Actor-Network Theory and Methodology: Social Research in a More-Than-Human World

Abstract

This article explores the methodological implications of actor-network theory for social research. Pointing to an increasing awareness of ANT in sociological discourse, but assuming that it is more widely known than well understood, the article outlines some of the key features of ANT as an approach to social life, before addressing the tricky question of how these ideas translate into methodological practice. The possibilities of the approach are illustrated by reference to the author"s own ANT-inspired historical research on the socio-material history of dairy milk in the UK, which is used as a point of reference and an example throughout. Particular attention is given to the practical method deployed in the milk study, namely documentary historiography, leading to a critical exploration of the use of ANT in the analysis of historical texts. This involves considering the nature of the relationship between texts and lived practices, and drawing out how ANT offers a distinctive way of seeing texts which challenges the standard ethnographic view of texts and fundamentally transforms the issue. Given that documentary historiography is not a method strongly associated with actor-network theory because it raises considerable methodological dilemmas, this provides one particular account of how such dilemmas can be managed or overcome. Social researchers interested in the potential of actor-network theory should be able to draw upon this in exploring the possibilities of the approach for their own work.

Schools in the making: mapping digital spaces of evidence

“…Approaching websites likewise implies to focus on the different actors that assisted in the coming into being of this website (e.g. Latour 2005;Law 2009;Nimmo 2011). One could, for instance, focus on the graphic designer of the website; on the content producers that envisaged the different chunks of information to be put online; on the servers that stabilize each website as a to-be-visited entity; on the users of each website that are able to click on different tabs; etc.…”

Probing the interfaces between the social sciences and social-ecological resilience: insights from integrative and hybrid perspectives in the social sciences

“…However, since its emergence in the 1980s, ANT has moved from the classic ANT approach, based on participant observations and rich ethnographies, to post-ANT "sensibilities" (see Mol 1999, Baiocchi et al 2013, Law and Singleton 2013. In doing so, ANT has extended its toolkit of methodologies to incorporate historical analyses (Law 1990, Nimmo 2011, as well as mixed qualitative-quantitative methods. These include citation analysis (scientometrics) and cooccurrence analysis, digital cartography, and ANT-specific software, such as IssueCrawler (Rogers and Marres 2002), the médialab toolkit (Venturini and Latour 2010), and actor-network text analyzer or ANTA (see discussion by Venturini and Guido 2012).…”

Whose Place Is This Anyway? An Actor-Network Theory Exploration of a Conservation Conflict

“…This makes it particularly suitable as a tool with which to examine the conflict over Bickerton Hill. ANT is considered to be both a method and a theory (Crawford, 2005;Nimmo, 2011), both aspects underpinning this paper: as a theory in which to frame my analysis and as a method of tracing heterogenous, flat networks to see where they lead. The real strength of the ANT approach is that it is an approach rather than a fixed method; as Nimmo (2011: 109) puts it: 'ANT really is what ANT-influenced theorists and researchers do in their research '.…”