scholarly journals De yngste barna og tingene deres – en ANT-analyse av lek i småbarnsavdelinger

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dag Øystein Nome
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Peer Groups ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Group Activities ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Function

Artikkelen presenterer en mikro-etnografisk undersøkelse av barns forhold til tingene i to småbarnsavdelinger i norske barnehager. Hensikten er å forstå hvordan barns relasjoner til ting virker inn på deres mulighet til deltagelse og sosial posisjonering i gruppen. Undersøkelsen er basert på Aktør-Nettverk-Teori som vektlegger tingenes betydning som agens i sosiale nettverk og tingenes funksjon som forlengelse av barnas kropper. Undersøkelsen viser at tingene har betydning som legitim inngangsbillett til deltagelse i lekegrupper og at tingenes innbyrdes hierarkiske orden bidrar i å uttrykke den sosiale orden mellom barna som inngår i relasjon med dem. The article presents a micro-ethnographic study on toddlers’ relationship to the material artefacts in two Norwegian kindergarten groups. The purpose of the study is to understand how their relationship with objects influences their possibilities for participation in peer groups. The study is based on Actor-Network-Theory. A main point is that material artefacts have agency in social networks surrounding us and function as extensions of our bodies. The study indicates that material artefacts serve as entrance tickets for participation in group activities and that the hierarchic order between the objects in the room, influences the social order among the children using them.  

Entanglement, Materiality and the Social Organisation of Construction Workers in Classical Athens

2018 ◽  
pp. 512-528
Author(s):  
Diane Harris Cline
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
The Social ◽  
Building Program

This chapter views the “Periclean Building Program” through the lens of Actor Network Theory, in order to explore the ways in which the construction of these buildings transformed Athenian society and politics in the fifth century BC. It begins by applying some Actor Network Theory concepts to the process that was involved in getting approval for the building program as described by Thucydides and Plutarch in his Life of Pericles. Actor Network Theory blends entanglement (human-material thing interdependence) with network thinking, so it allows us to reframe our views to include social networks when we think about the political debate and social tensions in Athens that arose from Pericles’s proposal to construct the Parthenon and Propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis, the Telesterion at Eleusis, the Odeon at the base of the South slope of the Acropolis, and the long wall to Peiraeus. Social Network Analysis can model the social networks, and the clusters within them, that existed in mid-fifth century Athens. By using Social Network Analysis we can then show how the construction work itself transformed a fractious city into a harmonious one through sustained, collective efforts that engaged large numbers of lower class citizens, all responding to each other’s needs in a chaine operatoire..

scholarly journals ‘I Saw You’: Searching for Lost Love via Practices of Reading, Writingand Responding

2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Laurier ◽  
Angus Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Public Displays ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
The Social

How do emotions move and how do emotions move us? How are feelings and recognitions distributed socio-materially? Based on a multi-site ethnographic study of a ëromanticí correspondance system, this article explores the themes of love, privacy, identity and public displays. Informed by ethnomethodology and actor- network theory its investigations into these ëinformalí affairs are somewhat unusual in that much of the research carried out by those bodies of work concentrates on ëinstitutionalí settings such as laboratories, offices and courtrooms. In common with ethnomethodology it attempts to re-specify some topics of interest in the social sciences and humanities; in this case, documents and practices of writing and reading those documents. A key element of the approach taken is restoring to reading and writing their situated nature as observable, knowable, distributed community practices. Re- specifying topics for the social sciences involves the detailed description of several situated ways in which the ëromanticí correspondence system is used. Detailing the translations, transformations and transportations of documents as ‘quasi- objects’ through several orderings, the article suggests that documents have no essential meaning and that making them meaningful is part of the work of those settings.

scholarly journals Facebook Event as a platform to promote engagement in social movements

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-69
Author(s):  
Carolina Figueiredo ◽  
Caio Santos
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Research Result ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Communication Processes ◽  
The Social

