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Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory
Reassembling the Social is a fundamental challenge from one of the world's leading social theorists to how we understand society and the "social". Bruno Latour's contention is that the word "social" as used by Social Scientists has become laden with assumptions to the point where it has become a misnomer. When the adjective is applied to a phenomenon, it is used to indicate a stabilized state of affairs, a bundle of ties that in due course may be used to account for another phenomenon. Latour also finds the word used as if it described a type of material, in a comparable way to an adjective such as "wooden" or "steely".
Rather than simply indicating what is already assembled together, it is now used in a way that makes assumptions about the nature of what is assembled. It has become a word that designates two distinct things: a process of assembling: and a type of material, distinct from others. Latour shows why "the social" cannot be thought of as a kind of material or domain, and disputes attempts to provide a "social explanation" of other states of affairs. While these attempts have been productive (and probably necessary) in the past, the very success of the social sciences mean that they are largely no longer so. At the present stage it is no longer possible to inspect the precise constituents entering the social domain. Latour returns to the original meaning of "the social" to redefine the notion and allow it to trace connections again. It will then be possible to resume the traditional goal of the social sciences, but using more refined tools. Drawing on his extensive work examining the "assemblages" of nature, Latour finds it necessary to scrutinize thoroughly the exact content of what is assembled under the umbrella of Society. This approach, a "sociology of associations" has become known as Actor-Network-Theory, and this book is an essential introduction both for those seeking to understand Actor-Network-Theory, or the ideas of one of its most influential proponents.
Rather than simply indicating what is already assembled together, it is now used in a way that makes assumptions about the nature of what is assembled. It has become a word that designates two distinct things: a process of assembling: and a type of material, distinct from others. Latour shows why "the social" cannot be thought of as a kind of material or domain, and disputes attempts to provide a "social explanation" of other states of affairs. While these attempts have been productive (and probably necessary) in the past, the very success of the social sciences mean that they are largely no longer so. At the present stage it is no longer possible to inspect the precise constituents entering the social domain. Latour returns to the original meaning of "the social" to redefine the notion and allow it to trace connections again. It will then be possible to resume the traditional goal of the social sciences, but using more refined tools. Drawing on his extensive work examining the "assemblages" of nature, Latour finds it necessary to scrutinize thoroughly the exact content of what is assembled under the umbrella of Society. This approach, a "sociology of associations" has become known as Actor-Network-Theory, and this book is an essential introduction both for those seeking to understand Actor-Network-Theory, or the ideas of one of its most influential proponents.
301 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Bruno Latour
163 books750 followersBruno Latour, a philosopher and anthropologist, is the author of Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, Our Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, and many other books. He curated the ZKM exhibits ICONOCLASH and Making Things Public and coedited the accompanying catalogs, both published by the MIT Press.
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December 21, 2010
I have a love/hate relationship with Latour. I really like his ideas, but his communication of them in this book is abominable. These same ideas exist in a much clearer way in a variety of articles published by himself and his predecessors.
October 4, 2017
Bruno Latour is unequivocally one of the most influential theorist of our age. Actor-network theory, about which this book attempts to give some introductory arguments, traumatically manifests a new approach to sociology that has the capacity to sublate conventional insights. I think that this book is not only useful for those who are just curious about actor-network theory, but useful also for those who endeavor to grasp significant details with respect to the peculiarity of Latour’s sociological perspective.
A major part of the book is covered by Latour’s attempts to distinguish his understanding of sociology (sociology of associations) from traditional views (sociology of the social or sometimes critical sociology), which helps the reader internalize the difference. Crudely speaking, sociology of the social presumes a society which already draws the boundaries of the social and imprisons it within a limited sphere. For Latour, such a sociologist’s effort is somehow adapting the actors to the already presumed entities such as state, society, structure and so on. In this regard, it becomes the task of the sociologist to define what is social and what is not. The sociologist behaves like a stabilizer whose job is to assign a static domain in which actors move according to the rules of the defined social. This is what Latour persistently repudiates by offering sociology of associations according to which it is not the sociologist that define what is social, but actors themselves. Sociology is not done through the analyst, but rather he must learn from the actors what social is. “The search for order, rigor, and pattern is by no means abandoned.” (23) The rule is not stability, but performance; not unidirectional definitions, but circularity; not reservoir, but continuation. It is not actors who should answer the questions of the sociologist, but it should be the actors themselves who will produce the questions. It would not be wrong to say that the book is quite repetitive regarding the thick line between these two approaches. The reader can find further arguments accordingly.
Latour does not seek any “hidden” reasons behind actions; there is not a dictionary or encyclopedia explaining the sources of the behaviors of the actors. No meta-language is in question. The analyst cannot address any invisible agency. If an agency is invisible, then it has no effect, therefore it is not an agency. If an analyst says: “No one mentions it. I have no proof but I know there is some hidden actor at work behind the scene,” then “this is conspiracy theory, not social theory.” (53) Considered in this perspective, Latour does not give credit any kind of transcendence, but follows an immanentist path. In effect, what I can observe in Latour, which I think most of critics already mentioned in various articles and books, is the image of a passive scientist who permanently takes notes and keeps observing and interpreting. When I noticed Latour’s inversion of the famous Marxist argument by stating: “Social scientists have transformed the world in various ways; the point, however, is to interpret it,” (42) it was not surprising and perfectly fits to the picture Latour draws in this book. Of course, this is not a theoretical flaw or virtue, but I think that this is a serious choice made by Latour and involves serious implications which is not the topic of this review.
For Latour, agency is not limited to human beings, but objects should also be counted as agents which is one of the most attractive aspect of actor-network theory. Eradication of the hierarchy between objects and human beings is highly popular now, but without doubt Latour has a special place in the development process of this theoretical venture. In simple terms, Latour argues that “things might authorize, allow, afford, encourage, permit, suggest, influence, block, render possible, forbid, and so on.” (72) To be able to act is not unique to human beings, but objects are also capable of acting. They have the same status ontologically; all objects are sociologically important. However, no doubt, this does not mean that all objects have an equal power/force/effect. Regarding objects ontologically as equal as human beings does not mean that all of them have the same power of influence, or in Latour’s terms, mediation. But still objects have the capacity to be mediators. “Even objects, which a minute before appeared fully automatic, autonomous, and devoid of human agents, are now made of crowds of frantically moving humans with heavy equipment.” (81)
If objects are also at stake for a sociological inquiry, and if Latour does not admit hidden causal relationships, then it is possible to argue that everything is connected, against which Graham Harman, for example, claims that everything cannot be connected. The following long statement is quite useful so as to understand that Latour excesses the limits of any cause-effect relationship, not in a transcendent sense, but in an imannentist way. He says: “If social element A is said to ‘cause’ the existence of B, C, and D, then not only should it be able to generate back B, C, and D, but it should also account for the differences between B, C, and D, except if it can be shown that B, C, and D are the same thing, in which case their differences can be declared unimportant. If you peruse the social history literature and look at the number of things that are supposed to be caused by ‘the force of society’, the rise of the modern state, the ascent of the petty bourgeoisie, the reproduction of the social domination, the power of industrial lobbies, the invisible hand of the market, individual interactions, then the relation might just be one where a single cause has a million effects. But a cause is a cause is a cause.” (104) The connection between A and B can never be a linear, direct relationship about which one might foresee the consequences. Such a relationship invariably entails C, which is different from A and B; in this context, when A allegedly causes to B and C, it is not a simple production of B and C by A, but A also implies the differences between B and C. B and C are not simple receivers, but they also “make others do things,” which generates an infinite circularity that does not stop to affect or to be affected. (107) This is the simple logic of associations which can be assembled everywhere. “Everything is data.” (133) That is why Latour advocates the idea of irreduction, as nothing is reducible to X or Y. “We should liberate objects and things from their ‘explanation’ by society.” (109)
One might argue that Latour draws attention to similar points positivism does. But the answer is no. Latour does not understand objects as entities existing out there to be discovered and grasped, but rather he argues that, following Heidegger, objects function as gatherings. To put it differently, Latour focuses on matters of concern, which reflects a different image from matters of fact. He elucidates: “Matters of fact remain silent, they may allow themselves to be simply kicked and thumped at, but we are not going to run out of data about matters of concern as their traces are now found everywhere.” (115) A thing is never “the one”, but always in the condition of differentiating itself, therefore Latour ontologically accentuates on becoming rather than being. Things circulate, associate and renew themselves. “A network is not made of nylon thread, words or any durable substance but is the trace left behind by some moving agent.” (132)
All of these arguments present a brilliant picture of a new approach in sociology. However, when it comes to practice, challenges may arise. The dialogue between Latour and a PhD student exemplifies these challenges very clearly. I think that this chapter is a useful one for those who want an overview of actor-network theory without being stuck in theoretical questions. The reader can find interesting answers to the questions PhD student asks as he tries to conduct a case study on organizations. This chapter is also entertaining when Latour mordantly criticizes Bourdieu’s methods.
In the conclusion part, Latour addresses the problematic of political relevance of actor-network theory. Properly speaking, what I understood is that if we maintain to presume a society, then politics is not possible. In other words, politics, like social, should not be based on presumed entities, but should be approached methodologically in the same way we should approach to sociology by actor-network theory. That is why, as Latour also stresses, ANT is accused for extending “politics everywhere.” (251) Latour argues that we should write, explain, write, explain. “If there is no way to inspect and decompose the contents of social forces, if they remain unexplained or overpowering, then there is not much that can be done.” (252) So we can follow the same argument for politics as we follow for sociology. Latour goes even further when he says that “to study is always to do politics.” If you are interested in Latour and his political relevance, I can recommend Harman’s “Reassembling the Political” in which Latour is comprehensively analyzed and his political stance in different time periods is scrutinized in detail.
This study is a must read book if you have any interest in Latour and actor-network theory.
A major part of the book is covered by Latour’s attempts to distinguish his understanding of sociology (sociology of associations) from traditional views (sociology of the social or sometimes critical sociology), which helps the reader internalize the difference. Crudely speaking, sociology of the social presumes a society which already draws the boundaries of the social and imprisons it within a limited sphere. For Latour, such a sociologist’s effort is somehow adapting the actors to the already presumed entities such as state, society, structure and so on. In this regard, it becomes the task of the sociologist to define what is social and what is not. The sociologist behaves like a stabilizer whose job is to assign a static domain in which actors move according to the rules of the defined social. This is what Latour persistently repudiates by offering sociology of associations according to which it is not the sociologist that define what is social, but actors themselves. Sociology is not done through the analyst, but rather he must learn from the actors what social is. “The search for order, rigor, and pattern is by no means abandoned.” (23) The rule is not stability, but performance; not unidirectional definitions, but circularity; not reservoir, but continuation. It is not actors who should answer the questions of the sociologist, but it should be the actors themselves who will produce the questions. It would not be wrong to say that the book is quite repetitive regarding the thick line between these two approaches. The reader can find further arguments accordingly.
