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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 >