Meltdown: Why ANT?

1. Centre for Science StudiesLancaster University Meltdown: Why ANT? John Law

2. Issues? Bets? Society: coherent or not? Representation: does it describe a prior real, or is it performative? Ontology: stable or relational? 2

3. 1: Society, coherent or not? (Grand Narrative) What is power? What is it that holds ‘social structure’ together? A bet on …. coherence? (grand narrative) non-coherence? (no grand narrative) 3

4. Sociology? Relative coherence? (More or less) single social structure, social world (Limited?) capacity to detect/trace soc struct. Ability to stand outside? Therefore An explanation A key to intervening/politics 4

5. Irreductions Latour, Irreductions: 201-203 5

6. If the ANT bet is right … No single key No conspiracy Social reality done with Subtlety Suppleness Non-coherence Power done by non-coherence! 6

7. If the ANT bet is right … We need tools for exploring it! We need to understand how the suppleness/non-coherence is done 7

8. 2: Does representation describe a prior reality or not? Standard methods approaches: yes! The ANT bet: No It is performative Reals are done at the same time as representations of the real 8

9. Attending to Practice • Unit of analysis • Attending to what gets done • No a-priori distinctions/assumptions (following the actors) • Praxiography 9

10. Latour and Woolgar • Laboratory Life 10

11. Notes on Laboratory Life Modalities Vague/qualified statements Separation: the world ‘may be’ The world ‘is’ Statements versus realities Doing knowledge and doing the world 11

12. Epistemology ANT does epistemology (so does SSK) 12

13. Ontology ANT assumes world being done in practice (not so for SSK) 13

14. Performativity Practices as performative Not performance Not front-stage/backstage Austin: doing things with words? 14

15. Constructivism or Performativity? SSK & SCOT (constructivism, making) or ANT, Haraway, material semiotics? (performativity, enactment, doing) 15

16. 3. Ontology: stable or variable? The social science bet: usually that basic realities are stable The ANT bet: practice is doing the real Realities as effects 16

17. Material Semiotics Foucault Discipline, drill, normalisation Ordering of Bodies Subjectivities ‘Culture’ & ‘Structure’ Technologies/materials Knowledges, power 17

18. ANT principles Relationality Materiality Process Revisability/Uncertainty Heterogeneity 18

19. More on variability? And if practices differ? Multiplicity! Different realities An ontological politics 19

20. Concluding Thoughts 20

21. ANT is? Theory? Method/Toolkit Sensibility? 21

22. Politics Do we need a structure to do politics? The possibility of an ontological politics 22

23. Stuff as Effects From causes to effects Power, patriarchy 23

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25. Professor Ruey-Lin Chen Thank you! We agree about much(conclusion: about a ‘network approach’ without a semiotic ontology and methodology’) Buddhist metaphysics (change, no absolute independence) But we disagree about some things … 25

26. Our points of disagreement? The drama model: the difference between performance and performativity Generalised performativity: doing things and not just with words Semiotics: actors as relational effects (I don’t think actors are symbols) 26

27. Our points of disagreement? Methodological idealism? versus: methodological monism Relationality generates effects Including materiality (cf durability) 27

28. Our points of disagreement? Causality versus effect Emergence, uncertainty, indeterminacy A gathering, assemblage A monadology (all is already there? But implicit, unclear) 28