Latour does not seek any “hidden” reasons behind actions; there is not a dictionary or encyclopedia explaining the sources of the behaviors of the actors. No meta-language is in question. The analyst cannot address any invisible agency. If an agency is invisible, then it has no effect, therefore it is not an agency. If an analyst says: “No one mentions it. I have no proof but I know there is some hidden actor at work behind the scene,” then “this is conspiracy theory, not social theory.” (53) Considered in this perspective, Latour does not give credit any kind of transcendence, but follows an immanentist path. In effect, what I can observe in Latour, which I think most of critics already mentioned in various articles and books, is the image of a passive scientist who permanently takes notes and keeps observing and interpreting. When I noticed Latour’s inversion of the famous Marxist argument by stating: “Social scientists have transformed the world in various ways; the point, however, is to interpret it,” (42) it was not surprising and perfectly fits to the picture Latour draws in this book. Of course, this is not a theoretical flaw or virtue, but I think that this is a serious choice made by Latour and involves serious implications which is not the topic of this review.
For Latour, agency is not limited to human beings, but objects should also be counted as agents which is one of the most attractive aspect of actor-network theory. Eradication of the hierarchy between objects and human beings is highly popular now, but without doubt Latour has a special place in the development process of this theoretical venture. In simple terms, Latour argues that “things might authorize, allow, afford, encourage, permit, suggest, influence, block, render possible, forbid, and so on.” (72) To be able to act is not unique to human beings, but objects are also capable of acting. They have the same status ontologically; all objects are sociologically important. However, no doubt, this does not mean that all objects have an equal power/force/effect. Regarding objects ontologically as equal as human beings does not mean that all of them have the same power of influence, or in Latour’s terms, mediation. But still objects have the capacity to be mediators. “Even objects, which a minute before appeared fully automatic, autonomous, and devoid of human agents, are now made of crowds of frantically moving humans with heavy equipment.” (81)
If objects are also at stake for a sociological inquiry, and if Latour does not admit hidden causal relationships, then it is possible to argue that everything is connected, against which Graham Harman, for example, claims that everything cannot be connected. The following long statement is quite useful so as to understand that Latour excesses the limits of any cause-effect relationship, not in a transcendent sense, but in an imannentist way. He says: “If social element A is said to ‘cause’ the existence of B, C, and D, then not only should it be able to generate back B, C, and D, but it should also account for the differences between B, C, and D, except if it can be shown that B, C, and D are the same thing, in which case their differences can be declared unimportant. If you peruse the social history literature and look at the number of things that are supposed to be caused by ‘the force of society’, the rise of the modern state, the ascent of the petty bourgeoisie, the reproduction of the social domination, the power of industrial lobbies, the invisible hand of the market, individual interactions, then the relation might just be one where a single cause has a million effects. But a cause is a cause is a cause.” (104) The connection between A and B can never be a linear, direct relationship about which one might foresee the consequences. Such a relationship invariably entails C, which is different from A and B; in this context, when A allegedly causes to B and C, it is not a simple production of B and C by A, but A also implies the differences between B and C. B and C are not simple receivers, but they also “make others do things,” which generates an infinite circularity that does not stop to affect or to be affected. (107) This is the simple logic of associations which can be assembled everywhere. “Everything is data.” (133) That is why Latour advocates the idea of irreduction, as nothing is reducible to X or Y. “We should liberate objects and things from their ‘explanation’ by society.” (109)
One might argue that Latour draws attention to similar points positivism does. But the answer is no. Latour does not understand objects as entities existing out there to be discovered and grasped, but rather he argues that, following Heidegger, objects function as gatherings. To put it differently, Latour focuses on matters of concern, which reflects a different image from matters of fact. He elucidates: “Matters of fact remain silent, they may allow themselves to be simply kicked and thumped at, but we are not going to run out of data about matters of concern as their traces are now found everywhere.” (115) A thing is never “the one”, but always in the condition of differentiating itself, therefore Latour ontologically accentuates on becoming rather than being. Things circulate, associate and renew themselves. “A network is not made of nylon thread, words or any durable substance but is the trace left behind by some moving agent.” (132)
All of these arguments present a brilliant picture of a new approach in sociology. However, when it comes to practice, challenges may arise. The dialogue between Latour and a PhD student exemplifies these challenges very clearly. I think that this chapter is a useful one for those who want an overview of actor-network theory without being stuck in theoretical questions. The reader can find interesting answers to the questions PhD student asks as he tries to conduct a case study on organizations. This chapter is also entertaining when Latour mordantly criticizes Bourdieu’s methods.
In the conclusion part, Latour addresses the problematic of political relevance of actor-network theory. Properly speaking, what I understood is that if we maintain to presume a society, then politics is not possible. In other words, politics, like social, should not be based on presumed entities, but should be approached methodologically in the same way we should approach to sociology by actor-network theory. That is why, as Latour also stresses, ANT is accused for extending “politics everywhere.” (251) Latour argues that we should write, explain, write, explain. “If there is no way to inspect and decompose the contents of social forces, if they remain unexplained or overpowering, then there is not much that can be done.” (252) So we can follow the same argument for politics as we follow for sociology. Latour goes even further when he says that “to study is always to do politics.” If you are interested in Latour and his political relevance, I can recommend Harman’s “Reassembling the Political” in which Latour is comprehensively analyzed and his political stance in different time periods is scrutinized in detail.
This study is a must read book if you have any interest in Latour and actor-network theory.
Read
February 28, 2015By the time Latour published Reassembling the Social in 2005, the many discourses that had been lumped together under the unfortunate name of “postmodernism” were up against the wall. Not only had they weathered attacks from conservatives, hardline Marxists, cognitivists, and others, they had been dragged down by their own failures, inconsistencies, and obscurantisms, and many of those dubbed postmodernists had come to realize the grim, lonely dead ends of their intellectual projects.
And then Latour presented a spirited, well-written defense of his particular brand of thought, actor-network theory, and demonstrated not only its strength but, ultimately, its humility and its devotion to detail-oriented thought. While I'm not sure I'm entirely on board with Latour's program, it's certainly thought-provoking, and worth investigating further.
And then Latour presented a spirited, well-written defense of his particular brand of thought, actor-network theory, and demonstrated not only its strength but, ultimately, its humility and its devotion to detail-oriented thought. While I'm not sure I'm entirely on board with Latour's program, it's certainly thought-provoking, and worth investigating further.
May 3, 2013
I picked this up because folks over on the Philosophy in a Time of Software kicked things off by discussing this book by Latour. So, I'm really not terribly knowledgeable about sociology, but I did a fair bit of reading in the social sciences while getting my library union card, I mean studying library/information science. So I wasn't completely underwater, but I definitely felt like I was swimming in the deep end. I didn't get the connection to computer programming until quite late in the book, but it was definitely a bit of a lightbulb moment when I did. Latour's style (at least that of the unmentioned translator) is refreshingly direct, personal, and unabashedly opinionated. He spends much of the book describing just how complicated social science is, and how far it has gone off the tracks...which is quite entertaining at times.
A few things I will take with me from this book and its portrayal of Actor Network Theory:
I will never be able to say or write the word "social" without feeling like I'm glossing over a whole lot of stuff, and that this stuff is what I should actually be researching, talking and writing about. Latour stresses that it's important not to dumb things down by appealing to established social forces (class, gender, imperialism, etc) but by tracing the actors, their controversies, and their relations. This work requires discipline because it's tempting to reduce the complexity by using these familiar abstractions instead of expending energy/effort in documenting the scenarios as faithfully as possible. By letting the actors have a voice, and say what they think they are doing, rather than the researcher telling the actor what they are actually doing. I work in libraries/archives, so I particularly liked Latour's insistence on the importance notebooks, writing, and documentation:
... and that this is the work of "slowciology" -- it requires you to slow down, and really describe/dig into things.
The other really interesting thing about this book for me was the insistence that social actors do not need to be human. It is fairly typical for social science research to focus on face-to-face interaction between people as the primary focus. Latour doesn't dispute the importance of studying human actors, but emphasizes that it's useful to increase the number of actors under study by studying objects (mediators) as actors. Typically we think of actors as having agency, free will, etc ... but objects are typically complex things, with particular affordances, and extensive relations with other things in the field. You get only a very limited view of what is going on if you don't trace these relations.
As a software developer, I really identified with Latour's insistence on the role that objects play in our understanding of activities around us; how this view necessarily complicates things a great deal, and requires us to slow down to really understand/describe what is going on. It is hard work. And it's only when we understand the various actors and their relations, the actual ones, not the abstract ones in the architecture diagram, or in the theory about the software, that we will be in a position to effectively change or build anew.
A few things I will take with me from this book and its portrayal of Actor Network Theory:
I will never be able to say or write the word "social" without feeling like I'm glossing over a whole lot of stuff, and that this stuff is what I should actually be researching, talking and writing about. Latour stresses that it's important not to dumb things down by appealing to established social forces (class, gender, imperialism, etc) but by tracing the actors, their controversies, and their relations. This work requires discipline because it's tempting to reduce the complexity by using these familiar abstractions instead of expending energy/effort in documenting the scenarios as faithfully as possible. By letting the actors have a voice, and say what they think they are doing, rather than the researcher telling the actor what they are actually doing. I work in libraries/archives, so I particularly liked Latour's insistence on the importance notebooks, writing, and documentation:
The best way to proceed at this point ... is simply to keep track of all our moves, even those that deal with the very production of the account. This is neither for the sake of epistemic reflexivity nor for some narcissist indulgence into one’s own work, but because from now on everything is data: everything from the first telephone call to a prospective interviewee, the first appointment with the advisor, the first corrections made by a client on a grant proposal, the first launching of a search engine, the first list of boxes to tick in a questionnaire. In keeping with the logic of our interest in textual reports and accounting, it might be useful to list the different notebooks one should keep—manual or digital, it no longer matters much. p. 286.
... and that this is the work of "slowciology" -- it requires you to slow down, and really describe/dig into things.
The other really interesting thing about this book for me was the insistence that social actors do not need to be human. It is fairly typical for social science research to focus on face-to-face interaction between people as the primary focus. Latour doesn't dispute the importance of studying human actors, but emphasizes that it's useful to increase the number of actors under study by studying objects (mediators) as actors. Typically we think of actors as having agency, free will, etc ... but objects are typically complex things, with particular affordances, and extensive relations with other things in the field. You get only a very limited view of what is going on if you don't trace these relations.
Things, quasi-objects, and attachments are the real center of the social world, not the agent, person, member, or participant—nor is it society or its avatars. (p. 237)
As a software developer, I really identified with Latour's insistence on the role that objects play in our understanding of activities around us; how this view necessarily complicates things a great deal, and requires us to slow down to really understand/describe what is going on. It is hard work. And it's only when we understand the various actors and their relations, the actual ones, not the abstract ones in the architecture diagram, or in the theory about the software, that we will be in a position to effectively change or build anew.
July 30, 2015
If you need to read one thing by Bruno Latour...
