Actor–network theory - Wikipedia

Abstraction: Sociological framework treating humans and nonhumans as equal network actors

Key points:

• ANT (developed at CSI, Ecole des Mines, Paris in the 1980s by Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, Madeleine Akrich, and John Law) treats objects, ideas, and processes as actors equal in importance to humans in social situations
• The "translation" process has four moments: problematisation, interessement, enrollment, and mobilisation — Callon's 1986 scallop-fishing study is the canonical example
• "Punctualisation" describes how complex actor-networks collapse into single black-box entities; breakdown reveals the hidden network inside
• Key distinction between intermediaries (pass force without transformation, analytically uninteresting) and mediators (multiply difference, core objects of study)
• ANT explicitly avoids explaining "why" networks form — it is a descriptive method, not a causal theory; Latour himself said all four words in "Actor-Network Theory" (including the hyphen) are problematic
• Applied widely beyond STS: organizational studies, informatics, urban planning, international relations, literary criticism, and IS research

Connections: Bruno Latour · Michel Callon · Actor Network Theory · Science And Technology Studies · Social Constructivism

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93network_theory