous arrays of protagonists and show how ARTs network successfully stabilizes and gains power.
This article aims at exploring the process of digital genre formation in general and weblogs in particular. While genre theory basically delimits genre features, it cannot handle their construction procedures. Approaching the weblog genre through the lens of Actor Network Theory (henceforth, ANT) provides practical tools for not only conducting a generic analysis of the blogging phenomenon but also following the network relations that shape the process of its construction. The results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus of 497 blog entries by 39 A-list American political bloggers revealed that the key features of the weblog genre are relational effects of a process of interaction between a network of humans and non-human actors. Tracing all forms of negotiations and their effects shows how the actors involved in the formation of the weblog genre are assemblies or gatherings of myriad things brought together and linked through processes of translation. Therefore, foregrounding associations does not only deepen the exploration of the weblog genre but also furthers understanding of related, yet unexamined internet-based genre. It also draws attention to the affordances of the weblog technology and their effects in connection with a network of human and non-human entities.
Complex networks methodology has permeated the spheres of knowledge that deal with heterogeneous networks, introduced by Actor-Network Theory. In the context, cognition of macro socio-economic processes that have determinants, different in ontological sense, does not seem to be so efficient. The author addresses the twofold complexity of these phenomena. The author identifies different types of macro socio-economic complexity as various combinations of ontological and intrinsic network heterogeneities. Extant networks theories are classified in accordance with a particular type of complexity, with which they deal, and thereby the real background of these theories is revealed. The concept of twofold complexity and its types is applied to the economic category of value. The near-term prospects for the creation of Networks Economics are hypothesized. Networks Economics is viewed on as a theory of preferential attachment value interacting with the non-network mode of value.
In the article the author claims that the digital technologies today continue to be good topic for Actor-Network theory (ANT) research because they exemplify many famous Latourian ideas about the role of technological artifacts in moral and political life of society. By drawing upon some key insights from ANT and science and technology (STS) in general, the author tells three stories about how commercial digital application work. The stories are based upon participant observation experience of the author during his 16 months of work at the technical support unit in the UK mobile application. Firstly, the author tells about different digital interfaces in the work of the technical support that vary in how they mediate the communication with users. Second, the author shows that an inequality in the commercial app has a complex and unpredictable nature. Finally, he shows how the efficiency of the app is determined by the multiplicity of actors' ontological models that differently frame and enact their activity. After the (auto-)ethnographic experience of the author it remains open how to conjoin ANT and human-centered position of an ethnographer.
In 2004, the Government of Jamaica and the Confederation of Trade Unions signed a social partnership agreement or Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which maintained the size of the public sector and wage expenditure, in exchange for no redundancies. The implementation of the Agreement unearthed unanticipated implications for the practice of power within the partnership. The ontology of Actor Network Theory, conceptualizes the MoU as an actor which, through the mechanics of translation, creates its own actor network that it seeks to inscribe with its own discourse to attain a ‘black box' status. The inclusion of discourse as a moment and use of Critical Discourse Analysis provides for the penetration of the impenetrable black box of network interaction and analytical possibilities. The paper argues for the recognition of discourse as a moment in ANT which strengthens it and affords a mode of analysis to deconstruct or explore inner distributions of power.
This paper aims to explain the diffusion of management accounting innovations within the public sector in Jordan as influenced by IMF reforms. It is concerned with the diffusion of management accounting systems viewed as a process of actor-network building and translation. The paper presents an interpretive case study by drawing on Actor-Network Theory ANT. The aim is to better understand the nature of accounting systems. The study recognizes that accounting innovations in Public Financial Management over the last decade were central to the rise of the New Public Management NPM doctrine and its associated ideas of Results Based Management RBM and public accountability, of which accounting is a key element. The study also concludes that the diffusion process implied three isomorphic interests; i.e. it created pressure for similar reforms and structural changes in many governmental aspects, especially the ways of thinking and doing. It thus provides a discernible conclusion through exploring the processes of accounting change as influenced by the tenets of ANT. Like Chua 1995, it has examined accounting change as a process of 'fabrication'. Accounting innovations are constructions Andon et al., 2007, often built on a wide array of social, economic and political factors. There have been several studies of the public sector transformation following IMF reforms but this paper has a different focus: the diffusion and adoption of management accounting systems within the new public sector. The paper discusses the findings of an interpretive case study, which is Ministry of Finance MOF in Jordan. The results of the study indicate that diffusion and adopting of accounting innovations by MOF is largely affected by the government influence, and these innovations usually occurred "beyond the enterprise" as well as within it. The study contributes to both accounting literature and Actor-Network Theory by providing more understanding and explanation about the dynamics of accounting innovations in the public sector. This paper has interesting findings, but also points to the need for more studies about the diffusion of accounting innovations in the public sector.
