Hi all
Activity theory and activity centered design seems to better handle the design aspect of tool mediation in activity than ANT.
Dr Gavin Melles
Lecturer, Research Degree Skills
Faculty of Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Mob (03) 0402927278
>>> Ben Kraal <[log in to unmask]> 25/01/08 1:37 PM >>>
I used ANT for parts of the analysis of my field work in my PhD. Below
are some very quick comments.
> Just to take up another French line of thinking:
> It occurs to me that ANT (Actor-Network-Theory)
> could have a great potential for the further
> development (progress?) of design thinking. Bruno
> Latour distinguishes the "sociology of the
> social", which is not really helpful for
> clarifications of design activities, and the
> "sociology of associations", which re-integrates
> "things" into sociological thinking. He states
> that there is nothing essential like "the
> social", but that it is the actors (hybrid
> collectives of human and non-human entities,
> designed things) that create social forms...
Actors need not by hybrids. Actors are humans. Actors are non-humans.
Actors can be inanimate objects, technologies, methods or ideas.
Actors can be hybrids of some or all of those things. Actors can form
Networks with other actors. Networks at higher levels of abstraction,
can be seen as actors.
Among other things, ANT is completely agnostic about the idea of where
agency resides which has led to some of the most famous criticism of
ANT.
> My question: What do you think about the
> potential of ANT for the further development of
> design thinking? Any experiences with ANT?
ANT tends to have a very power-oriented view of the world. Who has
power, how they got it, how they're holding on to it or losing it and
how that power, and the negotiations of power, shape the world.
ANT has also been called a "sociology of translation" as it is
interested in change -- that is how things are translated from one
situation to another, as actors/networks are appropriated by or
insinuate themselves in other networks.
So, I thing that ANT is an interesting tool for taking a "big picture"
view of a situation. I have speculated that ANT might be useful in
understanding why and how design interventions succeed or fail. You
could also use it for analysing situations into which a design
intervention is proposed, taking a feed-forward sort of approach.
But ANT won't tell you much about the mechanics of how something is
used or why one person can't use a particular tool.
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