‘Birthing the Hydra’:
An Actor Network Analysis of the
‘Systems and the Information Society’ Network
Outcome Resolve Gold: Work to Date (December 2001)
Introduction
These working notes present an initial analysis of the coming into being of the ‘Systems and the
Information Society Network’ (SISN) and its intended ‘birthing’ of a series of ‘micro groups’
whose intent in turn is to pursue their own ‘outcome resolves’. One of them, the Gold ‘micro’
group has carried out this research in pursuance of its own ‘Outcome Resolve’. Which is to:
‘Define the Syntegration network as itself an actor network mobilised to address the
problematisation of the focal actor, Raul Espejo. To look at the tools, methods and
techniques used for bringing into being the network and evaluate their and the whole
networks success/failure. From this we seek to develop an effective approach (with
associated tools and techniques) for bringing into being other actor-networks.’
The Analysis
This analysis is firstly based on gold group members themselves participating in the project,
secondly undertaking interviews with the SISN Project Team and a small sample of other
participants (this will be extended in the New Year) and thirdly a study of the SISN Web site,
other translated technologies and documentation. Further interviews are planned with the
various actor network micro-groups as they seek to address their problematisations through the
realisation of their ‘outcome resolves’. Each group’s ‘outcome resolve’ was formed directly as
a result of the groups members taking part in the SISN project’s Team Syntegration exercise.
The analysis here is not in traditional form; namely a compilation of the interview findings, an
extraction of their main themes and a reflection on them in the light of other research and
theories. Rather, it will be undertaken using tools for the systemic representation of actornetworks. These have either been developed elsewhere or specifically for this task. The use and
development of these tools is important, as one of the intentions behind the project is to create
such tools to enable the further study of and interventions in information systems in society.
The SISN project is viewed here as a socio-technical actor network. Using Actor Network
Theory (ANT)1 as its underpinning framework the analysis provides representational models of
the coming about and subsequent maturation of the SISN network and its intend decomposition
into micro group actor networks. The analysis here follows the dictum of Bruno Latour, who
along with Michelle Callon is one of the progenitors of ANT, for understanding actor-networks
and the actors within them. He says:
‘…whenever you want to understand a network, go look for the actors, but when you want to
understand an actor go look through the net the work it has traced.’
Latour (2001) ‘Gabriel Tarde And The End Of The Social’
Http://Www.Ensmp.Fr/Pageperso/Csi/Brunolatour.Html
1
For those readers who are not familiar with Actor Network Theory, with its focus on how actor networks come
into being and develop, (along with its somewhat arcane terminology) a description with references is provided
below in Appendix B. In addition, taxonomy of actors and actor types used in this analysis can be found in File
‘SISN Actors Table 1’ attached.
The Initial Analysis
The analysis firstly identifies the problematisation for which the SISN network was brought
into being and the three ‘Obligatory Passage Points (OPP) it has had the traverse to date. Then,
secondly, following Latour’s dictum it identifies the different actors in their various forms that
have to date constituted the SISN network: human, machine and ‘humanchine’ actor
integrations, (see File SISN Actors: Table 1 and Table 2). Thirdly, following the same dictum it
identifies the work the actors do in the network in order to understand them. See: File OPP1
Diagrams Working, File OPP2 Participant Engagement Diagrams Working, File OPP 3 Group
Intentionality to Enact Outcome Resolves
Specify the Problematisation
Secondly, it delineates the three Obligatory Passage Points the SISN has traversed so far in
addressing the overall problematisation and sub problematisations set down by the focal actor,
Prof. R. Espejo in interviews with him. These have been identified respectively as:
Table 1. The SISN Problematisation
Overall Focal Actors Problematisation:
‘Systems thinking needs to be well grounded in practice if it is to be effective. The means of
researching and achieving this is the SISN, in which practitioners and ‘systems thinkers’ are
brought together.’ (Note how the problematisation contains both an issue and solution)
Focal Actor Problematisations
Obligatory Passage Point
To give the project overt legitimacy and the
OPP 1‘Project Approval’
necessary actor resources it is necessary create
a proposal for a SISN network that the EPSRC
will approve and provide a budget.
There is a need to further concretise the SISN OPP 2 ‘Participant Engagement’,
network through the enrolment of the human
participants and their identification of the
project’s opening question.
To bring into being, micro groups whose post OPP3 ‘Group Intentionality to Enact Outcome
OPP3 intent will be to make manifest their self Resolves’.
defined ‘outcome resolves’ and support them in
doing so in order to realise the solution to the
original problematisation.
Understand the Network
The analysis then proceeds to identify the actors that have been enrolled and translated into the
SISN actor network as it reaches and subsequently traverses each of the three ‘Obligatory
Passage Points’ (OPP) that have constituted SISN maturation trajectory to date. This fulfils the
first of Latour’s requirements for understanding the network, namely identifying the actors
within it. (See: File OPP1 Diagrams Working, File OPP2 Participant Engagement Diagrams
Working, File OPP 3 Group Intentionality to Enact Outcome Resolves).
