an action is a relation between two things. in theory one of those
things can be another relation, so i think you can see where that goes.
i think you will find many many people who will tell you they never
wanted it called actor-network theory, but the name stuck. sort of
like the volkswagon 'thing' and 'beetle'
personally, i think it is the relations that are of interest, which
means the actions. other people have other standpoints. I've made
the argument before that i don't really care about the 'nodes' of the
network at all, i just want to see the relations and have them define
the nodes. perhaps the node will end up as a person, perhaps the node
will end up as a machine, perhaps it will be a machine that acts like
a person perhaps it will be a person who acts like a machine. but
again... standpoints vary on what is most important. what is very
important is being clear about the various principles that guide actor-
network theory, and for that one should probably read latour's recent
book.
On Apr 22, 2009, at 10:30 AM, Terence Love wrote:
> Dear Jeremy,
>
> Many thanks again - especially for your patience!
>
> Does this mean that an action always has an actant and an actee?
>
> Or can one have an actant with no actee?
>
> Or is it only the action that is of interst? In that case, would it
> imply
> ant as an 'action network theory', which one might expect to represent
> theories about networks of actions?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Terry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jeremy hunsinger [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, 22 April 2009 10:12 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: actor-networks Re: Discourse on object level
>
> Usually sequence is part of the narrative of the description of
> events,
> which is part of the write up. it is usually handled by the methods
> of
> analysis you use, such as ethnography, which keeps track of its own
> time.
> however, you can see how that becomes a problem when you start
> talking about
> atemporal methods like semiotics, there you probably wouldn't use
> time,
> because it isn't really part of the method's normal analysis. but in
> discourse analysis time is also present as one tracks the changes
> (actions)
> in the discourse over time. now here's a trick that i've proposed
> and i
> blame terry pratchett for the idea, but time... can also be
> accounted for as
> an actor in actor-network if you plan on doing that. i could see
> how time
> could become an actor if you were analyzing say an emergency room
> where time acts in all kinds of relations to all kinds of things.
> however, for the most part, people don't seem to use time as an
> actor, and
> they just use the temporal relations common to the method they are
> using.
>
> the problem might be with your construction below (and my prior loose
> speaking)... which represents an actor/action divide. some actor-
> network
> take the term actant from semiotics, Griemas i think, but maybe propp
> before. they use actant to resolve the issue where people assume
> there is
> an actor without action. There is no necessary divide between actor/
> action;
> the 'actor' does not become apparent until the 'action'. That is to
> say,
> that there are actions which are relations, and actants acting, but
> without
> the action, we have no relations, and
> thus no actor. Actants are things acting, there is no actor, without
> the action, and thus no temporal divide.
>
> In my prior example below, i posited the existence of an actor without
> acting, the way we would do that would be to have actions ongoing
> (which
> almost always happens) from that actant. usually any given actant
> is doing
> many things in the system and the problem is sorting it out.
>
> On Apr 22, 2009, at 9:52 AM, Terence Love wrote:
>
>> Hi Jeremy,
>>
>> Thank you. That is really helpful and clarifies a lot.
>>
>> Wondering how in ant you handle information about sequence and time
>> when an action happens?
>>
>> I can see how you correlate an action to an actor and identify
>> classes
>> of relationship between actors but identifying the sequence of
>> actions
>> and how they relate to identified actors, actor relationships and
>> actions I'm unclear on.
>>
>> Best wishes and thanks,
>>
>> Terry
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: jeremy hunsinger [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>> Sent: Wednesday, 22 April 2009 8:52 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Cc: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: actor-networks Re: Discourse on object level
>>
>> reasons and causes are described after the analysis is finished.
>> you look
>> at the system of relations and you can then describe what happened
>> and
>> can infer whatever cause fits the described data. let's keep in mind
>> that actor-network theory is not a method, it is a standpoint about
>> how to treat research and how to gather that data using methods, such
>> as semiotics, discourse analysis, or ethnography.
>> it's primary use is to mould the data collection and to provide
>> insights into data analysis.. it doesn't assign reasons so much as
>> track actions and relations in networks. reasons and causes are
>> things to be very skeptical about because frequently we have less
>> than
>> a cause and more of a conjunction or constant conjunction according
>> to
>> hume, so... actor network would note that x did y, but when y then
>> immediately did things it would not note that x caused y, because as
>> you can imagine y may merely have been waiting until time z to act,
>> and action y was incidental. one can only find out these
>> relationships through time.
>>
>> now after the analysis is over and you have your data and you see
>> that
>> every time x is in proximity of y, y acts somehow, you may be
>> inclined
>> to hypothesize a causal relation, and others over time may support
>> that or deny that.
>>
>> one thing to note here is that mental models, 'reasons' can be
>> 'actors' in actor-network. a good idea can 'act', recruiting people
>> through people, etc. latter theories might call this unification of
>> actors a mess or an assemblage. but it is very useful to be able to
>> track an idea as an actor.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 22, 2009, at 8:23 AM, Terence Love wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Jeremy,
>>>
>>> How do you deal with the reasons and causes for actions in ant?
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>>
>>> Terry
>>>
>>
>
|