Introduction
ANT is a theory that explains social translations. In principle ANT, though proposed almost 40 years ago, was ahead of its time. It was and still do enable meticulous and sometimes verbose descriptive analysis of the translation that results in material. Furthermore it explains why previous and, in recent times, current socio-technical systems exist. It was and still, by no means, a perfect theory. However, it does account for explaining the role of âthe socialâ in the creation of technical artifacts (Hanseth and Monteiro 1998). The descriptive nature of the thoery allows social theorists to leave no stone unturned and even to unturn back then stones that should have been left unturned in the description of tranlations. That is understandable because ANT is anti-epistemological. However, ANT was and is still is a lens in which one could use to interpret our world. This made the theory to gain traction in the 1990s, when researchers who were not Science and Technology Studies scholars realized the usefulness of the theory for the description of translation in their discipline. As a result ANT has been used to analyze systems in the natural sciences (see examples Newton 2002; Balzacq and Cavelty 2016), social sciences (see examples Fine 2006; Callon 1999), humanities (see examples Luo 2020; Piper-Wright 2020), and the medical sciences (see examples Altabaibeh et al. 2020; Cresswell et al. 2010). It is true that due to the unorthodox nature of ANT, researchers sometimes take due liberties in extending their perception and representation of the core principles of the theory in their analytical endeavours. However, if one views the thoery from either a non-sociological or socio-anthropological point of view, that was not necessarily a bad thing. That is because those researchers realize that, within their field of expertise, the ANT made sense in the way and manner presented by them. Nevertheless, despite such deviations such researchers do not take liberties with the core concepts of the theory. The core concepts of the theory abide, whiles their applicability varies. Nevertheless, the eclectisism of the theory has led to its sustenance over the years. What also makes ANT dynamic is its applicability in explorations, diagnostics, investigations, and for interrogations. These properties have enabled researchers to utilize the theory in the study of innovations (see examples Akrich et al. 2002; Harty 2008), system examples (see Tatnall 2005; Callon 1987) and society (see examples Latour 2011).
Almost 40 years after its conceptualization, our contemporary world has provided an environment for the theory to be probed and further utilized. It is time to test the theoretical concepts and ideas on the sociology of translation presented more than 40 years ago. It is time to highlight various contemporary areas where the theory can be utilized and to consider if either certain theoretical propositions hold today or they have to evolved. This is important because we live at a time on earth where ANT seems to present the best pathway towards understanding contemporary innovations, organizational changes, societal changes, and the cultural changes. Furthermore, our society is evolving at a rapid pace and it is technology driven. There is an observable correlation between technological advancement and the advancement of the society. Hence as technology evolves, so does the society. Evidence of our technology-driven society is evident in different echo systems. These ecosystems could be organizations, business models, e-commerce, e-governance, e-health, etc. These ecosystem, among others, are all interconnected in different puntualized networks or clusters with members from different parts of the world. Hence as technology evolves these echo systems evolve as well. Often times they do not evolve without challenges. In other cases, they evolve into challenges. One way of solving these challenges is by investigating the weak links within the actor network and trying to find ways on how to solve the problem. This implies that the person in charge has an overview of the actor network. Furthermore, these punctualized networks are very complex systems (see example Sage et al. 2020). The complex systems consist of the core and the periphery (edges). Example of systems at the edges are social media systems, etc. Nevertheless currently, very few literary works analyze the complexity of these systems. For example, the socio-technical analysis of these contemporary socio-technical systems governed by new digital technologies like Block chain, AI, etc., are rare.
Hence, our contemporary age opens up an opportunity for the investigation of our world using ANT. It opens up the possibility to analyze translations, understand the character of actants today, examine the challenges with the theory if any, and if necessary propose ways we can understand our world today using ANT. This book is designed to kick start this process of probing, analyzing, and highlighting new ways of approaching the theory in different fields. This chapter has four sections. This section is followed by a brief expose on the relevance of ANT today. The section is followed by a summary of chapters presented in this book. It then ends with a conclusion.
The Relevance of Ant Today
The Actor Network Theory is an unorthodox theory. Nevertheless, it is a theory that is still relevant today. This is more so because the present innovations in society consist of elements that can be explained by the ANT. The nature of the current network of interactions is consistent with the theory and the translation process still holds not just for artifacts but also for Black boxes. In this section, the discussion is on to the consistency of the theory to contemporary times and the need to rethink actant agency allocations. The consistency is discussed under three headings, the nature of the network, network transformation, and agency.
Nature of the Network
The first applicable tenet is fact that actor networks consist of human and non-human actants (Law 1999). This still holds in contemporary times. It is more evident today that it was when Bruno Latour and Michel Callon (1981) proposed the theory. Nevertheless, the common actors in our contemporary world are human and non-human actors. Some of the contemporary actors include human and different non-human actors such as technology, ideas, concepts, semiotics, and a whole range of actors. In principle this one of the doctrines of the ANT that is timeless and used in a great deal of non-Science and Technology Studies (STS) ANT research as mentioned earlier.
ANT also posits that the human actant, material, semiotics, artifacts, and other actants interacting in the actor network as a whole (Latour 1993, 1999). A contemporary example is Facebook as a platform, not the company this time. Facebook is represented by its brand logo (semiotic) and by its name. When anyone sees that brand logo or hears the name, Facebook the first thing that comes to mind is the service. The platform is accessed via technological artifacts, such as mobile and desktop devices. The materiality of these artifacts makes is attractive for humans to use the service. In these devices, there are different semiotics familiar to the users that enable human interaction. These are some of the different actant interactions in the actor network of Facebook. These interactions occur as a whole. However, the Facebook Brand Logo or the name represents them.
Another tenet of the actor network, which has contemporary implications, is on the nature of the actor network. The ontology of the Actor Network is different from the ontology of other networks. As the name implies, actor network is about the interaction between actants (Latour 1993). The actants are not nodes in the network; rather the actants produce action toward one another in their interactions within the network (ibid.). That is also visible in contemporary times. If one considers a laptop as an actor network. When the keyboard is activated, any command typed using the keyboard is displayed on the screen. If the screen goes blank, there is no actor network because no action is produced. The same thing doe...