Latour spills the beans (i.e. actually tells us what "actor network theory" is, what problems it's supposed to solve, and how one might perform studies in it) in this funny (no, really) jolt to the philosophy of the humanities and social sciences. I've read excerpts from several of his books, but this is the one that made me get it - not only in terms of the argument but also in terms of his style, which is such a smart, startling departure from the idiom of "French theory." One small note: I think this is partly because he writes in English, and vice versa - that is, he might write in English to achieve this effect. I can't vouch for it, but I suspect that the uncorrected errors are his own, at least I hope so, since keeping them is a witty choice. As to the theory, I think he's probably wrong, but he does it so beautifully.
Latour spills the beans (i.e. actually tells us what "actor network theory" is, what problems it's supposed to solve, and how one might perform studies in it) in this funny (no, really) jolt to the philosophy of the humanities and social sciences. I've read excerpts from several of his books, but this is the one that made me get it - not only in terms of the argument but also in terms of his style, which is such a smart, startling departure from the idiom of "French theory." One small note: I think this is partly because he writes in English, and vice versa - that is, he might write in English to achieve this effect. I can't vouch for it, but I suspect that the uncorrected errors are his own, at least I hope so, since keeping them is a witty choice. As to the theory, I think he's probably wrong, but he does it so beautifully.
November 1, 2019
Pracuję nad ANT a zagadnieniem autorstwa zbiorowego, niech szatan ma mnie w opiece :/
October 21, 2011
What happens when a theorist becomes "the" theorist of a moment?
While this book has strong points, the continual pot-shots at every established academic field probably serves more to close minds rather than to open possibilities served by ANT (actor network theory). Many of these statements are akin to being smacked across the cheek with a leather glove, dual-style. This greatly injuries the book's purpose, which was, apparently, to demonstrate a weakness in the epistemology of contemporary research.
This is all the more surprising when held against another publication by the same author:
Latour, Bruno. (2004). “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry, (30): 225-248.
Et tu, Bruno?
I do find merit in the presentation and material. Considering hard and soft sciences as equals Latour still creates moments of fresh clarity.
"Textual accounts are the social scientist’s laboratory and if laboratory practice is any guide, its because of the artificial nature of the place that objectivity might be achieved on conditions that artifacts be detected by a continuous and obsessive attention. So, to treat a report of social science as a textual account is not weakening of its claims to reality, but an extension of the number of precautions that have to be taken onboard and of the skills requested from inquires.
Textual accounts can fail like experiments do.” (127)
While this book has strong points, the continual pot-shots at every established academic field probably serves more to close minds rather than to open possibilities served by ANT (actor network theory). Many of these statements are akin to being smacked across the cheek with a leather glove, dual-style. This greatly injuries the book's purpose, which was, apparently, to demonstrate a weakness in the epistemology of contemporary research.
This is all the more surprising when held against another publication by the same author:
Latour, Bruno. (2004). “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry, (30): 225-248.
Et tu, Bruno?
I do find merit in the presentation and material. Considering hard and soft sciences as equals Latour still creates moments of fresh clarity.
"Textual accounts are the social scientist’s laboratory and if laboratory practice is any guide, its because of the artificial nature of the place that objectivity might be achieved on conditions that artifacts be detected by a continuous and obsessive attention. So, to treat a report of social science as a textual account is not weakening of its claims to reality, but an extension of the number of precautions that have to be taken onboard and of the skills requested from inquires.
Textual accounts can fail like experiments do.” (127)
February 9, 2018
i did not finish this book -- quite heavy for an introduction. but it did make me think, to some extent, about the foundations of what we call the social. I think Latours intention is very good, i.e. to question the social as an explanatory factor. sometimes he is a bit annoying.
January 5, 2022
Latour bringt mit dieser Einführung frischen Wind in die Sozialtheorie, indem er verschiedene Debatten anstößt:
Erstens erweitert er das Spektrum des Sozialen um nicht-menschliche Akteure, die sich in jeder konsequent mikrosoziologischen Forschung sowieso aufdrängen. Er traut sich diesen Schritt zu machen und geht den beschrittenen Weg konsequent weiter. Latour rüttelt die Soziologie durch und baut sie im kleinen neu auf. Er gibt ihr einen Zusatz, der nicht als Add-On, sondern als Veränderung im Fundament zu sehen ist. Das Materielle mitzudenken, hat die Soziologie bis heute bereichert und ist unter anderem und insbesondere Latours soziologischer Beitrag.
Zweitens produziert er neue Ideen zum Verhältnis zwischen Soziologie und Politik. Der Dreischritt Entfalten-Versammeln-Zusammensetzen verweist auf die Bedeutung auf akribische Forschung im ersten und zweiten Schritt, sowie eine darauffolgende umfassende politische Initiative, die klassische marxistische Forschungsphantasien transzendiert.
Obwohl ich die Arbeit nicht als Werk für sich, sondern als konzeptualisierte Provokation sehe, muss kritisiert werden wie Latour mit der sogenannten "Kritischen Soziologie" umgeht. Die Kritik der Kritik bleibt überraschend unspezifisch für einen Mikrosoziologen. So nennt er als "Kritischen Soziologen" nur Bourdieu beim Namen, der wirklich nur als Hybrid-Marxist gesehen werden kann. Während er einerseits von der Meidung fiktiver Akteure wie Herrschaft spricht, boxt er andererseits in den Schatten einer Kritischen Soziologie (bzw. Theorie), die so nicht existiert. Die Kritik am Kritischen ist legitim, könnte aber viel konkreter sein. Es wundert mich, dass Latour hier zurückschreckt und zögert, Namen zu nennen.
Alles in einem eine perspektivenprägendes, provozierendes Arbeit, die mit ihrer Kritik zweiter Ordnung ein wenig unpräzise bleibt.
Erstens erweitert er das Spektrum des Sozialen um nicht-menschliche Akteure, die sich in jeder konsequent mikrosoziologischen Forschung sowieso aufdrängen. Er traut sich diesen Schritt zu machen und geht den beschrittenen Weg konsequent weiter. Latour rüttelt die Soziologie durch und baut sie im kleinen neu auf. Er gibt ihr einen Zusatz, der nicht als Add-On, sondern als Veränderung im Fundament zu sehen ist. Das Materielle mitzudenken, hat die Soziologie bis heute bereichert und ist unter anderem und insbesondere Latours soziologischer Beitrag.
Zweitens produziert er neue Ideen zum Verhältnis zwischen Soziologie und Politik. Der Dreischritt Entfalten-Versammeln-Zusammensetzen verweist auf die Bedeutung auf akribische Forschung im ersten und zweiten Schritt, sowie eine darauffolgende umfassende politische Initiative, die klassische marxistische Forschungsphantasien transzendiert.
Obwohl ich die Arbeit nicht als Werk für sich, sondern als konzeptualisierte Provokation sehe, muss kritisiert werden wie Latour mit der sogenannten "Kritischen Soziologie" umgeht. Die Kritik der Kritik bleibt überraschend unspezifisch für einen Mikrosoziologen. So nennt er als "Kritischen Soziologen" nur Bourdieu beim Namen, der wirklich nur als Hybrid-Marxist gesehen werden kann. Während er einerseits von der Meidung fiktiver Akteure wie Herrschaft spricht, boxt er andererseits in den Schatten einer Kritischen Soziologie (bzw. Theorie), die so nicht existiert. Die Kritik am Kritischen ist legitim, könnte aber viel konkreter sein. Es wundert mich, dass Latour hier zurückschreckt und zögert, Namen zu nennen.
Alles in einem eine perspektivenprägendes, provozierendes Arbeit, die mit ihrer Kritik zweiter Ordnung ein wenig unpräzise bleibt.
April 12, 2025
3.5
The book is both a methodological guide and a philosophical exploration, inviting us to reassemble the social by tracing the complex, emergent networks that underlie our everyday interactions. Latour’s accessible writing offers a clear path through seemingly abstract ideas. Really im just exhausted by this sociological theory and i want to have a nice time with history again
The book is both a methodological guide and a philosophical exploration, inviting us to reassemble the social by tracing the complex, emergent networks that underlie our everyday interactions. Latour’s accessible writing offers a clear path through seemingly abstract ideas. Really im just exhausted by this sociological theory and i want to have a nice time with history again
August 7, 2022
Latour is one of the most prolific thinkers working in sociology these days. He began his career as a sociologist of science. His work there resulted in an ongoing investigation of networks that connect people and things in a web of mutual influence and agency. Along with others, he developed out of this the Actor-Network-Theory (ANT). Reassembling the Social is an effort to provide an introduction of sorts to ANT. I write "of sorts" because it is not an easy book, as one might expect of an introduction!
Latour argues that the ways that sociological has generally seen the world, starting especially from early theorists like Emile Durkheim, works by positing behind our activities a social world of influences that operate on us. So our hair styles and clothing choices are determined by social forces in a social world of considerable abstraction. This way of seeing the world, Latour argues, is mistaken, and hides from us a more accurate account of why we do what we do. In its place comes ANT. ANT instead traces the links between actors as individuals and explains the social by showing how those links operate. To be rather crude, your choice of a Beatles haircut is not because social forces have moved you but because John Lennon acted on you through a series of interconnected actors (John has his haircut--which is the result of another chain that we'll leave aside--you see him on Ed Sullivan, you hear him sing, the haircut, music, and TV act on you, and you go out and get your Beatles haircut). A good ANT analysis would include a lot more than this, but the point is there is no abstract, invisible social force here--it's all concrete, identifiable actors linked in a network of agential influence.
There's lots more to Reassembling the Social
One very intriguing and, for me, important result of Latour's ANT is unveiling the agency of the non-human, and indeed the non-living. In the standard sociology he wants to replace, the only agents are people, who have intentions and act in ways to materialize them. For Latour, agency can and does reside in everything that participates in a network: the TV that transmits the image of John Lennon is an agent as much as John, or Ed Sullivan's booker. This may at first seem counter-intuitive, or even silly; do objects really have agency? But for me, anyway, the claim makes sense; we are indeed affected, sometimes powerfully or even deterministically, by the objects around us. That money burning a hole in your pocket in some sense wants to be spent, as it were.
The difficulties Reassembling the Social confronts its readers with, however, can be formidable. First is the style. It's not hard to see that Latour comes out of a French intellectual tradition. He can be obscure and obtuse and much of the book is on a very high level of abstraction. The exposition would have been helped immeasurably by one clear, complete example of an ANT analysis of some social phenomenon. Latour suggests you could find one in the book he did with the photographer Emilie Hermant, Paris the Invisible City, which can be consulted on his website. Okay; but it would have been much better not to make readers go hunting out another book!
But in sum I think Latour has offered a prolific and useful social theory. If you want to get ANT, Latour's a good guide; but it requires patience and focus to get the full benefit of his exposition.
