Actor Network Theory

Rules and Principles of Method–adapted from Science in Action by Bruno Latour

The Rules

1. STS scholars study science in action.  This means that ANT methods work best for the study of facts and machines that are either still in production or have been opened up for further study by the advent of controversy.  (This is why it was difficult to conduct an analysis of units of measurement or the law of conservation of energy in class!  But it’s easier to show you that, than just tell you, so thanks for struggling through that with me.)

2. STS scholars are not interested in finding the intrinsic qualities of science–rather thy are interested in finding out how users transform those qualities to suit their purposes.

3.  Because ANT technicians use social construction theory, they believe that controversies cause us to view nature in particular ways–not the other way around.  In other words, we cannot say that good science is the most natural science.  Rather, we produce what is natural, and that networked production becomes the good science.

4. Likewise, we cannot use society to settle a controversy.  Controversies, as they settle, produce society, so the best we can do is figure out what human and non-human actors were a part of this production.

5. Like the Strong Programme, ANT technicians argue that you have to study thing symmetrically.  In fact, they argue for super-symmetry, which includes non-human actors.  In order to study technoscience properly, then, you have to be heterogeneous (concerned with human and non-human actors) and you have to be willing to spend time uncovering the vast network that produces science.

6. Also like the Strong Programme, ANT technicians do not consider people to be inherently irrational.  Rather, they look to uncover what network breakdown made the losing side of science look irrational.  (Think back to the air pump reading we did, and add in all all the non-human actors that would make that reading even more descriptive–the machine, pamphlets, tools, air, etc. as actors.  That’s what an ANT analysis tends to look like.)

7.  ANT technicians, in the end, do not ignore the fact that networks include the subjective thoughts and feelings and decisions of scientists.  In fact, they do acknowledge that as part of their analysis.  But they will only do so if the network cannot explain materially and linguistically how something was produced.  The network analysis always comes first.

The Principles

1. The qualities of facts and machines are a consequence of collective action, not the cause of collective action.

2. Scientists and engineers create allies and defend each other’s work  in order to create favorable circumstances for their ideas.  This is where rhetorical work and boundary policing as STS terms come into play.

3. We do not deal with science, technology, or society head on–we deal with all the associations that create science, technology, and society.  In other words, understanding how a machine works is the same thing as understanding who the people behind it were, what they wanted, and how they built the network that produced the machine.

4. Science and technology are only one subset of technoscience–the network includes many other actors.

5. “Irrationality is always an accusation made by someone building a network over someone else who stands in the way.”  Therefore, the size of the network can tell us something about the claim being made.  A large network might depict how difficult it was to win the scientific argument over another claim.  A small network might depict an easy victory, or a victory that relied on lots of blackboxes that were never opened and questioned.  It could also depict very limited resources on the losing side.

6. The history of technoscience is not the history of science and technology.  It is the history of associations between people and things as they created the networks that produce science and technology.

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The Analysis

1.  Select a topic that is currently in motion in some way.

2. Determine its central claim and how you want to question that claim.

3. Determine which texts have produced that claim.

4. Determine which textual components (or inscriptions) have produced those texts–what definitions, hypotheses, conclusions, etc. are a part of the rhetoric supporting the texts that support the claim?

5. Determine which instruments or tools produced those inscriptions.

6. Determine who is defending this topic and its central claim–is it supported by scientists? politicians? its tools?

7.  Determine how strong the claim is by considering the tests that have been performed to test it.  Did it hold up to difficult trials of strength?

8. Determine what routines support the claim.

9.  Finally, take a step back and look at the network you have uncovered as you made these lists.  What points on the network seem to be the strongest? the most basic? the most political?  the most fragile?  Describing the network and coming to conclusions about how and why it works is the ANT analysis.