A starting point for the theory could be as a vision of the world as a multiplicity of different connections (actor-networks, translations, punctualisations, associations and mediations) between people and materials. It may be useful from the outset to think of the ideas in Actor-Network Theory as metaphorical rather than actually mapping out a theory.

Development of Actor-Network Theory

The beginnings of Actor-Network Theory can perhaps be seen in Callon, Law and Rip (1986). Not only do they coin, and define, phrases crucial to later theory such as Actor-network, Actor-world and Translation (pp xvi-xvii), but moreover, the principal theme of the book seems to be no more than a concrete application of one of the fundamental ideas of their soon to be crystallised theory: the notion that the boundaries from which and with which western knowledge is constituted prevent us from understanding the world, and that we should instead view the world as a collection of heterogeneous materials, yet which are simultaneously, no different to one another in kind. For example, "the idea that there is a special scienftific method, a realm where truth prospers in the absence of power, is a myth....for too long scholars in this field have been content to simplify the heterogenous links that tie the 'scientific' and the 'technological' to the rest of the social world. Sometimes, these institutions are seen as a direct reflection of social forces. On other occasions they are held to have no relationship with the latter at all. If this [their] volume achieves nothing else, we [they] hope the reader will be persuaded of the essential continuity between science and society, and of the fact that similar methods may be used in their analysis (pp 4 and 15)."

So, if this is only an early incarnation of Actor-Network Theory, what of the crystallised version? Well, let us first acknowledge it is not just the product of the three sociologists mentioned above, but instead that of a large group of sociologists including Madeleine Akrich (1989a; 1989b; 1992), Geof Bowker (1988; 1992), Michel Callon (1980; 1986; 1987; 1991; and Latour, 1981; and Law and Rip, 1986), Alberto Cambrosio (et.al., 1990), Antoine Hennion (1985; 1989; 1990; and Meadel, 1986; 1989), Bruno Latour (1985; 1986; 1987; 1988a; 1988b; 1990; 1991a; 1991b; 1992a; 1992b), John Law (1986a; 1986b; 1987; 1991a; 1991b; 1992a; 1992b; and Bijker, 1992; and Callon, 1988, 1992), Cecile Medeal (see Hennion and Medeal) Arie Rip (1986), and Susan Leigh Star (1990b; 1991; 1992; and Griesemer, 1989). And now to the theory: it attempts to shut and then open our eyes afresh, to free ourselves from our pre-conceptions, to re-write the world anew from first principles. Why? "Here is the argument. If we want to understand the mechanics of power and organisation it is important not to start out assuming whatever we wish to explain. For instance, it is a good idea not to take it for granted that there is a macrosocial system on the one hand, and bits and pieces of derivative microsocial detail on the other. If we do this we close off most of the interesting questions about the origins of power and organisation. Instead we should start with a clean slate" (Law, 1992, p. 2). Therefore, this bold approach is also arrogant: its aim is nothing less than an attempt to completely revise the constitution of Western knowledge. Accordingly, Law (2003) only refers to knowledge in inverted commas.

Principles of Actor-Network Theory

This bold theory is based on a few key principles. The first, mentioned above, is that all the usual distinctions that Western society and knowledge respects – that between humans and things, nature and culture, old and new – are to be disregarded, freeing us to see the world as it really is; just a collection of heterogeneous activities where the great and the wretched of the world are, in the last instance, seen as equivalent: "Napoleons are no different in kind to small-time hustlers, IBMs to whelk-stalls" (Law, 1992, p. 2).  

Another is that the world is made up from the processes of continual heterogeneous engineering; by which is meant that there are many diverse networks of association constantly being engineered and the world is constituted from those very associations. In this view, it is the traffic through the links of the networks, rather than the links or the nodes themselves, which are important; indeed, these are viewed as the source of agency. Whilst, "it doesn't deny that human beings usually have to do with bodies (but what of Banquo's ghost, or the shadow of Karl Marx?) or that that human beings, like the patients in the asylums described by Goffman, have an inner life, it does insist that social agents are never located in bodies and bodies alone, but rather that an actor is a patterned network of heterogeneous relations, or an effect produced by such a network. The argument is that thinking, acting, writing, loving, earning - all the attributes that we normally ascribe to human beings, are generated in networks that pass through and ramify both within and beyond the body. Hence the term, actor-network; an actor is also, always, a network" (Law, 1992, P. 4).

But what exactly are actor-networks? Well, at this point it is worth consulting Callon, Law and Rip (1986, P xvi) for their exact definition of actor-networks: they "come about from an interrelated set of entities that have been successfully translated or enrolled by an actor that is thereby able to borrow their force and speak or act on their behalf or with their support. The entities may be seen as forming a network of simplified points whose simplicity is maintained by virtue of the fact that they are juxtaposed with others. The actor who speaks or acts with the support of these others also forms a part of the network. Hence the term actor-network, for the actor is both the network and a point therein. It should also be noted that each point entity that is enrolled in an actor-network depends on its capacity to translate other actor-networks. A simplified entity is nevertheless also a network in its own right". In addition to agency the actor-networks also generate other ‘effects’ such as institutions, organisation, power, and knowledge; effects which provide many of the boundaries by which we traditionally divide our world. However, the reason the theory argues that this is inappropriate is because any such effect is in fact the product of many heterogeneous materials engineered into actor-networks. This interactive inter-actor-network-dependence renders it unsuitable to definitively describe one material as powerful or organised and another as not powerful or not organised.

