4. Tuesday 14th June 11:00-13:00 BST
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Post-Actor/Actant Network Theory (post-ANT)
Actor (or Actant) Network Theory (ANT) is most famously associated with Bruno Latour, the co-author of the seminal work Laboratory Life, but Michel Callon's article is an early and excellent illustration of the approach that is, perhaps, just as surprising as Latour's work. Annemarie Mol & John Law's article—the preliminary reading—is a wonderful empirical illustration of ANT. The books by John Law, Annmarie Mol and by David Turnbull are well worth reading, especially Mol (2002) (but make sure you read the 'subtext'—I read the subtext in each chapter after the corresponding 'main' text and that seemed to work) if you have the time and interest. Here is Latour's criticism 'in a nutshell' of the claim that an examination of the 3000-year-old body of Ramsees II revealed that he had died of tubercuosis:
“It is only if we believe that facts escape their network of production that we are faced with the question whether or not Ramses II died of tuberculosis.” (Latour. 2000. p. 250)
and here is Lahire's damning, but in my opinion flawed response:
“In the late 1990s, the Val-de-Grâce hospital (Paris) was able to prove that Ramses had probably died of tuberculosis, but Latour seriously questions the legtimacy of saying that the pharoah ‘died from a bacillus discvered by Robert Koch in 1882.’ Latour cleary highlights here the confusion between the scientific knowledge of the cause of illness and the reality of the facts. Rameses II did indeed die of a disease the origins of which would not be discovered until 1882, in other words, some 3,000 years later. There is no paradox, no anachronism, no scientism in such a statement. What can be added, however, is that the lives of patients and even of bacilli are no longer the same since the discovery of the bacillus. As a result of that discovery, vaccines and drugs have been created to erradicate this illness. What changes, therefore, are the social practices associated with the illness and the response of people to what is happening to them. At the time of Ramses II, as in our own time, the bacillus from which the illness originated, but which nobody was in a position to name or to study, existed and were active independently of any notion of the nature of the disease or knowledge. From one period of time to another what has changed is the status of the disease, the treatment of the patient, the gestures and the attitudes adopted in order to avoid transmission of the disease. Once the bacillus was discovered, new measures, new preventative or healing strategies coud be put in place. The same could be said of any object where the many idfferent ways in which it is appropriated at any one time change the meaning, status, function and practice asociated with it. The difference here is that the bacillus could only be discovered once specific instruments (such as the microscope) allowed it to become visible. But processes which are invisible to the naked eye and as yet undiscovered are just as real as those which are visible and scientifically recognized." (Lahire, 2019. 8-9)
This misses the point entirely: in this tirade Lahire is revealing a rather naïve realism that fails to recgnise any alternative ontological positions. Most of Latour's chapter uses the eventual domination of Pasteur's explanation of 'germs' carried in contamination over Pouchet's 'spontaneous generation' to illustrate his argument. Of course, naïve realism might legitimately be construed as an essential component—an 'obligatory passage point', perhaps—of the networks of (western) medicine, but this does not excuse its presence in the discourse of a professor of sociology, who should know better (and probaby does, but he also knows 'which side of his bread is buttered')!
The 2021 book by Michel Callon is an intriguing dismantling of classical economics in post-ANT mode. I'm using the prefix 'post' to encourage thinking about actor network theory as marking a point in time following which a range of ANT-inspired work has emerged and here, in particular, Mol, Law, Turnbull and, of course, Callon and Latour: the categories 'actor', 'network', and 'theory' are being challenged in much of this work (see Latour, 1996.
The two collections edited (one co-edited) by Lorraine Daston offer historical illustrations of science that, though not in the ANT mould (apart from Latour's article in the first) might help to relieve you of the notion that at last we've got it right and everything in the past was wrong, in other words, this too shall pass!
The book by Berger & Luckman was another seminal work that deserves the attention of anyone interested in social research. I first read it over forty years ago and found it very hard going; I recently re-read it and found it to be quite straightforward, which may indicate that I've learned something in the last forty years!
Preliminary Reading
Additional Reading
Berger, P. L. and T. Luckmann (1971 (1966)). The Social Construction of Reality:A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. London, Penguin.
Bourdieu, P. (2021). Forms of Capital: General sociology, volume 3, Lectures at the Collège de France 1983-84. Cambridge, Polity.
Callon, M. (1984). "Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay." The Sociological Review. 32(1): 196-233.
Callon, M. (1999). "Actor-Network Theory—the market test." The Sociological Review 47(1): 181-195.
Callon, M. (2021). Markets in the Making: Rethinking competition, goods and innovation. New York, Zone Books (Kindle Edition).
Daston, L. (2000). The Coming into Being of Scientific Objects. Biographies of Scientific Objects. L. Daston. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Daston, L. and E. Lunbeck, Eds. (2011). Histories of Scientific Observation Chicago, University of Chicago Press.Hakim, C. (2010). "Erotic Capital." European Sociological Review 26(5): 499-518.
Lahire, B. (2019). This is Not Just a Painting: An inquiry into art, domination, magic and the sacred. Cambridge, Polity.
Latour, B. (1996). "On actor-network theory: a few clarifications." Soziale Welt 47(4): 369-381.
Latour, B. and S. Woolgar (1979). Laboratory Life: The social construction of scientific facts. Beverly Hills, Sage.
Law, J. 2004. After Method: Mess in social science research. London. Routledge.Mol, A. (2002). The Body Multiple; ontology in medical practice. Durham, NC, Duke University Press.
Mol, A. (2008). The Logic of Care: Health and the problem of patient choce. London, Routledge.
Turnbull, D. (2000). Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: makers of knowledge and space. London. Taylor & Francis.
Discussion points
Catherine Hakim seems to begun her article (see above) with the assumption that 'erotic capital' is a reality. How might she have explored her research interest without this assumption? In what way(s) would this (not) have been a better approach? How might this issue relate to Mol & Law's article?
Hakim's six elements of "erotic capital':
1. beauty 2. sexual attractiveness 3. social skills 4. liveliness 5. social presentation 6. sexual competence
What is praxiography. how does it differ from ethnography?
How does Mol conceptualise ontology?
What distinguishes regions, networks and fluids respectively?
What is meant by 'the social construction of reality'?