Latour argues that the ways that sociological has generally seen the world, starting especially from early theorists like Emile Durkheim, works by positing behind our activities a social world of influences that operate on us. So our hair styles and clothing choices are determined by social forces in a social world of considerable abstraction. This way of seeing the world, Latour argues, is mistaken, and hides from us a more accurate account of why we do what we do. In its place comes ANT. ANT instead traces the links between actors as individuals and explains the social by showing how those links operate. To be rather crude, your choice of a Beatles haircut is not because social forces have moved you but because John Lennon acted on you through a series of interconnected actors (John has his haircut--which is the result of another chain that we'll leave aside--you see him on Ed Sullivan, you hear him sing, the haircut, music, and TV act on you, and you go out and get your Beatles haircut). A good ANT analysis would include a lot more than this, but the point is there is no abstract, invisible social force here--it's all concrete, identifiable actors linked in a network of agential influence.
There's lots more to Reassembling the Social
One very intriguing and, for me, important result of Latour's ANT is unveiling the agency of the non-human, and indeed the non-living. In the standard sociology he wants to replace, the only agents are people, who have intentions and act in ways to materialize them. For Latour, agency can and does reside in everything that participates in a network: the TV that transmits the image of John Lennon is an agent as much as John, or Ed Sullivan's booker. This may at first seem counter-intuitive, or even silly; do objects really have agency? But for me, anyway, the claim makes sense; we are indeed affected, sometimes powerfully or even deterministically, by the objects around us. That money burning a hole in your pocket in some sense wants to be spent, as it were.
The difficulties Reassembling the Social confronts its readers with, however, can be formidable. First is the style. It's not hard to see that Latour comes out of a French intellectual tradition. He can be obscure and obtuse and much of the book is on a very high level of abstraction. The exposition would have been helped immeasurably by one clear, complete example of an ANT analysis of some social phenomenon. Latour suggests you could find one in the book he did with the photographer Emilie Hermant, Paris the Invisible City, which can be consulted on his website. Okay; but it would have been much better not to make readers go hunting out another book!
But in sum I think Latour has offered a prolific and useful social theory. If you want to get ANT, Latour's a good guide; but it requires patience and focus to get the full benefit of his exposition.
October 12, 2010
A strong, opinionated tourguide through a particular case for researching the social. Latour (as usual) provides loads of food for thought by trying to refocus the lens of sociology / social research toward a project liberating and redefining 'social' agency vis-a-vis what is mystified as 'the social'. The challenge is on two fronts - both a kind of totalizing narratives of systems and actors, the global and the local. This seems like a rather difficult and challenging task, yet in different ways Latour strongly succeeds to open up a necessary space through which the social sciences need to re-engage with themselves.
June 30, 2021
Латур ставит три задачи: развернуть разногласия (по поводу того, что он определяет как ассоциации), стабилизировать их и предложить основания для пересборки социального (не общества, но коллектива). Первая задача решена блестяще, - АСТ выглядит удивительно перспективной методологией (социальных) исследований (плоский мир, актор-сеть, звездообразный олигоптикум). Вторая задача не решена вовсе, - Латур опускается до трюка, утверждая, что предшествующая АСТ "социология социального" решила проблему стабилизации (хотя и утверждал выше, что та имеет дело лишь с фиксированными устойчивыми структурами, которые не правило, но исключение, и что стабилизацией должны заниматься сами акторы, среди которых социологи - непривилегированное меньшинство). Наконец, сама постановка третьей задачи в форме придания политического значения проекту АСТ оставляет неприятный осадок, - полное противоречие сказанному выше (плюс нарциссизм). Оказывается, изменчивые звездообразные олигоптикумы можно и нужно (!) не просто зафиксировать, но и, сделав видимыми, сделать лучше и устойчивее. Т.е. описания не требуют объяснения, если это "хорошие описания" (часть 1), но никакая социология не удовлетворится "просто описаниями" (Заключение).
May 11, 2022
This (now quite old) book traces the origins of Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) in the 1980s, explains what its main tenets are, and provides a set of guidelines for prospective Ants (users of ANT) to follow. ANT is one of those acronyms that has become well-known beyond the field of sociology where it originated, even spawning its own memes. People who already subscribe to this method might enjoy Latour’s cheeky tone, as he verges on patronising sociologists for their adherence to the silly idea that the “social” is an entity in itself, which can act as an explanans for human behaviour.
In contrast to what Latour considers the erroneous view of the “social” as a homogenous thing, Ants see it as a trail of associations between heterogenous elements – two actors are only social if they somehow are connected to one another. The object of study is therefore not the social itself, but social relations. Latour is also at pains to remind the reader of is the idea that action must be “surprising” to the Ant. There should be uncertainty as to what an actor is going to do next. As soon as actions are beginning to be predicted and explained on the basis of pre-existing “social”, “cultural”, “economic” factors, that is no longer ANT. On top of that, even the idea of an “actor” is uncertain, since it should never be clear who and what is acting. This is the “uncertainty principle” of ANT. Other principles that are fundamental to ANT are the idea that no “shortcuts” should be taken (big, “social” explanations that make drawing the link from one action to another easier/faster); that actors be treated as “mediators” that transform some kind of meaning rather than simply transport it from one place to another; and that ideas and actions should always be “localised” in some way - “even Karl Marx in the British Library needs a desk to assemble the formidable forces of capitalism” (186). As an introduction to all these ways of thinking the book does a good job.
However, the book also feels much longer than it needs to be. Perhaps because Latour likes to drink deeply from the well of unnecessary metaphors, perhaps because his explanations are sometimes so obscure he needs about three tries to get his point across. Either way, it certainly was not a crisp reading experience, and I found myself rushing to get through the final few chapters because they were filled with wordy examples (never a good sign).
Although he certainly does not always stick to it himself, I concur with his argument for using mostly “banal” language (i.e. devoid of jargon) when describing actor’s actions, because it minimises the risk of confusion with an actor’s own idioms. This ‘letting the actors speak for themselves’ is, according to Latour, a mark of good ANT. It’s a nice reminder that language itself is part of the method. That being said, using “transmogrified” is just taking the piss.
Having finished this I don’t think I’ll be turning into an Ant any time soon. It’s a tedious and almost masochistic scholarly perspective to take, and one that perhaps works best for very limited case studies (where the boundaries of the sandpit are well defined and you have total freedom to explore the landscape as slowly or as laboriously as you like). But I’m sure that as a kind of ANT manifesto, this book makes for a decent reference work.
In contrast to what Latour considers the erroneous view of the “social” as a homogenous thing, Ants see it as a trail of associations between heterogenous elements – two actors are only social if they somehow are connected to one another. The object of study is therefore not the social itself, but social relations. Latour is also at pains to remind the reader of is the idea that action must be “surprising” to the Ant. There should be uncertainty as to what an actor is going to do next. As soon as actions are beginning to be predicted and explained on the basis of pre-existing “social”, “cultural”, “economic” factors, that is no longer ANT. On top of that, even the idea of an “actor” is uncertain, since it should never be clear who and what is acting. This is the “uncertainty principle” of ANT. Other principles that are fundamental to ANT are the idea that no “shortcuts” should be taken (big, “social” explanations that make drawing the link from one action to another easier/faster); that actors be treated as “mediators” that transform some kind of meaning rather than simply transport it from one place to another; and that ideas and actions should always be “localised” in some way - “even Karl Marx in the British Library needs a desk to assemble the formidable forces of capitalism” (186). As an introduction to all these ways of thinking the book does a good job.
However, the book also feels much longer than it needs to be. Perhaps because Latour likes to drink deeply from the well of unnecessary metaphors, perhaps because his explanations are sometimes so obscure he needs about three tries to get his point across. Either way, it certainly was not a crisp reading experience, and I found myself rushing to get through the final few chapters because they were filled with wordy examples (never a good sign).
Although he certainly does not always stick to it himself, I concur with his argument for using mostly “banal” language (i.e. devoid of jargon) when describing actor’s actions, because it minimises the risk of confusion with an actor’s own idioms. This ‘letting the actors speak for themselves’ is, according to Latour, a mark of good ANT. It’s a nice reminder that language itself is part of the method. That being said, using “transmogrified” is just taking the piss.
Having finished this I don’t think I’ll be turning into an Ant any time soon. It’s a tedious and almost masochistic scholarly perspective to take, and one that perhaps works best for very limited case studies (where the boundaries of the sandpit are well defined and you have total freedom to explore the landscape as slowly or as laboriously as you like). But I’m sure that as a kind of ANT manifesto, this book makes for a decent reference work.
June 8, 2024
I’ve struggled with this book. Firstly, for the obvious reason that it is, despite assurances, quite a difficult read. But more importantly, because it is a challenging read, a provocative one and intentionally so. Latour wants to do to his readers what Hume did to Kant – wake us from our dogmatic sleep. And so, he slaps us about the head with challenges to many of the things that (well, I at least) cling o dearly. Which would be fine, if I could find a simple argument against what he has to say. But I can’t. So, I’ve found this book deeply disturbing on many levels. Part of me knows he has to be wrong – but there are no obvious flaws in his arguments. I don’t know what to make of this yet.
I’m not going to even pretend to summarise this book – tell you his five sources of uncertainty or his three moves to keep the world flat – I’m going straight to the heart of my concerns with his central idea that most of what sociology calls ‘the social’ simply doesn’t exist. Now, this isn’t the same as Thatcher saying ‘there is no such thing as society’ – he is not stupid. But his point still stands. What has existed since the beginning of sociology as the social level of explanation is not something that can actually exist, and that is a real problem for sociology.
In this book, Latour is also trying to explain Action Network Theory (ANT), something he repeatedly says is misnamed in every one of the three words making up its name. He spends a lot of time playing with language in this book – in much the way French theorists do. And like I said, he is being provocative, and being provocative means playing with language in ways that both annoy and get you to think differently. He’s trying to pull down the main edifice of sociology, so… Anyway, part of me feels like I’m Anti-ANT. Not in the same way I’m anti-fascist – I’ve no interest in punching people who believe in ANT, rather more like anti-matter – there is something in ANT that I fear will turn all of my beliefs to nothing.
Okay, enough foreplay. For ANT theory (yeah, I know, theory, theory – bad luck) the problem has been that in appealing to grand explanations, such as, society, is that society is not a thing so much as an emergent property of the actions of real things. I’ll take that a bit slower. Latour says we have to become myopic – shortsighted. That is, only see the things in front of ourselves that act upon one another. He doesn’t care if these things are people or animals – he actually doesn’t care if they are lumps of dirt – but they have to have a clear and obvious power to impact something else and be using that power. So that a speed hump is an actor when you are driving, but your expensive car sound system might not be, if it is turned off. The speed hump gets you to change your driving, the turned off radio ‘exists’ but has no impact.
If there is to be such a thing called society, then it has to be produced out of the actions of things with some sort of power to bring it into existence – in much the same way that driving is brought into being by various actors – the driver, the car, the road system, the road rules – you see the point. Not all of these are ‘human actors’ but all of them act to make it possible for driving to exist. And this is Latour’s point. Without all of those being in place and interacting with each other, driving – the big idea that emerges from all of these various interactions and entanglements – couldn’t exist. There is no place were you can point to the perfect Platonic form of ‘driving’ and say, ‘see, that is what causes driving to exist’. Driving emerges out of the sum total of interactions between both human and non-human ‘actors’, not the other way around.