Understand the Actors
The next requirement of Latour’s is to understand the actors within the Network by identifying
the ‘work they trace’, i.e. what they do. To do this firstly entailed identifying the activities of
the actor network necessary to traversing each of its OPPs, in addressing the focal actor’s
initiating problematisations. This was achieved using the tools of the Soft Information Systems
Methodology ( ). These tools are based on the concept of the human/machine activity system.
The modelling tools used were, respectively, ‘problematisation’ specification, relevant system,
root definition and finally the human/machine activity system model. These tools were used
form representational models of the SISN as it traversed each of its three OPPs. Having
developed these representations of the SISN the ‘work’, i.e. the actors that undertake each of
the activities in each of the three OPP models were identified. This enabled the identification of
the work each actor has traced in the SISN project in the real-world. (See: File OPP1 Diagrams
Working, File OPP2 Participant Engagement Diagrams Working, and File OPP 3 Group
Intentionality to Enact Outcome Resolves for details.)
Continuing the Research into the Sub Groups
The next phase of this research focuses on studying some or all of the other subgroups as they
realising their ‘outcome resolves’, their problematisations, formed in the SISN network’s
traversing OPP3. This phase will research into and analyse the hydra of micro group actor
networks that were birthed as a result of this network traversing its OPP 3. The OPP3 was
intended not only to facilitate groups coming into being but also form within them actors with a
‘genetic’ predisposition to sustained intéressemment, enrolment and mobilisation. Whether this
occurs or whether the issues – people, relationships, inadequate previous facilitation,
interdisciplinary conflicts, poorly framed ASIs and group themes - stunt or even prevents each
micro-group’s development waits to seen in the next piece of research. The role of the central
mother SISN network nurturing it prodigies will also be studied.
The emergence of micro groups is an interesting phenomenon, for, according to ANT, to
consolidate themselves as actor networks and ensure their survival each will have to traverse
their own OPPs. This means, if they are attain their own identity, a focal actor will have create
within the micro network’ separate intéressemment by which they escape the parental network
aligning the interests of the other actors with its own. To be effective, the micro-groups focal
actor, will have to exclude or even translate the mother network into itself and so doing assert
its own identity and thus ensure its own persistence and functionality. The future activities of
the current parent network will also have change from one of birthing to one of nursing and
protecting its progeny; this too will be studied. They are attempting this already via other actors
ubiquitous throughout the networks namely E-mail and the Internet and in addition running a
series of seminars for each group. This process will be the subject of the next phase of Gold
group in realising their own outcome resolve.
This is the summation of the work carried out by Gold group to date in realising its own
outcome resolve. For future developments ‘Watch this space’
Interim Findings on the Micro-groups birthed by the ‘Systems and the
Information Society’ Network (Gold Group May 2002).
‘Finally, we would like to encourage the coordinators of the groups and the members (and
critics) to maintain the momentum on each topic and move forward with the commitments set in
their outcome resolves.’
Alfonso Reyes Support Team Leader E-mail
Following (telephone and face to face) interviews with a number of micro-group coordinators it
appears that the groups formed through the team syntegrity process and the actors translated
into them have, using ANT terminology, only partially if at all traversed the necessary
obligatory passage points to achieve full independent viability. As a result they have not
mobilsed to fully address their problematisation, in the form of their ‘outcome resolves’.
Though this is only part of the story. Essentially once they left the Team Syntegration process
an intéressemment of the actors in each of the micro groups in the SISN project failed to form.
Such an intéressemment would have been capable of precluding the influences of the other
networks and align each actor’s personal interests with that of the micro group’s focal actor to
address the identified problematisation. There were many reason’s for this: for the individual
actors the transaction costs and returns of producing papers and communicating with others to
achieve this, lack of time, pressures of work and family, divergent interests, personal and
workplace priorities, time and distance unmediated by effective technologies. The SISN chat
room also continued to be ineffective. Thus, each micro network was to a greater or lesser
extent still born or at least failed to thrive post syntegration. (Having said this there were
spontaneous instances of additional more robust micro-networks being formed by some of
actors within the SISN, often those who had shared interests or were exploring future
collaborations). The fragile micro-group networks existed within environments where much
more powerful actor-networks were present eager to translate their actors in order to address
their own problematisations or unwilling to release them. Paradoxically, one amongst these
more powerful networks, by misfortune rather than design, was the mother SISN network itself
and the technologies deployed within it.
From within the SISN mother network its focal actor set up a series of workshops to which the
group coordinators along with actor from their group would make a presentation on topic
related to the micro-groups ‘outcome-resolves’. The majority of these have at the time of
writing this note been delivered, usually by each micro-group’s focal actor. Often with
members of their own and other micro-groups present. However it was not the micro groups on
the whole who have done this. Rather it was their co-ordinators acting in response to a request
from the established SISN mother network’s focal actor. It is as if the invisible ties built up
within the SISN network and the relationships forged between them and its focal actor (which
extended often in time and space back beyond the boundaries of the SISN network itself)
‘reeled’ them back in to their progenitor network by some invisible umbilical of
intéressemment, or never really let them go in the first place. This is not to denigrate the
workshops. From the reports of the attendees, from personal experience they were both
interesting in their own right and insightful in manifesting cogent responses to each of the
original ‘statements of intent’. Nor is it to suggest that the project has itself not born
considerable fruit in terms of outputs and learning, both of an intended and unintended kind.