Key Processes of Actor-Network Theory

But why are we not aware of such actor-networks if our world, our society, and our existence, are nothing more than actor-networks and the effects of actor-networks? The answer is we are. But only when something called punctualisation breaks down. Law (2002) gives the example of how we think of a television: most of the time a television to its user is a single and coherent object with relatively few apparent parts, but in fact it is an extremely complicated actor-network. But it is only when that television breaks down, does the user become aware of the complexity of that actor-network; a network of electronic components and human interventions is unveiled. These networks remain hidden because in practice we cannot cope with endless network ramification. Indeed, much of the time we are not even in a position to detect network complexities.

So what is happening? Punctualisation: if a network acts as a single block, then it disappears, to be replaced by the action itself and the seemingly simple author of that action. At the same time, the way in which the effect is generated is also effaced: for that moment it is neither visible, nor relevant. So it is that something much simpler -- a working television -- comes, for a time, to mask the actor-network that produces it; it is punctualised. Not all actor-networks are easily punctualised but network patterns that are easily punctualised, consequently tend to become widely performed. This is because they can, if precariously, be more or less taken for granted in the process of heterogeneous engineering.

Law (2003) describes them as resources of effects, resources which may come in a variety of forms: for example, agents, devices, texts, relatively standardised sets of organisational relations, social technologies, boundary protocols, or organisational forms. Note that the processes of heterogeneous engineering can never be certain that any will work as predicted. Consequently, punctualisation is always precarious; it faces resistance, and can always degenerate into a failing network, into a ‘broken television’. Nonetheless, punctualising resources offers a convenient way of quickly utilising actor-networks without having to deal with endless complexity. And, consequently networks that lend themselves to this continue to be engineered, reproduced in and ramify throughout the world.

But we should remember punctualisation is itself a process or an effect, and again not something that can be definitively realised. Law (2003) argues we should see actor-networks and punctualisations as verbs, not nouns. They are not free-standing, like scaffolding on a building-site, but a site of struggle, a relational effect that recursively re-generates and reproduces itself. An important implication of this insistence on process is that no version of a social order, an organisation, or an agent, is ever complete, autonomous, or final. Consequently, the theory argues that, outside the dreams of dictators and normative sociologists, there is no such thing as "a social order" with a single centre, or a single set of stable relations. Instead, there is a multiplicity of interactive orders where the ensuing effects (such as power) are generated in a relational and distributed manner.

The theory also assumes the creation of these actor-network orders, and their effects, are contested because of the polyvalent character of ordering; any particular effort at ordering encounters its limits, and struggles to accept or overcome those limits. This is largely because heterogeneous materials have resistances (or preferences); consequently materials assembled into an order are constantly liable to break down, or make off on their own. One of the crucial applications of actor-network theory is to allow an analysis of this ordering struggle; to explore and describe local processes of patterning, punctualisation, social orchestration, and overcoming resistance. The generic term to describe these processes of the ordering struggle is translation; translation is a verb which implies transformation and the possibility of equivalence, that is, the possibility that one thing (for example an actor) may stand for another (for instance a network), and therefore also implies the possibility of generating ordering effects such as devices, agents, institutions, or organisations.

Law (2003) agrees, that, strategies of translation, then, are the core of the actor-network approach: a concern with how actors and organisations mobilise, juxtapose and hold together the bits and pieces out of which they are composed; how they are sometimes able to prevent those bits and pieces from following their own inclinations and making off; and how , sometimes, as a result, they manage to conceal for a time the process of translation itself and so turn a network from a heterogeneous set of bits and pieces each with its own inclinations, into something that passes as a punctualised actor. Below are some of the empirical findings that the actor-network theory approach has revealed on strategies of translation (Law 1992).

The Strategies of Translation (Law, 1992)

But what can we say about translation and the methods of overcoming resistance? Actor-network theory almost always approaches its tasks empirically, and this is no exception. So the empirical conclusion is that translation is contingent, local and variable. However, four more general findings emerge:

The first has to do with the fact that some materials are more durable than others and so maintain their relational patterns for longer.

If durability is about ordering through time, then mobility is about ordering through space. In particular, it is about ways of acting at a distance.

Translation is more effective if it anticipates the responses and reactions of the materials to be translated.

Finally there is the issue of the scope of ordering. I have been pressing the view that this is local. But, arguably it is possible to impute somewhat general strategies of translation to networks, strategies which, like Foucauldian discourses, ramify through and reproduce themselves in a range of network instances or locations.

Conclusion on the theory and how it is applied

It seems to me that actor-network theory would probably more useful if actor-networks were treated as a metaphor for our world rather than a theory about it. Insofar as it is theory, what does it predict? Instead, when it is considered metaphorically, it draws our attention to the apparent dependence of our agency on much more than just ourselves, and more generically the dependence of most things on materials beyond themselves. This is quite a humbling realisation, and one that could easily pass one by without this idea of actor-networks. Equally, the idea of punctualisation, and our inability to cope with endless network ramification is an interesting and important idea highlighted by the metaphor. And in acknowledging these two ideas we are then better placed to analyse how such networks and effects come about; we are better placed to analyse strategies of translation. More practically, Johnston, Gregory, Pratt and Watts (2000) argue that it can be used as a means of producing a better understanding of the twists and turns of both technology, nature, society and their inter-connectedness. Also, it problematizes the act of representation; representation becomes a kaleidoscope of different representational models which can only be briefly stabilised and constantly interfere with each other, thus forcing one to re-consider the constitution and communication of meaning. Finally, it provides a means of understanding space as an order of partial conncection, and in doing so suggests we understand space and place as folds in constantly evolving topologies because time and space are consequences of the way in which bodies relate to one another.

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