This paper reflects on the application of the Theory of Performativity in complex communication processes as those emerged from the Social Networks. Austin’s (1975) theory of Speech Acts and the concept of Performativity stated by Butler (1997) are recovered to find mechanisms of analysis in utterances that are intrinsic to websites tools. In parallel, the Latour Actor-Network Theory (2017) is also used. As a research result we came to the conclusion that the use of Facebook Event tool implies in performativity, once that by pressing the “Going” and “Interested” buttons the user express different meanings. To put it succinctly, performativity allows the production of effects through language (speech acts) on digital Social Networks. Keywords: Facebook Events. Performativity. Speech Acts.

scholarly journals Metaorder of categories vs/and metacategories of order

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Study ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
High Potential ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sociological Discourse

The article is devoted to the theoretical study of theory as an order of production of this theory at the categorical level. Based on historical and sociological material and conceptual analysis, the author explores the logic of the development of sociology as a science using the metacategory of order as an example. The author analyzes a number of views prevailing in sociology on issues of abstraction and specificity, empiricism and theory, generalizations and refinements, universalist conceptualism and particular applicability. It is emphasized that the abstraction, selection and construction of metacategories is the main way not only in the “normal sciences” (according to T. Kuhn), but also in the sciences that can oppose themselves to them, including in various sociology projects. As an example of metalanguages the development of N. Luhmann’s theory and actor-network theory are studied. The ways of introducing metacategories into sociology, their abstraction and approval are investigated. Three key sources of metacategories for sociology are identified (selfmovement of sociology, borrowing from philosophy, extraction from other sciences). An important distinction between metacategories, categories and official words in sociological theorizing is introduced. Separate emphasis is placed on the analysis of how metacategories are practiced in sociological discourse. The author’s hypotheses and preliminary conclusions are verified on the basis of material metacategories of the social order in the interpretation of a number of leading theoretical sociologists. For verification, P.A. Sorokin, T. Parsons, P. Bourdieu and E. Goffmann theories were used. The conclusion about the epistemological significance of metacategories for sociology and about their role in the scientific order of the organization of knowledge is drawn. In particular, the author proves that the study of the metacategory of order allows to reveal the metaorder of categories in theoretical sociology. Order as one of the most abstract, least “colored” and methodologically biased metacategories in this sense has a high potential for explicating the logic of the development of sociology.

Uncertainties Revisited

2019 ◽  
pp. 216-237
Author(s):  
Liesbeth Huybrechts ◽  
Katrien Dreessen ◽  
Selina Schepers
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Uncertainty Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Matters Of Concern ◽  
Uncertainty Models ◽  
Do So

In this chapter, the authors use actor-network theory (ANT) to explore the relations between uncertainties in co-design processes and the quality of participation. To do so, the authors investigate Latour's discussion uncertainties in relation to social processes: the nature of actors, actions, objects, facts/matters of concern, and the study of the social. To engage with the discussion on uncertainties in co-design and, more specific in infrastructuring, this chapter clusters the diversity of articulations of the role and place of uncertainty in co-design into four uncertainty models: (1) the neoliberal, (2) the management, (3) the disruptive, and (4) the open uncertainty model. To deepen the reflections on the latter, the authors evaluate the relations between the role and place of uncertainty in two infrastructuring processes in the domain of healthcare and the quality of these processes. In the final reflections, the authors elaborate on how ANT supported in developing a “lens” to assess how uncertainties hinder or contribute to the quality of participation.