Well, society is the same. Society emerges out of our interactions that we call social. It doesn’t exist on its own – in much the same way that ‘driving’ doesn’t exist on its own. For it to exist independently of other things, and to impact them, there would need to be a thing that acted socially that we would could isolate from all other things. We should be able to point to it and say, ‘see that, that’s the social, watch out for it, it does lots of strange stuff’. But there is no such thing – the social is a property that emerges from the interactions of real agents, it is not a real agent in itself.
The best we can do, according to all this, is not develop a theory, part of the reason Latour doesn’t like that his ANT ends in ‘theory’ is because he doesn’t like theory. The point of theories isn’t to explain what is going on so much as for them to be able to be generalised and applied elsewhere. He doesn’t think that is very likely in something as complicated as the social. And so, he believes the best we can do is ‘describe’ what we see according to what all the actors are doing. If it is not a good description, you’ll soon know, but if it is good, it’s the best we can achieve. Adding theory is a bit like Greek literature’s Deus ex Machina – the ghost from the machine – a supernatural entity that suddenly appears when description gets stuck and saves the day. Latour’s point is that ‘society’ is this ghost and it explains too much.
Like I said, I’m struggling to see a flaw in this reasoning. But I can’t help feeling it is wrong. And not just because he literally tears down many theorists I’ve learned so much from (Bourdieu, Marx, Goffman…) but also because I can’t see how we can do without what he refers to as the non-flat parts of the world. Let’s use Bourdieu’s field theory to explain.
Bourdieu talks about fields as a way to explain certain types of human interactions. There is the education field, the legal field, the cultural field. And each of these have their own characteristics. He agrees that these only exist since humans interact with one another in particular ways that maintain them. He agrees that these would not exist if humans did not interact in those ways. But he also says that these fields directly impact us. That these fields existed before we were born and will continue to exist after we die. That while we, as individuals, might be able to have some small impact on changing the fundamental natures of these fields, ultimately, they will have more impact on us than we do on them. The small changes we might bring are, as that saying I’ve just recently heard would have it, more stays the same in revolutions than is changed by them. But can we point to any of these fields in a way that Latour demands? Can we say – ‘here it is, this is the legal field’? I don’t think we can. But my problem is that I believe the emergent field still has an impact upon us – and that impact is bigger than the impact of any of the actors composing it. I can’t be consistently myopic with fields or society or culture – they are generalisations, it is true, but I’m not sure how we can do without them.
And I can see the contradiction I’m in here. And I don’t know how to get out of it. I can’t agree with Latour, but I haven’t found a satisfying way to disagree with him either. It’s very annoying. Which is, I suspect, exactly his point.
I’m not going to even pretend to summarise this book – tell you his five sources of uncertainty or his three moves to keep the world flat – I’m going straight to the heart of my concerns with his central idea that most of what sociology calls ‘the social’ simply doesn’t exist. Now, this isn’t the same as Thatcher saying ‘there is no such thing as society’ – he is not stupid. But his point still stands. What has existed since the beginning of sociology as the social level of explanation is not something that can actually exist, and that is a real problem for sociology.
In this book, Latour is also trying to explain Action Network Theory (ANT), something he repeatedly says is misnamed in every one of the three words making up its name. He spends a lot of time playing with language in this book – in much the way French theorists do. And like I said, he is being provocative, and being provocative means playing with language in ways that both annoy and get you to think differently. He’s trying to pull down the main edifice of sociology, so… Anyway, part of me feels like I’m Anti-ANT. Not in the same way I’m anti-fascist – I’ve no interest in punching people who believe in ANT, rather more like anti-matter – there is something in ANT that I fear will turn all of my beliefs to nothing.
Okay, enough foreplay. For ANT theory (yeah, I know, theory, theory – bad luck) the problem has been that in appealing to grand explanations, such as, society, is that society is not a thing so much as an emergent property of the actions of real things. I’ll take that a bit slower. Latour says we have to become myopic – shortsighted. That is, only see the things in front of ourselves that act upon one another. He doesn’t care if these things are people or animals – he actually doesn’t care if they are lumps of dirt – but they have to have a clear and obvious power to impact something else and be using that power. So that a speed hump is an actor when you are driving, but your expensive car sound system might not be, if it is turned off. The speed hump gets you to change your driving, the turned off radio ‘exists’ but has no impact.
If there is to be such a thing called society, then it has to be produced out of the actions of things with some sort of power to bring it into existence – in much the same way that driving is brought into being by various actors – the driver, the car, the road system, the road rules – you see the point. Not all of these are ‘human actors’ but all of them act to make it possible for driving to exist. And this is Latour’s point. Without all of those being in place and interacting with each other, driving – the big idea that emerges from all of these various interactions and entanglements – couldn’t exist. There is no place were you can point to the perfect Platonic form of ‘driving’ and say, ‘see, that is what causes driving to exist’. Driving emerges out of the sum total of interactions between both human and non-human ‘actors’, not the other way around.
Well, society is the same. Society emerges out of our interactions that we call social. It doesn’t exist on its own – in much the same way that ‘driving’ doesn’t exist on its own. For it to exist independently of other things, and to impact them, there would need to be a thing that acted socially that we would could isolate from all other things. We should be able to point to it and say, ‘see that, that’s the social, watch out for it, it does lots of strange stuff’. But there is no such thing – the social is a property that emerges from the interactions of real agents, it is not a real agent in itself.
The best we can do, according to all this, is not develop a theory, part of the reason Latour doesn’t like that his ANT ends in ‘theory’ is because he doesn’t like theory. The point of theories isn’t to explain what is going on so much as for them to be able to be generalised and applied elsewhere. He doesn’t think that is very likely in something as complicated as the social. And so, he believes the best we can do is ‘describe’ what we see according to what all the actors are doing. If it is not a good description, you’ll soon know, but if it is good, it’s the best we can achieve. Adding theory is a bit like Greek literature’s Deus ex Machina – the ghost from the machine – a supernatural entity that suddenly appears when description gets stuck and saves the day. Latour’s point is that ‘society’ is this ghost and it explains too much.
Like I said, I’m struggling to see a flaw in this reasoning. But I can’t help feeling it is wrong. And not just because he literally tears down many theorists I’ve learned so much from (Bourdieu, Marx, Goffman…) but also because I can’t see how we can do without what he refers to as the non-flat parts of the world. Let’s use Bourdieu’s field theory to explain.
Bourdieu talks about fields as a way to explain certain types of human interactions. There is the education field, the legal field, the cultural field. And each of these have their own characteristics. He agrees that these only exist since humans interact with one another in particular ways that maintain them. He agrees that these would not exist if humans did not interact in those ways. But he also says that these fields directly impact us. That these fields existed before we were born and will continue to exist after we die. That while we, as individuals, might be able to have some small impact on changing the fundamental natures of these fields, ultimately, they will have more impact on us than we do on them. The small changes we might bring are, as that saying I’ve just recently heard would have it, more stays the same in revolutions than is changed by them. But can we point to any of these fields in a way that Latour demands? Can we say – ‘here it is, this is the legal field’? I don’t think we can. But my problem is that I believe the emergent field still has an impact upon us – and that impact is bigger than the impact of any of the actors composing it. I can’t be consistently myopic with fields or society or culture – they are generalisations, it is true, but I’m not sure how we can do without them.
And I can see the contradiction I’m in here. And I don’t know how to get out of it. I can’t agree with Latour, but I haven’t found a satisfying way to disagree with him either. It’s very annoying. Which is, I suspect, exactly his point.
April 1, 2024
My background is in Social Network Analysis (SNA). About the time I was working on my dissertation, three decades ago, I began to see references in the context of SNA to something called Actor Network Theory (ANT). What ANT was was unclear to me, but things I heard sounded like ANT might involve ways to improve on the conception of social networks, ways of reinterpreting them – and objects within them – in a more phenomenological way, as semantic networks.
It was not a line of inquiry that I gave more than casual interest to at the time, nor for many years, but the snippets I had stuck in my mind.
Fast forward to present times when I am thinking again about my own theories of networks and was reminded of ANT. What, I thought, would be a good introduction to ANT? Online inquiries pointed to Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory.
I have found it, in many ways, a very unsatisfying book. For one thing, Latour writes (and thinks) in what seems to me – very stereotypically, as my experience with French academics is minimal – a very French academic way, which is to say looping around rather than coming direct to a point (also a very ANT approach), is frequently redundant, mixes formal with conversational, offers unusual labels for concepts, etc.
The “Interlude in the Form of a Dialogue” that ends the first of the two parts may be the clearest and most direct part of the entire book. It was only shortly before that point (p.131-133) that the meaning of “network” in ANT was made clear (see more below) and in that dialogue (p.142) that it also became clear that “theory” in ANT meant not a theory in the usual sense, but rather “about how to study things, or rather how not to study them….”, i.e. an anti-theory, as it were. It was thus also at that point that I decided there was no reason for me to continue on to reading Part II.
If we strip away all the French academic from the first half of this book, giving it a C. Wright Mills treatment, what do we have? The essence of ANT as I understand it from this book is a critique and/or correction of modes of operation in mainstream sociology, or at the very least and I think far more accurately, of misleading perceptions that mainstream sociology often gives rise to. There is value in such critique or correction to remind us of what sociology should be, but I think much that ANT expresses exception to are straw men versions, i.e. reductions, simplifications, or false assumptions, and some few of its “revelations” are banal.
In the Introduction, Latour tries to paint sociology as having defined the social, i.e. social structure, social forces, society, etc., as a special domain, a particular kind of relationship or “thing”, as one of only two possible approaches, against which the other is the ANT approach. It seems to me not only that there is an obvious third possibility, but that the third one is the prevailing one.
The social refers to relationality between entities/agents/actors. It is thus not distinct from the political, the economic, historical, etc, but inclusive of them. However, in practice these major spheres get partitioned out, with labels as such, and when they are, what remains, lacking distinct labels, carries the label social as a residual category, absent what has been cut out. This, I think, is very nearly the entirety of the artifact against which Latour’s theoretical house of cards is framed.
Latour offers five “controversies” or “uncertainties” to deploy against typical sociology: the nature of groups; actions; objects; facts; and the nature of what social science means. With regard to the first, I take his point as being that there are no static groups, except in narratives. Relations are fluid. Attributions of groupiness articulate a moment, or more likely recurrence, really re-performance, over time. Aggregates are constructs.
Similarly, actions are “overtaken”. Combined with the first point, this means our narratives, particularly choice of “actor” in them, can slide up or down scale an substitute various actors (in the semiotic sense), none of which has a priori privilege. This also means the “actor” need not be conscious, or the particular action, or at all. (This is a key, but IMO, minor departure from the “lived world” idea common in phenomenology.)
Objects (can) have agency. A computer AI can be an actor. Animals, the weather, abstract concepts… any of them can be actors in ANT. Latour offers this as a radical break from typical sociology. Again I think it is an exception from what may be implied by typical research, but not a conceptual departure for most sociologists.