The ‘Team Syntegration’ methodology for example, which had been such a powerful actor in
forging the SISN mother network’s, intéressemment as well as translating and mobilising the
actors within it had never before been used to give birth to a network of micro-groups. In fact
the methodology’s main strength as an actor lay in its capacity, as in this case, to create and
consolidate problem-solving networks, enabling them to traverse the OPPs necessary to
identifying the ‘outcome resolves’ that would address the identified problematisation, whilst
simultaneously mobilising the actors within that same network to address them. This it was
successful in. However, in not having the capacity to equip the hydra of micro-groups formed
with the internal aligned interests and the intéressemment to survive beyond the ‘nest’ of the
SISN network the Team Syntigration methodology was, in ANT parlance, an artefact that
ultimately, in its current form, ‘betrayed’ (Callon, 1986) the focal actor who had translated it
into the SISN network and spoken so strongly on its behalf. It wasn’t the only one. The Internet
chatroom also failed to support the micro-groups in their formation and functioning. The website too, so powerful in facilitating the ‘Team Syntigration’ process reinforced the center
against the periphery. In the post-syntegration environment the SISN web-site continued to be a
medium of the mother network. It not only provided information in the period before and after
the original meeting of the network but also supported the subsequent workshops. It did this by
giving access to the materials (such as these findings) that was to be presented within the
workshop, to individual actors rather than the micro-groups and their focal actors. Thereby
usurping the role of the focal actor of each micro-group in using information and technologies
as artifacts of intéressemment. The web-site was a mediating technology that radiated outward
from the center rather than facilitating communications within and between the multiple microgroups that had been formed – though this may not have been the intention of its progenitors.
The e-mail played a similar role (see above quote), both enabling center/periphery
communication whilst betraying it at the same time. This is not to say that these enabling
artifacts could not, through processes of translation, but reconfigured in the future to address
the issues here and be instrumental within future processes of birthing a hydra of micro-groups.
Overall then whilst there were outputs from the Team Syntegrity process, they were not those
that were originally intended by the SISN network’s focal actor. The power of the mother
network in combination with the technologies employed, including the Team Syntegrity
approach itself, plus the circumstances of individual participant actor post syntigration militated
against the emergence of powerful micro groups capable of fully addressing their self identified
problematisations; their outcome resolves. Oddly enough the outcome resolves were addressed.
This was achieved to a greater or lesser degree by the mother network via the workshops with
the support of the communication technologies deployed and the continued loyalty of the
micro-group focal actors and other participants to the SISN focal actor.
Finally, to suggest that what happened within the SISN network was in some way a ‘failure’ is
to misapprehend the very nature of actor-networks. Though not realizing the purposes intended
for it by the original focal actor the mother network was successful in achieving continued
viability; the ‘sine qua non’ of a successful actor network. Its translation of a number of
constitutive actors, both human and artifacts and traversing a series of obligatory passage points
to achieve a considerable viability that had not previously existed evidenced this. That its
progeny did not survive or fully flourish to usurp this mother network was a measure of its own
powerful intéressemment and vitality. As was its capacity, through the workshops, to address
the problematisations of the ‘outcome resolves’, generated by the Team Syntigration process
and the actors within it. Paradoxically, the success for the SISN as a viable network capable of
effectively translating and mobilising actors inhibited the viability of its progeny. As to the
future, this project has demonstrated that the Team Syntegrity approach accompanied by other
actors, human and artifact have the capacity form a SISN mother network capable of birthing
micro-groups to address self-defined problematisations. However, how to sustain a number of
such viable micro-groups is a subject for further considerations, research and development.
Appendix A, Diagrams and Tables
There are too many tables to fit within the analysis text above so these have been included in
associated files:
File SISN Actors
Table 1 ‘Actors and Actor Types that Constitute the SISN’
Table 2. Actors and Actor Types a Taxonomy
File OPP1 Diagrams Working
Table 1.1 ‘OPP1 Approval of Network’
Table 1.2 ‘Network OPP1 Actor Enactments’
Exhibit 1.1 ‘OPP 1 Network System Description’
Fig.1.1 ‘Actor Relationship Diagram’
Fig. 1.2 ‘Approval of SISN Project’
File OPP2 Participant Engagement Diagrams Working
Table 2.1 ‘OPP 2 Participant Engagement’
Table 2.2 ‘Network OPP2 and Actor Enactment’
Table 2.3 ‘Human Actor’s Expressed Interests in Participating in SISN’
Exhibit 2. ‘OPP 2 Network System Description’
Fig. 2.1 ‘OPP 2 Actor Relationship Diagram’
Fig. 2.2 ‘OPP 2 Participant Engagement’
File OPP 3 Group Intentionality to Enact Outcome Resolves
Table 3.1 ‘Group Intentionality to Enact Outcome Resolves’
Table 3.2 ‘OPP 3 Group Intentionality to Enact Outcome Resolves’
Exhibit 3.1 ‘OPP 3 Network System Description’
Figure 3.1 ‘OPP 3 Actor Relationship Diagram’
Figure 3.2 ‘OPP 3 Group Intentionality to Enact Outcome Resolves’
Appendix B
NOTES ON ACTOR-NETWORKS AND THEIR EMERGENCE
Chris Atkinson Department of Information Systems and Computing Brunel
University UK
E-mail: christopher.atkinson@brunel.ac.uk
In Latour (1987)(1993) and Callon's (1986) (1990) (1991) theory, actor-networks are integrations
of human and non-human actors, artefacts of all kinds that arise in response to a presenting issue.