Actor-Network Theory and Autopoiesis

2009 ◽  
pp. 67-79
Author(s):  
Lars Steiner
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Process Analysis ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Over Time

A new knowledge management perspective and tool, ANT/AUTOPOIESIS, for analysis of knowledge management in knowledge-intensive organizations is presented. An information technology (IT) research and innovation co-operation between university actors and companies interested in the area of smart home IT applications is used to illustrate analysis using this perspective. Actor-network theory (ANT) and the social theory of autopoiesis are used in analyzing knowledge management, starting from the foundation of a research co-operation. ANT provides the character of relations between actors and actants, how power is translated by actors and the transformation of relations over time. The social theory of autopoiesis provides the tools to analyze organizational closure and reproduction of organizational identity. The perspective used allows a process analysis, and at the same time analysis of structural characteristics of knowledge management. Knowledge management depends on powerful actors, whose power changes over time. Here this power is entrepreneurial and based on relations and actors’ innovation knowledge.

scholarly journals Recovering critique in an age of datafication

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1135-1151
Author(s):  
Nick Couldry
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Key Questions

This article starts out from the need for critical work on processes of datafication and their consequences for the constitution of social knowledge and the social world. Current social science work on datafication has been greatly shaped by the theoretical approach of Bruno Latour, as reflected in the work of Actor Network Theory and Science and Technology Studies (ANT/STS). The article asks whether this approach, given its philosophical underpinnings, provides sufficient resources for the critical work that is required in relation to datafication. Drawing on Latour’s own reflections about the flatness of the social, it concludes that it does not, since key questions, in particular about the nature of social order cannot be asked or answered within ANT. In the article’s final section, three approaches from earlier social theory are considered as possible supplements to ANT/STS for a social science serious about addressing the challenges that datafication poses for society.

Beyond ANT

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Till Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Theoretical Design ◽  
The Social ◽  
Actor Networks

Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) offers an ‘infra-language’ of the social that allows one to trace social relations very dynamically, while at the same time dissolving human agency, thus providing a flat and de-centred way into sociology. However, ANT struggles with its theoretical design that may lead us to reduce agency to causation and to conceptualize actor-networks as homogeneous ontologies of force. This article proposes to regard ANT’s inability to conceptualize reflexivity and the interrelatedness of different ontologies as the fundamental problem of the theory. Drawing on Günther, it offers an ‘infra-language’ of reflexive relations while maintaining ANT’s de-centred approach. This would enable us to conceptualize actor-networks as non-homogeneous, dynamic and connecting different societal rationales while maintaining the main strengths of ANT.

The researcher-initiated autobiography’s work as an actant in producing knowledge about the social

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-322
Author(s):  
Jorid Krane Hanssen
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
The Social ◽  
Emotional Effects

This article addresses how a researcher-initiated autobiography’s work as an actant may offer illuminating insights into how we as humans and nonhumans are associated in networks. The aim is to discuss how the effects of these associations produce knowledge about the social. With inspiration from actor-network theory and by using an example of a researcher-initiated autobiography from the study ‘The Daughters and Sons of Rainbow Families’, the discussion firstly concentrates on how associations between the autobiography and the researcher may produce emotional effects. Secondly, the discussion focuses on how a researcher-initiated autobiography works as an actant ‘in itself’. This indicates the necessity to trace associations between the written events (actants) in the text, and discuss their effects. As an example, the article addresses how associations between written events concerning family members, produce knowledge about the relations between the members.

Using critical realism in critical accounting research – a commentary by two ANTs

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 655-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Baxter ◽  
Wai Fong Chua
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Accounting Research ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
The Social

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to respond to Modell’s arguments regarding the relative usefulness of critical realist philosophy in relation to actor-network theory.Design/methodology/approachThe authors outline the challenges in applying critical realism to critical accounting. The authors then consider Modell’s criticisms of actor-network theory, providing a counterargument highlighting the methodological choices distinguishing actor-network theory from critical realism.FindingsThe authors argue that critical realism, whilst providing an interesting addition to the critical accounting research project, confronts challenges disentangling intransitive and transitive forms of knowledge. Actor-network theory is presented as a way of examining accounting practices as local associations, providing practical opportunities to study (the assembly of) “the social”.Research limitations/implicationsMethodological diversity is to be explored, acknowledging the ontological politics of our choices.Originality/valueThis paper is an original commentary contributing to critical accounting research.

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