Actor-Network Theory

Also known as: ANT

framework · sociology · organizing-schema

Latour and Callon's framework treating humans and non-humans as symmetric actants in networks.

Actor-Network Theory was developed in the late 1970s and 1980s within science and technology studies (STS) by Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, and John Law, with foundational formulations in Latour's Science in Action (1987), Callon's 'Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation' (1986, the scallops-and-fishermen paper), and Law's various works. The framework's distinctive commitment is generalized symmetry — treating humans and non-humans (technologies, materials, microorganisms, documents, instruments) as ontologically symmetric 'actants' that participate in heterogeneous networks. Social phenomena are produced by networks of human and non-human actants whose interactions constitute particular outcomes; what we call 'society' or 'science' or 'technology' is the trace of these networks, not a substrate behind them. Key concepts include: translation (the process by which actors enroll others into networks); obligatory passage points (positions that all network participants must traverse); inscriptions (documents, traces, representations that mobilize and stabilize networks); black-boxing (treating complex networks as unitary actors). Latour's later work, particularly Reassembling the Social (2005), articulated ANT as a method of describing rather than explaining the social. ANT has been substantially influential in STS, organization studies, geography, anthropology, and information systems, though it has drawn substantial critique for what some see as ontological flattening of the human-nonhuman distinction and for its political ambiguity.

Originators

Bruno Latour; Michel Callon; John Law (foundational); subsequent contributors including Madeleine Akrich, Annemarie Mol, Wiebe Bijker (related but distinct SCOT framework) high

Year / Decade

Late 1970s-80s development; 1986 (Callon scallops paper); 1987 (Latour Science in Action); 2005 (Latour Reassembling the Social) high

Primary sources

Callon, M. (1986). 'Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay', Latour, B. (1987). Science in Action, Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory high

Core components

Generalized symmetry (humans and non-humans as actants)
Networks of heterogeneous actants
Translation (enrolling actors into networks)
Obligatory passage points
Inscriptions (documents, traces, representations)
Black-boxing (complex network as unitary actor)
Methodological commitment to following actors and tracing networks
Distinction from structural sociology (no underlying social substrate)
STS origins
Latour's later anthropology of moderns work

Primary use case

Science and technology studies; analysis of technological controversies, scientific practice, and innovation; organization studies of technology integration; geographic and urban studies; anthropology of materiality; information systems research; reference framework in many post-positivist social science traditions; basis for some practical methodological approaches in qualitative research.

Common criticisms

Ontological symmetry between humans and non-humans is contested — critics including Marxist and humanist sociologists argue that flattening human and non-human agency loses crucial analytical distinctions
political ambiguity: ANT's descriptive commitment to following actors makes it difficult to articulate critique or normative position (though Latour's later work substantially addressed this)
methodological prescription to 'follow the actors' provides limited guidance and can produce ANT-flavored ethnography that uses the vocabulary without the analytical commitments
the framework's prose style (particularly Latour's) is famously demanding
risk of voluntarism (everything is constructed in networks) without adequate accounts of why some networks stabilize and others don't
Bijker's SCOT (Social Construction of Technology) provides alternative without ANT's generalized-symmetry commitments
commercial and academic appropriations vary widely in fidelity.

Lineage

Siblings: Foucault's Power-Knowledge, Social Construction of Reality