Callon and Latour (1990) describe the actor within a network as “…any element which bends space
around itself, makes other elements dependent upon itself and translate their will into the language of
its own”. In response to an initial ‘problematisation of a situation,’ by an influential or focal actor,
actors are prompted to convene together into networks in that will address it. The actors that form
these ‘heterogeneous’ networks become impenetrably intertwined, ‘black-boxed’ as Latour calls it,
their variegate interests aligned in the face of the initial and subsequent ongoing issues in the
problematisation.
A central tenant of actor-network theory is that of treating humans and non-humans
‘symmetrically’ (Latour 1993), as each having the same status within a network. They may have
different qualities and functionality, but these are defined by the ecological relationships they have
formed with other actors within the network, rather than as an priori condition of who or what they
are. Berg (1997) is probably the leading exponent of the use of ANT in studying healthcare situations
he says of actor networks:
“In the ‘production and use of technical systems in medical practices. One of the central tenets
of these studies is that the development of the technology cannot be understood from
perspectives that treat nature and society as different realms and confine explanatory power to
either one of them. Exactly what the transformation of a practice (or a tool) comes down to can
never be understood from standpoints that centre on the nature of medical problems or,
conversely, on the action of the medical personnel. Rather the physical and the social of
"computerised" or "protocolised" medical practices are the outcomes of historically contingent
events that have lead to that current configuration. Only by treating them symmetrically can we
hope to gain an understanding of the "success" or "failure" of decision support techniques; only
by focusing on the way these heterogeneous networks take shape and break down can we come
to the fundamental issues at stake.’
An actor-network comes into being via what Callon (1986)(1991) terms a process of convergence.
This may happen in situations where networks have not existed before or out of a complex of existing
networks. Convergence is the process of forming alliances between various human and non-human
actors, the coming into being of what Maturana and Varela (1980) might describe as a
human/machine autopoiecis. ANT defines the process by which a network comes into being through
the ‘enrolment’ of variegate actors. This is achieved by ‘translating’ an actor and their interests into an
irreversible alignment with those of an existing or a prospective network and the actors within it. For
Callon (1986)(1991), and Latour (1987)(1993) ANT constitutes 'a sociology of translation’.
Translation of an actor or actors into a network is achieved via a series of ‘moments’. There are four
‘moments of translation’ (Callon, 1991) that lead the enrolled actor or numbers of actors through a
non-reversible obligatory passage point (OPP) that transforms and consolidates both the newly
incorporated actor(s) and the network. These moments of translation are: problematisation,
intéressemment, enrolment and mobilisation. Problematisation occurs when one or more influential or
powerful actors identify a real-world issue(s). Other actors are then approached to join in, in tackling
it. The prominent actor persuades, possibly cajoles, even frightens them into believing that he/she/it
has a way of addressing the issue and this would entail them along with other actors in coming
together to forming alliances toward moving through one or number of obligatory passage point(s)
(OPP) (Introna, 1997) in order to addresses the issue(s) that form the problematisation. This is
followed by Intéressemment, a process by which the actors convened consolidate around an issue,
strengthen their determination toward moving through the obligatory passage point to address it,
whilst seeking to exclude voices of dissuasion from without or deserting and entering into alliances
with other networks. Enrolment involves solidification of intent within the network by bargaining and
compromise between the actors. 'Enrolling' actors into a network is a process in which humans and
non-humans, as individuals or groups persuade, coax, or entice others to become parts of their
network; that it is in their best interest to do so, or that they share a common cause. It is a
Machiavellian process (Bloomfield et al, 1992). Not only humans are instrumental in this process.
Machines, for example Internet technology, an IS applications, a transport system (Latour, 1996), can
be just as seductive or persuasive as ‘enrollers’ of other actors into the network as can humans.
Enrolment entails actor’s making a commitment of resources (time, money, expertise, knowledge,
problem solving competencies, and machine functionality, IS&T standards) (Walsham, 1997)
(Bloomfield et al, 1992). A summary definition of these terms can be found in Table 1.
Following the enrolment of new actors, the mobilisation of the emergent network, its actor’s and any
committed resources, then takes place in order to make decisions and subsequently address the
concern raised by the original problematisation. This is achieved via the traversing of one or a number
of what are called ‘obligatory passage points’. In passing through one of these a network is
irreversibly transformed.
However this is not an end, the mobilisation results in further problematisations and other external
issues also arise. The need subsequently reappears for moving new and incumbent actors, humans and
machines, with their resource commitments, through a series of additional obligatory passage points; a
process that is potentially never ending.
ANT Concepts
Actor
Actor-network
Problematisation
Obligatory
Passage Point
Intéressemment
Enrollment
Inscription
Speaker/
Representative
Betrayal
Irreversibility
Summary Definition
“Any element which bends space around itself, makes other element dependent
upon itself and translates their will into the language of its own”
(Callon and Latour, 1981).