The same kind or straw man reification used early on with social rears its ugly head again with network. ANT offers “network” as the quality of textual account. In other words, the richness of mediators, i.e. agents, those that do things, in the text. Latour distinguishes this from technical networks of physical things, like trains, road, internet, etc., but also from “organizational networks”. This omits the much wider understanding of social networks in SNA, of which “organizational networks” are one part. Also, Latour strangely sees transportation or communication networks as a “thing out there” (p.129) unlike the textual networks of ANT. All of these are identical.
A network is a perception of elements (nodes) linked to one another by “edges”, i.e. by relationships among them, thereby forming some aggregate. Usually it implies a concern for or emphasis on how the pattern of edges/relationships is of import to the nature of the nodes, their actions an relations and/or to emergent properties of the aggregate entity.
There is a tendency to think that the models, including network patterns, offered in social science, and even more so in the physical sciences have a validity independent of those doing the science. This is usually what is meant by saying something is objective, though Latour offers an alternate meaning to that word in light of the epistemological inscrutability of objectivity in the usual sense of the word. We are all well-advised, I think, to keep ANT’s uncertainties in mind as we undertake research, but I think our failures in this regard are mainly ones of practice, things that emerge by mistaking our shortcuts for things substantive, and that in our theories, or at least when pushed to defend them, most of us already avail ourselves of them.
I see very little in Latour’s account of ANT that strikes me as revelation or deep rupture in theory from what I already assume. So understood Latour’s advice boils down to an admonition that we avoid simplification and the temptation to reify our own models.
It was not a line of inquiry that I gave more than casual interest to at the time, nor for many years, but the snippets I had stuck in my mind.
Fast forward to present times when I am thinking again about my own theories of networks and was reminded of ANT. What, I thought, would be a good introduction to ANT? Online inquiries pointed to Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory.
I have found it, in many ways, a very unsatisfying book. For one thing, Latour writes (and thinks) in what seems to me – very stereotypically, as my experience with French academics is minimal – a very French academic way, which is to say looping around rather than coming direct to a point (also a very ANT approach), is frequently redundant, mixes formal with conversational, offers unusual labels for concepts, etc.
The “Interlude in the Form of a Dialogue” that ends the first of the two parts may be the clearest and most direct part of the entire book. It was only shortly before that point (p.131-133) that the meaning of “network” in ANT was made clear (see more below) and in that dialogue (p.142) that it also became clear that “theory” in ANT meant not a theory in the usual sense, but rather “about how to study things, or rather how not to study them….”, i.e. an anti-theory, as it were. It was thus also at that point that I decided there was no reason for me to continue on to reading Part II.
If we strip away all the French academic from the first half of this book, giving it a C. Wright Mills treatment, what do we have? The essence of ANT as I understand it from this book is a critique and/or correction of modes of operation in mainstream sociology, or at the very least and I think far more accurately, of misleading perceptions that mainstream sociology often gives rise to. There is value in such critique or correction to remind us of what sociology should be, but I think much that ANT expresses exception to are straw men versions, i.e. reductions, simplifications, or false assumptions, and some few of its “revelations” are banal.
In the Introduction, Latour tries to paint sociology as having defined the social, i.e. social structure, social forces, society, etc., as a special domain, a particular kind of relationship or “thing”, as one of only two possible approaches, against which the other is the ANT approach. It seems to me not only that there is an obvious third possibility, but that the third one is the prevailing one.
The social refers to relationality between entities/agents/actors. It is thus not distinct from the political, the economic, historical, etc, but inclusive of them. However, in practice these major spheres get partitioned out, with labels as such, and when they are, what remains, lacking distinct labels, carries the label social as a residual category, absent what has been cut out. This, I think, is very nearly the entirety of the artifact against which Latour’s theoretical house of cards is framed.
Latour offers five “controversies” or “uncertainties” to deploy against typical sociology: the nature of groups; actions; objects; facts; and the nature of what social science means. With regard to the first, I take his point as being that there are no static groups, except in narratives. Relations are fluid. Attributions of groupiness articulate a moment, or more likely recurrence, really re-performance, over time. Aggregates are constructs.
Similarly, actions are “overtaken”. Combined with the first point, this means our narratives, particularly choice of “actor” in them, can slide up or down scale an substitute various actors (in the semiotic sense), none of which has a priori privilege. This also means the “actor” need not be conscious, or the particular action, or at all. (This is a key, but IMO, minor departure from the “lived world” idea common in phenomenology.)
Objects (can) have agency. A computer AI can be an actor. Animals, the weather, abstract concepts… any of them can be actors in ANT. Latour offers this as a radical break from typical sociology. Again I think it is an exception from what may be implied by typical research, but not a conceptual departure for most sociologists.
The same kind or straw man reification used early on with social rears its ugly head again with network. ANT offers “network” as the quality of textual account. In other words, the richness of mediators, i.e. agents, those that do things, in the text. Latour distinguishes this from technical networks of physical things, like trains, road, internet, etc., but also from “organizational networks”. This omits the much wider understanding of social networks in SNA, of which “organizational networks” are one part. Also, Latour strangely sees transportation or communication networks as a “thing out there” (p.129) unlike the textual networks of ANT. All of these are identical.
A network is a perception of elements (nodes) linked to one another by “edges”, i.e. by relationships among them, thereby forming some aggregate. Usually it implies a concern for or emphasis on how the pattern of edges/relationships is of import to the nature of the nodes, their actions an relations and/or to emergent properties of the aggregate entity.
There is a tendency to think that the models, including network patterns, offered in social science, and even more so in the physical sciences have a validity independent of those doing the science. This is usually what is meant by saying something is objective, though Latour offers an alternate meaning to that word in light of the epistemological inscrutability of objectivity in the usual sense of the word. We are all well-advised, I think, to keep ANT’s uncertainties in mind as we undertake research, but I think our failures in this regard are mainly ones of practice, things that emerge by mistaking our shortcuts for things substantive, and that in our theories, or at least when pushed to defend them, most of us already avail ourselves of them.
I see very little in Latour’s account of ANT that strikes me as revelation or deep rupture in theory from what I already assume. So understood Latour’s advice boils down to an admonition that we avoid simplification and the temptation to reify our own models.
May 27, 2013
Within the framework of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) Latour (2005) delineates what he calls the "sociology of associations", setting it in contrast to the "sociology of the social" paradigm that has dominated the social sciences for over a century. Latour delineates two steps that must be undertaken successively in ANT, in each case by following the actors and their choices: the first is taking into account the number of possible participants in the social world and the second is putting into order the multiplicity discovered in the first.
There are two things about Latour's (2005) ANT that stand out for me as unquestionably valuable. The first is the de-centering of the human in favor of relations. In a time of ecological crisis, when sustainability is in question, it is urgent that we consider the vast range of entities that are part of our everyday social world. The second is the emphasis on sensitivity and respect. The ANT analyst follows, listens, traces relations and offers her work to the participants as they progressively construct a common world. Her work is a form of gift. If you are intent on making a better world, if you are inspired by and open to controversial ideas, if you enjoy thinking about the social sciences, sociology, and philosophy, then I think this book will produce a more sensitive 'you'.
There are two things about Latour's (2005) ANT that stand out for me as unquestionably valuable. The first is the de-centering of the human in favor of relations. In a time of ecological crisis, when sustainability is in question, it is urgent that we consider the vast range of entities that are part of our everyday social world. The second is the emphasis on sensitivity and respect. The ANT analyst follows, listens, traces relations and offers her work to the participants as they progressively construct a common world. Her work is a form of gift. If you are intent on making a better world, if you are inspired by and open to controversial ideas, if you enjoy thinking about the social sciences, sociology, and philosophy, then I think this book will produce a more sensitive 'you'.
June 10, 2017
This book is a wonder.
At heart it is about how we understand society, or how we define meaning and identity to social groups.
What is fantastic about Latour is his ability to guide the reader effortlessly through social philosophy, and does so with tinges of humor and writing that strikes you like a bolt of lightening. This is a humanistic book: that journalists and social scientists are eager to place people in distinct groupings but these groupings are at best arbitrary and at worse lead journalists and social scientists to pretend to have some intellectual superiority over them. Latour instead argues that it is association that define us...that we effectively live in many groups, often conflicting, and that social researchers should let people define their identities, particularly in novel cases, in which definition is not easy.
This book is important for anyone involved in social change or, in my case, user experience design...we often define users into social groups for the purposes of defining product features. The going theory now questions the role of user research, but I believe if we understood authors like Latour more, we would see how in novel and innovative situations, user research can lead to discovery.
I am re-reading this, taking notes, in the hopes of writing an article...it is a revelation.
A+
At heart it is about how we understand society, or how we define meaning and identity to social groups.
What is fantastic about Latour is his ability to guide the reader effortlessly through social philosophy, and does so with tinges of humor and writing that strikes you like a bolt of lightening. This is a humanistic book: that journalists and social scientists are eager to place people in distinct groupings but these groupings are at best arbitrary and at worse lead journalists and social scientists to pretend to have some intellectual superiority over them. Latour instead argues that it is association that define us...that we effectively live in many groups, often conflicting, and that social researchers should let people define their identities, particularly in novel cases, in which definition is not easy.
This book is important for anyone involved in social change or, in my case, user experience design...we often define users into social groups for the purposes of defining product features. The going theory now questions the role of user research, but I believe if we understood authors like Latour more, we would see how in novel and innovative situations, user research can lead to discovery.
I am re-reading this, taking notes, in the hopes of writing an article...it is a revelation.
A+
April 21, 2017
Desde la introducción:
"...when social scientist add the adjective "social" to some phenomenon, they designate a stabilized state of affairs, a bundle of ties that, later, may be movilized to account for some other phenomenon. There is nothing wrong with this use of the word as long as it designates what is already assembled together, without making any superfluous assumption about the nature of what is assembled. Problems arise, however, when "social" begins to mean a type of material, as if the adjective was roughly comparable to other terms like 'wooden', 'steely', 'biological', 'economical', 'mental', 'organizational', or 'linguistic'. At this point, the meaning of the word breaks down since it now designates two entirely different things: first, a movement during a process of assembling; and second, a specific type of ingredient that is supposed to differ from other materials... "
"...when social scientist add the adjective "social" to some phenomenon, they designate a stabilized state of affairs, a bundle of ties that, later, may be movilized to account for some other phenomenon. There is nothing wrong with this use of the word as long as it designates what is already assembled together, without making any superfluous assumption about the nature of what is assembled. Problems arise, however, when "social" begins to mean a type of material, as if the adjective was roughly comparable to other terms like 'wooden', 'steely', 'biological', 'economical', 'mental', 'organizational', or 'linguistic'. At this point, the meaning of the word breaks down since it now designates two entirely different things: first, a movement during a process of assembling; and second, a specific type of ingredient that is supposed to differ from other materials... "
October 22, 2012
For an author that champions good writing, this book is often a poor example of it. This is Latour's attempt to lay out what a handful of STS scholars had already been practicing for 25 years - the theory of ANT (actor-network theory). While I am sympathetic to the project, and to the goals of ANT, I found it difficult to get through this tome. Perhaps I haven't the patience of an ant that Latour suggests is necessary to be a true ANT scholar.