The paper dev?lops the mathematical basis of stacked actor-network (SAN) approach in modeling a socio-economic and cultural dynamics. It attempts to avoid the idea of ‘guidance' of a given form of (social) life being modelled, which has long been dominating in traditional sociology. Using methods of discreet mathematics and stochastic finite automata approach, we provided initial mathematical formalization of agent and actor-network, the types of complexity in the actor-network and three basic types of graphs comprising SAN's minimal model, with further aim is to develop these models in the form of computer programs (software) and to test them on real sociological data.
This article summarizes the author's 2016 book Immaterialism: Objects and Social Theory, outlining the book's five criticisms of actor-network theory ANT and its fifteen provisional rules of object-oriented method in social theory. The article also considers Bruno Latour's criticism of Immaterialism, in particular his view that such terms as "symbiosis" and "decadence" rely too heavily on an inappropriate "biological" metaphor that has no place in discussion objects in a wider sense. In response, the authors claims that the primary meaning of the symbiosis and decadence is not biological, but biographical.
By adopting Actor Network Theory (ANT) in the empirical context of Cymbopogon citratus Tea (CC Tea) in Manipur, this paper analyses the networks of key actors in the innovation process. Innovation happens when there is an interaction between actors, institutions and economic structures across the level of hierarchy. In this process, there has been a close association between human and non human. Ethnographic case study is used to understand the socio-cultural and ethnographical context of key actors in the CC Tea innovation process. Semi structured in-depth interview has been conducted to the selected areas. It concludes that ANT is highly significant to understand the networks of humans and non humans associated with the innovation process thereby giving a new theoretical interpretation in the Science and Technology Studies (STS) domain in this sector.
The aim of this study was to explain how the Polymerase Chain Reaction PCR technology was translated into professional practices to prevent and control vancomycin-resistant enterococci outbreaks via an actor-network, based on the integrated framework TRIP-ANT. A single case study was conducted in three purposefully selected sites implementing the PCR-VRE assay. The complete dataset comprised semi-structured interviews with 28 participants and a review of hospital and external documents. A content analysis was conducted. The authors' findings indicate the emergence of four main themes, including illustration of who was involved in the adoption process, attribution of roles and responsibilities, interaction/communication/ collaboration mechanisms, and changes in professional practices. Their findings also address five challenges that arose from each theme. The translation of PCR technology into professional practices relies on the enrolment of an organisational, clinical, managerial and financial support network, and on the evolution of practices, communications, and roles and responsibilities.
This paper is a throwback to The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (Kidder, 1981b). Bruno Latour (1987), upon examining Tracy Kidder's story, observes that the heroic tale of engineers who worked on Eagle, a 32-bit minicomputer, was actually inspired by a machine! Over the years, however, this Latourian viewpoint seems to have been ignored. This paper thus examines how Kidder's story was received over the past three decades by the academic and non-academic communities. It exposes how various reviews of the story reinforce one's assumptions about how one approaches narratives about technology. A total of 228 reviews/analyses/commentaries about the story were analysed in a qualitative undertaking that also led the enquiry into a detailed analyses of the story's historico-cultural agency. The findings indicate that non-academic reviews focused largely on heroism, whereas in the academy, the story was approached in light of the prevailing academic discourses in management theory per any given decade of the book's journey; the story then became The Soul of a Lost Machine!
This paper introduces a method of analyzing large text data in the context of an Actor-Network Theory based study. A case is used to illustrate conditions under which using an analytical technique from another philosophy seems particularly apt. A tool commonly used in Grounded Theory was applied in a manner aimed at facilitating a search for potential actors and their interactions and for evidence of specific translations of the innovation in the case used.
For a new technology to be put into use, a decision must be made to adopt it or at least some aspects of it. This article discusses the introduction and use of information and communication technologies in primary healthcare and investigates reasons for adoption, or non-adoption, or these technologies. In particular, the article looks at use of ICT by medical general practitioners, eHealth and the Virtual Doctor Program. The context is adoption of healthcare technologies in the Australian environment, and Information Translation is used as a lens to investigate this.