“Heterogeneous network of aligned interests”
(Callon and Latour, 1981).
The defining of a problem and it associated ‘uncontestable’ solution.
(Callon 1986)
The first moment of translation during which a focal actor defines identities and
interests of other actors that are consistent with its own interests, and establishes
itself as an obligatory passage point (OPP), thus rendering itself indispensable
(Callon, 1986).
A situation that has to occur for all of the actors to be able to achieve their
interests, as defined by the focal actor
(Callon, 1986).
A process of convincing actors to accept definition of the focal actor (Callon,
1986).
A situation when actors accept interests defined for them by the focal actor
(Callon, 1986).
A process of creation of technical artifacts that would ensure the protection of
certain interests
(Latour, 1992).
An actor that speaks on behalf of other actors
(Callon, 1986).
A situation when actors do not abide by the agreements (translations) achieved
by their representatives
(Callon, 1986).
Degree to which it is subsequently impossible to return to a point where
alternative possibilities exist
(Walsham, 1997)
Table 1. Definitions of some central concepts of ANT (Sidorova and Sarker 2000)
In this way the network becomes increasingly and irreversibly (Callon, 1986, 1991) entwined, bound
together, integrated, made up of established inseparable interdependent actors. None-human actors
play a powerful role in establishing irreversibility - not always to the benefit of the network, as they
can produce inflexibility within it, for example ERP applications. The network in the face of a new
problematisation may change, be torn apart, fail to consolidate, or self-adapt (Atkinson, 2000). Actors
as a result may be transformed, destroyed, or expelled from the network. But neither they nor the
network can be unravelled, reversed along its trajectory of development. An actor may leave a
network, but it is not the same as the actor that joined it. The fate of the network and its actors in the
face of future contingencies will be to consolidate further via additional translations, enrolments and
mobilisations to action resulting in the traversing of many more obligatory passage points. In doing so
it may thrive. Alternatively it may stagnate, fail to adapt, cease to attract new actors in the face of
emergent problematisations, ultimately it may fall apart or even be enrolled into another network or
laid to waste.
Often in the discussions and negotiations that take place at the early stages in the network’s formation
interlocutors or representatives speak on behalf of other actors, particularly artifacts, as part of the
processes of arriving at agreements about their prospective roles within the putative network. An IT
Manager for example, may speak on behalf of a proposed IT architecture or legacy systems, a
prototype on behalf of the finished product, or a sales representative for their company’s IS
application, a union representative on behalf of their members, a leading clinical consultant co-opted
onto a Project Board to speak for his/her clinical colleagues in a hospital. It is not uncommon for the
actors not to abide by the agreements made by their representatives or interlocutors when attempts are
made to translate them into the network. The new architecture is slower than the old, the application
fails to deliver the promised functionality, the members vote down a union reps agreement with
management, the hospital’s consultants refuse to use the new IS. This phenomenon is termed betrayal
and is one of the major causes of network breakdown or the failure to translate new actors into it. On
the other hand the successful inscription (Klischewski, 2000) of a human actor’s interests in a nonehuman artefact within the network is a major contributor to that network’s stability says Latour
(1992). For within that inscription exists the norms of action as well as the representation of processes
that constitute the doings of the network’s society.
Finally, due to the fact that actor-networks contain human beings they have the ability (supported
informationally and physically by machines) to act purposefully, normatively for good or ill. In doing so
the actor-network has a capacity for intentionality. Such intentionality and the values, interests and
Weltenschaugen they manifest become inscripted within the machines that populate the network, in turn
strengthening the actor relationships within it. Of course humans may also have a purely instrumental
role as defined by their semiotic relationships with the other actors who form the network. On the other
hand, since actor-networks also contain machines they may undertake purposive behaviours that are far
beyond the physical or mental capacities of human beings – global interconnections across time and
space via aircraft travel or the Internet for example. Who is to say that in the future machine artefacts,
made up of intelligent agents –actors - (Minsky, 1987) will not be able to, based on experiential learning
within specific environments, act with intentionality, to define ends as well provide the means to achieve
them. And what of the true cyborg (Harraway,1995) the hybrid, that in future along with humans and
artefacts may constitute the actor-networks of the next millennium.
Note on ANT Notes
These notes on actor network theory are my own. For authoritative work on actor network theory see
the Lancaster ANT Resource and References below.
C J Atkinson (April 2002)
ACTOR NETWORK REFERENCES
Extracted from the Lancaster University Sociology Department ANT web site
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/ant-a.html where there are a lot more references and information
on ANT, forthcoming events and conferences
Bloomfield, B. P. (1991). "The role of information systems in the UK National Health Service: Action at
a distance and the fetish of calculation." Social Studies of Science 21(4): 701-734.
Case study that used ANT ideas to describe the politics of information technology to change the NHS.
Bloomfield, B. P. and T. Vurdubakis (1994). "Boundary disputes: Negotiating the boundary between the
technical and the social in the development of IT systems." Information Technology & People 7(1): 924.
Uses ideas of actor network theory to explain the continuous renegotiation between the social and the
technical when information technology systems are designed.