That being said, if you are interested in Latour's work and ANT, it's a must-read.
That being said, if you are interested in Latour's work and ANT, it's a must-read.
October 20, 2010
As far as theory goes this is one of the more readable ones. Having not read his previous works, I wasn't able to follow all of his references, but he goes through everything in such a friendly and reasonable tone that I could hardly accuse him of name-dropping. I only wish for more examples - the ones he did provide were incredibly helpful and a sign of genius. Revolutionary but in some ways basic - a very good read.
March 27, 2015
Not sure what I can say about this book that has not already been said. For the first time, maybe, the basic method of ANT is outlined, yet I'm not really sure that this will help it be better understood. Not that Latour is not clear, it is more the ANT project itself that flies in the face of so much academia. Of course, this is the very strength of Latour's account. As such, one should read this before any of his earlier works, in order to better understand those works.
September 30, 2015
Really have to say that his writing in English is hard to follow -- sometimes it just doesn't feel right. Just not the way English speakers normally write...It takes so much time to understand what he is actually trying to say...
November 22, 2014
This nonsense is more or less as one would expect if one has read Sokal et al.
November 9, 2017
I would say this is an essential read for anyone interested in sociology or critical theory (what Latour in this work refers to as 'critical sociology'). This is a post-Deleuzean, somewhat OOO, critique of 20th century critical theory and sociology. Latour is careful to admit that he is not being fair at all, but instead, in order to offer an introduction to what ANT (actor-network theory) has to offer, is rather straight forward and hyperbolic at times; that being said, he is actually pretty careful, and he definitely succeeds in presenting a novel and revealing new take on the field.
I see this as a stimulating challenge to all the poststructuralists, pscyhoanalysts, or social thinkers who commonly reduce social phenomena to invisible forces such as the market, the unconscious, culture, etc. These thinkers get it completely backwards, according to Latour. His goal is to conduct sociology with fewer foregone conclusions as to what the social is, including a dismissal of any and all total prevailing narratives that reduce actors to mere effects or intermediaries without granting them the dignity of full blown mediators (his terminology).
The first half the book develops the five uncertainties that are foundational driving intuitions of the social sciences that he wishes to re-awaken by disassociating them from their habituated corollaries (e.g. re-enliven the suspicion about agency, feeding on the intuition that actors do not fully or always know what or why they do what they do--but simultaneously resisting the knee-jerk follow-up which posits X, Y, or Z causal explanation). The second half of the book provides theorists with a small set of powerful conceptual devices that will help break out of certain habits (such as reverting between micro and macro to explain everything); these he calls 'clamps' (for clamping the social domain into a flat field that resists the micro-macro reductions, thus bringing to light much that has been overlooked by theorists and practitioners.
Some people have, in these reviews, said that he is repetitive. I personally found that helpful and not superfluous whatsoever. This is an introduction to a way of thinking that threatens a radical overhaul, one that runs contrary to established habits in these discourses (seriously, you'll start to notice how incredibly lazy sociologists or theorists often are when explaining social phenomena...). I think he does a stellar job and now I'm really excited to read We Were Never Modern, The Politics of Nature, and finally his new and tremendous sounding project on the multi-media online textbook 'An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence', for which this book only lays the groundwork at the end.
I see this as a stimulating challenge to all the poststructuralists, pscyhoanalysts, or social thinkers who commonly reduce social phenomena to invisible forces such as the market, the unconscious, culture, etc. These thinkers get it completely backwards, according to Latour. His goal is to conduct sociology with fewer foregone conclusions as to what the social is, including a dismissal of any and all total prevailing narratives that reduce actors to mere effects or intermediaries without granting them the dignity of full blown mediators (his terminology).
The first half the book develops the five uncertainties that are foundational driving intuitions of the social sciences that he wishes to re-awaken by disassociating them from their habituated corollaries (e.g. re-enliven the suspicion about agency, feeding on the intuition that actors do not fully or always know what or why they do what they do--but simultaneously resisting the knee-jerk follow-up which posits X, Y, or Z causal explanation). The second half of the book provides theorists with a small set of powerful conceptual devices that will help break out of certain habits (such as reverting between micro and macro to explain everything); these he calls 'clamps' (for clamping the social domain into a flat field that resists the micro-macro reductions, thus bringing to light much that has been overlooked by theorists and practitioners.
Some people have, in these reviews, said that he is repetitive. I personally found that helpful and not superfluous whatsoever. This is an introduction to a way of thinking that threatens a radical overhaul, one that runs contrary to established habits in these discourses (seriously, you'll start to notice how incredibly lazy sociologists or theorists often are when explaining social phenomena...). I think he does a stellar job and now I'm really excited to read We Were Never Modern, The Politics of Nature, and finally his new and tremendous sounding project on the multi-media online textbook 'An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence', for which this book only lays the groundwork at the end.
March 8, 2013
The term ‘nonhumans,’ through the workings of its prefix of negation (‘non-‘), designates a totality without having to positively decree its boundaries. As a consequence, all categorical differences other than that predicated by the absolute category of ‘humans,’ is effaced. Everything that is not human is nonhuman, and it does not really matter whether a specific entity happens (or happened) to be an animal, plant, mineral, or any other object. The logic of Actor Network Theory (ANT) which first articulates, and then problematizes the distinction between humans and nonhumans, relies on this effacement of (former) categorical distinctions. That is probably why ANT, while so minutely deconstructing the dichotomy between society and nature, or epistemology and ontology, nonetheless retains rather crudely the human/nonhuman distinction throughout its theorization.
True, the issue of anthropocentrism, which lies at the heart of this human/nonhuman division, is discussed by Latour in this book, as well as, for instance, in his paper “To Modernize or to Ecologize? That is the question” (and since I do not have the book at my disposal right now, I will refer to the latter paper for now). But his argument there is circular. He claims that in the regime of ecology, the very conception of “common humanity” is put to question: “we do not know what makes the common humanity of human beings and that, yes, maybe, without the elephants of Amboseli, without the meanderings waters of the Drome, without the bears of the Pyrenees, without the doves of the Lot or without the water table of the Beauce, they would not be human” (Latour, 260). However, if the elephants, the meandering waters, and all other entities on his list have been subsumed under the general category of “nonhumans,” saying that “humans” are defined in relation to them, is merely tautological. In other words, Latour’s anti-anthropocentrism consists in simply paraphrasing “humans” as “non-nonhumans,” which as anyone can see, does not help to put the human/nonhuman dichotomy in perspective (the fundamental question to ask is therefore not “have we ever been modern?” but “have we ever been human?“).
The primary gain achieved by the postulation of nonhumans, is the fluidity with which ANT can move between the ‘dead’ objects (i.e., things) and ‘living’ ones (i.e., organisms). The matter of life and death becomes secondary to the distinction between humans and nonhumans. But this pretense, and the consequent overlap between the living and the dead, is the vanishing point that allows ANT to formulate its distinct theoretical perspective: namely, viewing all entities as ‘actors.’
The most unstable and problematic of all 'actors' in ANT thus becomes forgrounded. They are those who distress the categorical generality of “nonhumans” that Latour posits, by being very much alive, but nonetheless never attaining the priviledged status (the sole positive category) of humans (‘us’): namely, animals and plants—or, to use a brilliant term coined by Harold Perkins, “biophysical actants” (Perkins, H.A. (2007) 'Ecologies of actornetworks and (non)social labor within the urban political economies of nature', Geoforum, 38 (6): 1152–62). The uniform reduction of such “biophysical actants” to the negative totality of “nonhumans” allows ANT to project the problematics of living “organisms” to that of non-living “objects,” and to consequently envisage the entirety of “nonhumans” as ‘actants/actors.’ In short, it is through the peculiar (mediocre) status of “nonhuman organisms” or “biophysical actants” that objects are enlivened in ANT, securing the necessary bridge between humans and nonhumans.
From a slightly different perspective, the same issue can be articulated as follows. Appearances notwithstanding, even the most seemingly inanimate organisms engage in nonsocial labor. However, the “labor” that Elm trees and the fungal pathogens, for instance, engage in, is ultimately that of self-reproduction. Trees grow, and fungi spread. Whatever interconnectedness they may have with the human society, the product of their labor is, in the end, themselves. If we recall Hanna Arendt’s famous distinctions between the types of human activities (see: The Human Condition), we could concede that the ‘biophysical actants’ really do engage in ‘labor,’ the necessary practice for maintaining life itself (or, the self-reproduction). However, it must also be reminded the Arendt opposed this notion of ‘labor’ to that of ‘work,’ an activity she defined as the fabrication of an artificial world of things (or, ‘inorganic nonhumans,’ so to speak), and moreover, criticized Marx for reducing these two activities under the singular category of ‘labor.’ The important point here, is that for Arendt, ‘labor’ was what brought humanity closest to animals (whether or not Arendt’s argument, which draws a simplistic dividing line between humans and animals is itself valid, is another issue). In other words, from Arendt’s perspective, both Marx and ANT make the same fallacy of equating humans and biophysical actants as “animal laborans,” by confounding ‘labor’ and ‘work’ (the crucial question thus becomes whether the nonhumans also engage in ‘work,’ the production of other nonhumans: Do trees produce non-trees? Do fungi produce non-fungi? And how would the disruption of the singular notion of “society” that emerges from such inquiry—if we stick to the Marxist definition of society as emerging from the exchange of products—be still identical to Latour’s project?). Thus, while the status of ‘biophysical actants’ as nonhumans in ANT brings them together with objects (i.e., inorganic products), the Marxist notion of ‘labor’ brings the same actants closer to humans. In short, the role of ‘biophysical actants’ is that of a double agent: to provide a common ground for humans and nonhumans, while at the same time maintaining the great divide.
This role of ‘biophysical actants’ is reenacted in Latour’s “Will Non-humans be Saved? An argument in ecotheology.” In order to prove his point that “Reference” (the way we know entities) and “Reproduction” (the ways entities persist) can and should be distinguished, Latour takes recourse to Darwin. After admitting that “the confusion between Reproduction and Reference was less noticeable when we were dealing with so-called ‘inert’ entities,” since “the ways we access them and the ways they are supposed to reproduce themselves are so similar that the collage or hybrid notion of matter was hardly noticeable” (Latour, 467), Darwin and all his biophysical actants (via Uexküll) step in to provide the necessary distinction. Simply put, Umwelt, or “the alternative medium in which biological organisms were allowed to reproduce” (Latour, 468) cannot be reduced to res extensa. “Individual organisms in its own Umwelt” (Latour, 472) is thus inserted into the naive equation between “the world of mere objects” and “nature” (Latour, 471, 472) to open up the world of “nonhumans.” The fact that this regime is addressed as “Reproduction,” simply reminds us once again of the ‘labor’ these actants are supposed to engage inside their respective Umwelten.
