Dear Klaus, Ken and Colleagues
What I understood from Latour's ANT is that stakeholders or users often act
through or with the aid of machines. In fact, occasions when humans act
without the aid of artifacts are rather rare! Agency is not direct, it is
relayed for whatever purpose. Agency is often attributed to artifacts only
for the purpose of quick communication (the car hit the pedestrian, the
electronic device plays music loud, the man's suit seduced the lady, etc.
etc.)
Therefore, networks of machines can't they metaphorically stand, even at
extreme in the Court of law, for networks of their makers and/or users,
operators as well as many other stakeholders?
Francois
Montreal
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 3:08 AM, Ken Friedman <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Klaus,
>
> Thanks for this elegant account of a serious problem with actor-
> network theory.
>
> As a metaphor, I enjoy ANT because it can open up and reveal some
> of the dimensions of a network. ANT becomes a problem when people
> attribute agency to artifacts. On a metaphoric level, treating artifacts
> as actors in a network allows us to conceptualize systems in an
> imaginative and sometimes useful way. Problems arise when people
> are so carried away by the poetic drama of the metaphor that they
> begin to treat all Latourian actors as equal in an ethical sense.
>
> To engage in an appropriately rich account of the world in which
> designers work, stakeholder network offer a better model.
>
> Warm wishes,
>
> Ken
>
> On Sun, 19 Jun 2011 Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
>
> --snip--
>
> this is also why i am now opposing the actor network theory of
> bruno latour, who forces humans and machines alike into cause
> and effect mechanisms, discounting human emotions, language,
> and accountability for their actions.
>
> well before "ANT", we generalized THE user to stakeholder
> networks, allowing different kinds of interest, resources, and
> communicative abilities, and particularly supporting as well as
> opposing a design. it makes for a richer account of the world in
> which designers operate.
>
> the chessman with feelings, ability to cooperate or not minus the
> player who moves them is a good analogy of that.
>
> --snip--
>
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