Callon, M. (1980). Struggles and Negotiations to define what is Problematic and what is not: the
Sociology of Translation. In K. D. Knorr, R. Krohn and R. D. Whitley (Eds.) The Social Process of
Scientific Investigation: Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook. Dordrecht and Boston, Mass., Reidel. 4:
197-219.
An early, perhaps the first empirical, example of the 'sociology of translation', using the case of the
véhicule électrique. Derives the term 'translation' from Michel Serres (1974)
.
Callon, M. (1986). The Sociology of an Actor-Network: the Case of the Electric Vehicle. In M. Callon,
J. Law and A. Rip (Eds.) Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the
Real World. London, Macmillan: 19-34.
A further, more developed, analysis of the véhicule électrique.
Callon, M. (1986). Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the
Fishermen of Saint Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (Ed.) Power, Action and Belief: a new Sociology of
Knowledge? Sociological Review Monograph. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul. 32: 196-233.
One of the most discussed papers in actor-network theory. This presses 'symmetry' between different
entities including fishermen, various technologies, and scallops. Much commented on, much criticised.
(See Collins and Yearley (1992))
Callon, M. (1987). Society in the Making: the Study of Technology as a Tool for Sociological Analysis.
In W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes and T. J. Pinch (Eds.) The Social Construction of Technical Systems: New
Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridgge, Mass. and London, MIT Press: 83103.
A further, more developed, analysis of the case of the véhicule électrique. In this the notion of the
'engineer sociologist' is developed: the notion that engineers are engaged in analysing and ordering
social relations.
Callon, M. (1991). Techno-economic Networks and Irreversibility. In J. Law (Ed.) A Sociology of
Monsters? Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, Sociological Review Monograph. London,
Routledge. 38: 132-161.
An exploration of the formation and dynamics of heterogeneous networks which attends, in particular,
to they strategies which secure the relative irreversibility of those networks.
Callon, M. (1993). Variety and irreversibility in networks of technique conception and adoption. In D.
Foray and C. Freeman (Eds.) Technology and the Wealth of Nations: The Dynamics of Constructed
Advantage. London, Pinter Publishers: 232-268.
Reviews different network approaches to the study of variety and irreversibility in technique conception
and adoption.
Callon, M. (1998). An Essay on Framing and Overflowing: Economic Externalities Revisited by
Sociology. In M. Callon (Ed.) The Laws of the Markets. Oxford and Keele, Blackwell and the
Sociological Review: 244-269.
Introduces useful new terminology for exploring the simplifications that are implicit in the formation of
economic (and any other) actors.
Callon, M. (Ed.). (1998). The Laws of the Markets. Oxford, Blackwell and the Sociological Review.
An edited volume on the creation of markets, bringing together authors from a variety of theoretical
traditions. Most are concerned with the material construction of markets - and market-related
subjectivities. 'After ANT'.
Callon, M. (1999). Actor-Network Theory: the Market Test. In J. Law and J. Hassard (Eds.) Actor
Network and After. Oxford and Keele, Blackwell and the Sociological Review: 181-195.
How might the actor-network approach be applied to such seemingly simple forms of agency as that of
economic actor in the market?
Callon, M. (1999). Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the
Fishermen of Saint Brieuc Bay. In M. Biagioli (Ed.) The Sciencer Studies Reader. New York and
London, Routledge: 67-83.
A reprint of the article previously published in 1986.
Callon, M. (2001). Writing and (Re)writing Devices as Tools for Managing Complexity. In J.
Law and A. Mol (Eds.) Complexities in Science, Technology and Medicine. Durham, N. Ca.,
Duke University Press.
Explores the ways in which textual technologies iteratively constitute supply and demand (consumers)
for two classes of enterprises.
Callon, M. and B. Latour (1981). Unscrewing the Big Leviathan: how actors macrostructure reality and
how sociologists help them to do so. In K. D. Knorr-Cetina and A. V. Cicourel (Eds.) Advances in
Social Theory and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Micro- and Macro-Sociologies. Boston,
Mass, Routledge and Kegan Paul: 277-303.
An important pre-cursor paper in which it is argued that large scale 'macro' phenomena are not
different in kind from small scale 'micro' phenomena, and should be analysed in the same terms. Hence
an attack on the 'macro'-'micro' distinction in social theory.
Callon, M. and B. Latour (1992). Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bath School! A Reply to Collins
and Yearley. In A. Pickering (Ed.) Science as Practice and Culture. Chicago, Chicago University Press:
343-368.
A reply to Collins and Yearley (1992).
Callon, M. and J. Law (1982). "On Interests and their Transformation: Enrolment and CounterEnrolment." Social Studies of Science 12: 615-625.
Argues the social interests are constructed in networks of heterogeneous relations.
Callon, M. and J. Law (1995). "Agency and the Hybrid Collective." South Atlantic Quarterly 94: 481507.
An attempt to review and come to terms with some of the criticisms of actor-network theory by
commentators such as feminists for its tendencies towards centering and monological form.
Callon, M. and J. Law (1997). "After the Individual in Society: Lessons in Collectivity from Science,
Technology and Society." Canadian Journal of Sociology 22(2): forthcoming.
An attempt to review and summarise some of the major preoccupations of actor-network theory, and
relate them critically to sociological theory.