True, the issue of anthropocentrism, which lies at the heart of this human/nonhuman division, is discussed by Latour in this book, as well as, for instance, in his paper “To Modernize or to Ecologize? That is the question” (and since I do not have the book at my disposal right now, I will refer to the latter paper for now). But his argument there is circular. He claims that in the regime of ecology, the very conception of “common humanity” is put to question: “we do not know what makes the common humanity of human beings and that, yes, maybe, without the elephants of Amboseli, without the meanderings waters of the Drome, without the bears of the Pyrenees, without the doves of the Lot or without the water table of the Beauce, they would not be human” (Latour, 260). However, if the elephants, the meandering waters, and all other entities on his list have been subsumed under the general category of “nonhumans,” saying that “humans” are defined in relation to them, is merely tautological. In other words, Latour’s anti-anthropocentrism consists in simply paraphrasing “humans” as “non-nonhumans,” which as anyone can see, does not help to put the human/nonhuman dichotomy in perspective (the fundamental question to ask is therefore not “have we ever been modern?” but “have we ever been human?“).
The primary gain achieved by the postulation of nonhumans, is the fluidity with which ANT can move between the ‘dead’ objects (i.e., things) and ‘living’ ones (i.e., organisms). The matter of life and death becomes secondary to the distinction between humans and nonhumans. But this pretense, and the consequent overlap between the living and the dead, is the vanishing point that allows ANT to formulate its distinct theoretical perspective: namely, viewing all entities as ‘actors.’
The most unstable and problematic of all 'actors' in ANT thus becomes forgrounded. They are those who distress the categorical generality of “nonhumans” that Latour posits, by being very much alive, but nonetheless never attaining the priviledged status (the sole positive category) of humans (‘us’): namely, animals and plants—or, to use a brilliant term coined by Harold Perkins, “biophysical actants” (Perkins, H.A. (2007) 'Ecologies of actornetworks and (non)social labor within the urban political economies of nature', Geoforum, 38 (6): 1152–62). The uniform reduction of such “biophysical actants” to the negative totality of “nonhumans” allows ANT to project the problematics of living “organisms” to that of non-living “objects,” and to consequently envisage the entirety of “nonhumans” as ‘actants/actors.’ In short, it is through the peculiar (mediocre) status of “nonhuman organisms” or “biophysical actants” that objects are enlivened in ANT, securing the necessary bridge between humans and nonhumans.
From a slightly different perspective, the same issue can be articulated as follows. Appearances notwithstanding, even the most seemingly inanimate organisms engage in nonsocial labor. However, the “labor” that Elm trees and the fungal pathogens, for instance, engage in, is ultimately that of self-reproduction. Trees grow, and fungi spread. Whatever interconnectedness they may have with the human society, the product of their labor is, in the end, themselves. If we recall Hanna Arendt’s famous distinctions between the types of human activities (see: The Human Condition), we could concede that the ‘biophysical actants’ really do engage in ‘labor,’ the necessary practice for maintaining life itself (or, the self-reproduction). However, it must also be reminded the Arendt opposed this notion of ‘labor’ to that of ‘work,’ an activity she defined as the fabrication of an artificial world of things (or, ‘inorganic nonhumans,’ so to speak), and moreover, criticized Marx for reducing these two activities under the singular category of ‘labor.’ The important point here, is that for Arendt, ‘labor’ was what brought humanity closest to animals (whether or not Arendt’s argument, which draws a simplistic dividing line between humans and animals is itself valid, is another issue). In other words, from Arendt’s perspective, both Marx and ANT make the same fallacy of equating humans and biophysical actants as “animal laborans,” by confounding ‘labor’ and ‘work’ (the crucial question thus becomes whether the nonhumans also engage in ‘work,’ the production of other nonhumans: Do trees produce non-trees? Do fungi produce non-fungi? And how would the disruption of the singular notion of “society” that emerges from such inquiry—if we stick to the Marxist definition of society as emerging from the exchange of products—be still identical to Latour’s project?). Thus, while the status of ‘biophysical actants’ as nonhumans in ANT brings them together with objects (i.e., inorganic products), the Marxist notion of ‘labor’ brings the same actants closer to humans. In short, the role of ‘biophysical actants’ is that of a double agent: to provide a common ground for humans and nonhumans, while at the same time maintaining the great divide.
This role of ‘biophysical actants’ is reenacted in Latour’s “Will Non-humans be Saved? An argument in ecotheology.” In order to prove his point that “Reference” (the way we know entities) and “Reproduction” (the ways entities persist) can and should be distinguished, Latour takes recourse to Darwin. After admitting that “the confusion between Reproduction and Reference was less noticeable when we were dealing with so-called ‘inert’ entities,” since “the ways we access them and the ways they are supposed to reproduce themselves are so similar that the collage or hybrid notion of matter was hardly noticeable” (Latour, 467), Darwin and all his biophysical actants (via Uexküll) step in to provide the necessary distinction. Simply put, Umwelt, or “the alternative medium in which biological organisms were allowed to reproduce” (Latour, 468) cannot be reduced to res extensa. “Individual organisms in its own Umwelt” (Latour, 472) is thus inserted into the naive equation between “the world of mere objects” and “nature” (Latour, 471, 472) to open up the world of “nonhumans.” The fact that this regime is addressed as “Reproduction,” simply reminds us once again of the ‘labor’ these actants are supposed to engage inside their respective Umwelten.
December 17, 2021
Well, this is quite a revolutionary take on sociology, although Latour's constant ridicule of the sociology of the social and critical sociology would have been time better spent proving many of his outrageously unsupported claims. And in the end he says, on the very last page, he says "I am well aware that I have not sad enough to substantiate any of these numerous points." Well! I couldnt help but notice that he wasted many pages ridiculing his predecessors when he should have been elaborating on the methods of deploying controversies. Here he is telling us about his radical methodology, all the while clouding our understanding by prefacing every statement about what it IS with statements about what it shouldnt be, and how terribly embarrassing it was for those who did that! Latour makes a statement in one of the closing chapters about how Nietzsche wrote about the man of ressentiment, and he kids that this could have easily been the sociologist of the social. I am fairly certain that for every statement teaching us about actor-network theory, Latour has made at least two statements chastising other sociologies. Talk about a man of ressentiment!
And in the second part we come to find out that Latour doesnt disagree with his predecessors much at all! He simply wanted to clear up a few confusions. Being very familiar with sociology and critical sociology, I wondered all throughout this book just who the hell he was so fed up with, since he arrives at conclusions which are very much in line with sociology and critical sociology! Why, I think Latour was being simply controversial. And his arguments do not change the content of social theory so much as they make semantic distinctions for the clarity of that content. Even his idea that we must distinguish the deployment from the collection of social entities, which goes hand in hand with his insistence that social theory's metrology has interrupted the collection of the social -- this is nothing novel, but actually a controversy taken straight from critical sociology's attempt to reconcile theory and praxis!
I swear to god sometimes I think Latour never really familiarized himself with critical sociology.
Just the same, despite all of my gripes, if one is able to chew the rind and spit the seeds, this proves to be an inspiring and revolutionary work. Albeit, desperately in need of editing.
And in the second part we come to find out that Latour doesnt disagree with his predecessors much at all! He simply wanted to clear up a few confusions. Being very familiar with sociology and critical sociology, I wondered all throughout this book just who the hell he was so fed up with, since he arrives at conclusions which are very much in line with sociology and critical sociology! Why, I think Latour was being simply controversial. And his arguments do not change the content of social theory so much as they make semantic distinctions for the clarity of that content. Even his idea that we must distinguish the deployment from the collection of social entities, which goes hand in hand with his insistence that social theory's metrology has interrupted the collection of the social -- this is nothing novel, but actually a controversy taken straight from critical sociology's attempt to reconcile theory and praxis!
I swear to god sometimes I think Latour never really familiarized himself with critical sociology.
Just the same, despite all of my gripes, if one is able to chew the rind and spit the seeds, this proves to be an inspiring and revolutionary work. Albeit, desperately in need of editing.
April 5, 2024
This late Latour book is the epitome of all that is bad about “theory” (I heard his earlier work is better, but I’m not sure it’s worth reading at this point). Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) probably has a history I’m not aware about, but at least pertaining to Latour’s presentation, it goes no further than an over-complicated trope of sociological analysis, i.e., it is no better than saying people and groups are interconnected agents in a huge constellation with points of intersection, change, etc. He also wants to emphasize starting analysis with ‘uncertainty’ and at sites of ‘controversy’ yet wants to strongly reject every single framework that ever existed (psychoanalysis, Marxism, post-colonialisms, post-structuralisms, etc.) that CONTAIN what he thinks is novel in his own presentation. He ends up describing the Lacanian ‘Real’ or ideas of ‘drive’ in German Idealism and Freud, of course, for his ‘uncertainty.’ Also, ‘controversy’ seems to contradict and be practically useless for his project because nothing is analyzed until the ‘weakest link is rupturing/ruptured,’ or after it’s too late—especially with the fact that he explicitly inverts the ‘Theses on Feuerbach’! “It might be time to put Marx’s famous quote back on its feet: ‘Social scientists have transformed the world in various ways; the point, however, is to interpret it” (42). This makes no sense—social scientists have not transformed the world at all. This becomes even more ridiculous considering he continues to criticize sociologists for not using statistical data and not being at empirical sites relevant to their work. Additionally, Latour has a really bad habit of listing 20 elements or even rhetorical questions as an argumentative device that just doesn’t work. Simultaneously, his writing in general is extremely convoluted and not even in a literary way that is interesting (I’m too exhausted to even describe it, but just read one page and you will know…). Lastly, he calls on sociologists to write clearly and responds to an external critique of sociologists being ‘mere storytellers’; the ir0nic thing is that he falls into both categories… Truly a frustrating read. I recommend reading literally any other theory…
September 11, 2023
An absolutely extraordinary work by Bruno Latour. If I had found his book "We were never modern" tremendously redundant and excessively dialectic, this one I loved. I knew nothing of the ANT, and I'm not specially into sociology. Even so, I have found this book paradigm changing, finally defeating the ghosts that social sociology has been created ever since Marx came around. It seems that in the end, we can go back to Earth, to networking and collectivities: Latour shapes a new reality for us in this masterpiece, and if I ever find myself using the big words, it will be with shame. There are so many new notions, new ways of looking at things, at both assemblies of human - non-human, that it's just unbelievable how much further it goes -relatively to traditional sociology- on providing tools to comprehend the net we're all entangled in, what was once called "society" and never should be again. This is a book that deserves to be studied.
October 21, 2023
I was introduced to Actor Network Theory (ANT) during a course in interaction design, where we discussed more-than-human perspectives to design and the application of object oriented ontology as a methodological tool. I was truly impressed by the possibilities it offered to design research in ways that surpass conventional approaches. Despite my appreciation for ANT as perspective to be used in research practice, I cannot say I enjoyed this particular book. It's ironic that it has a whole chapter dedicated to the merits of good writing, while it is a pain to read (especially the second half). I'm not saying I prefer "simplicity" but I believe that social theory can ALWAYS be written in a more clear, accessible and enjoyable format than the theorists so far have done. Reassambling the Social is not an exception in that sense.
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