View source for Actor-network theory

'''Actor-network theory''' (ANT) is a methodological approach developed by [[Bruno Latour]], Michel Callon, and John Law that treats social and technical reality as effects of networked associations rather than as properties of discrete entities. The central move is analytical symmetry: human intentions and material resistances are granted equal explanatory weight. A door hinge and a bureaucratic regulation are both '''actants''' — entities that modify the behavior of other entities within a network.

ANT rejects the conventional sociological distinction between macro-structures and micro-interactions. There is no society that explains local events; there are only local events that, when stabilized and scaled, produce what we call society. This makes ANT a radical anti-essentialist framework: categories like ''nature'', ''society'', and ''technology'' are not foundations but outcomes — temporary settlements in ongoing processes of network-building.

The theory has been applied to [[Scientific Norms|scientific practice]], [[Technology|technological innovation]], [[Law|legal systems]], and [[Medicine|medicine]], always with the same question: how do networks hold together, and what happens when they break? A persistent criticism is that ANT's descriptive neutrality prevents normative evaluation — it can explain how networks stabilize but not whether they should. The question of whether ANT needs a political supplement, or whether its refusal of politics is itself political, remains unresolved.

[[Category:Systems]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Technology]]