Callon, M. and J. Law (1997). L’Irruption des Non-Humains dans les Sciences Humaines: quelques
leçons tirées de la sociologie des sciences et des techniques. In J.-P. Dupuy, P. Livet and B. n. d.
Reynaud (Eds.) Les Limites de la Rationalité: Tome 2, Les Figures du Collectif. Paris, La Découverte:
99-118.
An attempt to review and summarise some of the major preoccupations of actor-network theory, and
relate them critically to sociological theory
.
Callon, M., J. Law, et al. (Eds.). (1986). Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology
of Science in the Real World. London, Macmillan.
A collection of papers which offers theoretical grounding for the co-word method of mapping the
relationship between concepts and actors in science and technology, locating this in actor-network
theory.
Callon, M. and V. Rabeharisoa (1998). Articulating Bodies: the Case of Muscular Dystrophies. In M.
Akrich and M. Berg (Eds.) Bodies on Trial: Performance and Politics in Medicine and Biology.
Durham, N.Ca., Duke University Press.
Explores muscular dystrophy by considering how the 'collective patient' is created and reshaped in the
course of tests and trials which extend from the flesh through technologies to other persons and
organisations. The body, it is argued, can only be understood by examining such trials.
Callon, M. and V. Rabeharisoa (1998). Reconfiguring Trajectories: Agencies, Bodies and Political
Articulations: the Case of Muscular Dystrophies. Theorizing Bodies: WTMC-CSI, Ecole des Mines de
Paris, Paris.
Explores the configurations of bodies, materials and collectivities involved in the disabilities of certain
muscular dystrophies. An example of 'after ANT' at work which combines ANT concerns with some of
the insights of phenomenology
Callon, M. and V. Rabeharisoa (1999). Gino's Lesson on Humanity. Producing Taste, Configuring Use,
Performing Citizenship, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
An exploration of the implications of interviewing a person with muscular dystrophy for the character of
politics and appropriate political participation. Suggests that the interview tends to produce a
particular form of violent political participation
.
Callon, M. and V. Rabeharisoa (1999). "La Leçon d'Humanité de Gino." Réseaux 95: 199-233.
An exploration of the implications of interviewing a person with muscular dystrophy for the character of
politics and appropriate political participation. Suggests that the interview tends to produce a
particular form of violent political participation.
LATOUR
Latour, B. (1983). Give Me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World. In K. D. Knorr-Cetina and M. J.
Mulkay (Eds.) Science Observed. Beverly Hills, Sage.
An important pre-cursor paper in which it is argued that large scale 'macro' phenomena are not
different in kind from small scale 'micro' phenomena, and should be analysed in the same terms. Hence
an attack on the 'macro'-'micro' distinction in social theory.
Latour, B. (1986). The Powers of Association. In J. Law (Ed.) Power, Action and Belief: a New
Sociology of Knowledge?. London, Boston and Henley, Routledge and Kegan Paul. 32: 264-280.
Develops a translation model of power, in which it is argued that power is an performative effect, a
product of associating entities together, rather than something which is possessed by actors.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Milton
Keynes, Open University Press.
The only ANT textbook? - though the extent to which Latour uses the notion of 'actor-network' is limited.
Nevertheless, an important account of the method, in particular in its application to science and
technology.
Latour, B. (1988). The Prince for Machine as well as Machinations. In B. Elliott (Ed.) Technology and
Social Process. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press: 20-43.
Where are the missing masses? The argument is that machines are missing from political and social
theory.
Latour, B. (1988). Irréductions, published with The Pasteurisation of France. Cambridge, Mass.,
Harvard University Press.
A tightly written philosophical-theoretical statement which rigorously develops the implications of the
irreducibility of different entities, and the worlds that are formed when these link together into chains or
networks. A crucial theoretical resource
Latour, B. (1988). "Mixing humans and nonhumans together: The sociology of a door-closer." Social
Problems 35(3): 298-310.
Latour, writing as Jim Johnson, performs a rather humorous introduction to key concerns of ANT.
Latour, B. (1988). The Pasteurization of France. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.
A large-scale semiotic analysis of 'Pasteur' who is understood as a set of strategies, arrangements and
mobilisations of different entities into a more or less coherent and more or less fragile network, of which
Pasteur the person is a spokesperson. Accordingly, Pasteur is an effect, rather than a prime mover, an
individual genius.
Latour, B. (1988). The Politics of Explanation: an Alternative. In S. Woolgar (Ed.) Knowledge and
Reflexivity: New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge. London, Sage: 155-176.
Exploration of reflexivity. Rejects the idea that this is self-contradictory, but also rejects the approach of
most reflexivists, arguing for a modest 'infra-reflexivity'’.
Latour, B. (1990). Drawing Things Together. In M. Lynch and S. Woolgar (Eds.) Representation in
Scientific Practice. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press: 19-68.
Set up as a discussion of the division between 'the West' and 'the rest', this article rejects the idea that
there was a decisive event or moment which led to the division, but instead locates this in a series of
small technologies which generated simplified and manipulable representations or 'immutable mobiles'
which thereby generated centres of control. These include printing, cartography and visual depiction.
The argument is somewhat reminiscent of Michel Foucault's understanding of surveillance in the
disciplinary or modern episteme.
Latour, B. (1991). Technology is Society Made Durable. In J. Law (Ed.) A Sociology of Monsters?
Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, Sociological Review Monograph. London, Routledge.
38: 103-131.
How is society sustained if networks are precarious? The answer lies in the different durability of
different materials. Technologies embody social relations: they may be understood as translations of
those relations into different material forms.
Latour, B. (1992). Aramis, ou l'Amour des Techniques. Paris, Éditions de la Découverte.
A multi-vocal account of a transport technology, in which a range of actors, including the technology
itself, find a voice and debate the translations and negotiations which led to the final demise of the
project.
Latour, B. (1992). Where are the Missing Masses? Sociology of a Few Mundane Artefacts. In W. Bijker
and J. Law (Eds.) Shaping Technology, Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge,
Mass, MIT Press: 225-258.
There are no purely 'social' relations. Instead, there are 'socio-technical' relations, embedded in and
performed by a whole range of different materials, human, technical, 'natural', textual.
Latour, B. (1993). Ethnography of a 'high-tech' case: About Aramis. In P. Lemonnier (Ed.)
Technological Choices: Transformation in Material Cultures Since the Neolithic. London, Routledge:
372-398.
A summary of the main theoretical arguments of the ARAMIS case study - in some ways more focused
than the book, especially on the construction of the concepts of truth, efficiency and productivity in
modern science and technology.
Latour, B. (1993). La Clef de Berlin, et autres Leçons d'un Amateur de Sciences. Paris, La Découverte.
A collection of essays on the semiotic approach to association, translation, and the importance of the
technical and machine in what are more commonly thought of as 'social' relations.
Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Brighton, Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Modernity claims to be clear and pure, to distinguish with clarity between the human and the nonhuman, while in reality it is full of hybrids, quasi-human, quasi-non-human. This is the secret of its
remarkable dynamism: that in practice it generates hybrids in profusion, while iSISNting that there is
really a fundamental distinction between human and non-human.
Latour, B. (1996). Aramis, or the Love of Technology. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
A translation of Latour (1992a). A multi-vocal account of a transport technology, in which a range of
actors, including the technology itself, find a voice and debate the translations and negotiations which
led to the final demise of the project.
Latour, B. (1996). Petite Réflexion sur le Culte Moderne des Dieux Faitiches. Paris, Les Empêcheurs de
Penser en Rond.
A study of 'factishes' which combine the property of being real, and being created. A further exploration,
then, of the 'hybrids' considered in Latour (1993c)
Latour, B. (1996). Social theory and the study of computerized work sites. In W. J. Orlikowski,
Latour (2001) ‘Gabriel Tarde And The End Of The Social’
Http://Www.Ensmp.Fr/Pageperso/Csi/Brunolatour.Html
G. Walsham, M. R. Jones and J. DeGros (Eds.) Information Technology and Changes in Organizational
Work. London, Chapman & Hall: 295-307.
Reviews developments in social theory and information technology. Uses actor network ideas and
studies but also refers to other important theoretical influences in the context of new information
technologies.
Latour, B. (1999). Give Me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World. In M. Biagioli (Ed.) The Sciencer
Studies Reader. New York and London, Routledge: 258-275.
Reprint of the paper which originally appeared in 1983
Latour, B. (1999). On Recalling ANT. In J. Law and J. Hassard (Eds.) Actor Network and After.
Oxford., Blackwell and the Sociological Review: 15-25.
Like a faulty car, ANT needs to be recalled since all of its main terms (actor, network and theory) are
flawed, or at least are too easily misunderstood. It is best seen as a theory of space or circulation in a
non-modern situation.
Latour, B. (1999). Politiques de la Nature: Comment faire entrer les sciences en démocratie. Paris, la
Découverte.
A successor to 'We Have Never Been Modern', which explores the possible character of a non-modern
constitution which would dissolve the distinction between facts and values (science and politics) with a
more flexible and revisable process in which what is and what is good (and can live together) are
negotiated. This book will appear in translation in English in 2000 or 2001.
Latour, B., P. Mauguin, et al. (1992). "A Note on Socio-Technical Graphs." Social Studies of Science
22: 33-57.
Extends the sociology of translation, and in particular the arguments of Latour (1987) to the field of
scientometrics.
Latour, B. and S. Woolgar (1979). Laboratory Life: the Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Beverly
Hills and London, Sage.
The first major study of the building of facts in a laboratory in any theoretical tradition, and a landmark
book in the sociology of science. Written before the term 'actor-network' was invented, and drawing on
a range of resources including semiotics and ethnomethodology, it nonetheless catches important ANT
moves, for instance in its account of the ways in which facts move through modalities as they gather
allies to become more and more solid - and less and less attached to the contingencies which generated
them in the first place.
Also
Sidorova, A. Sarker, S “Unearthing Some Causes of BPR Failure: An Actor-Network Theory
Perspective” Proceedings 2000 Americas Conference in Information Systems ed H.M.Chung, Long
Beach California
Harraway (1995) Cyborgs and Symbionts: Living Together in the New World Order in
Hables Gray, C. (ed ) (1995) The Cyborg Handbook London Routledge.