Performing Actor-Network Theory in the Post-Secondary Classroom

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Andrea Quinlan ◽  
Elizabeth Quinlan ◽  
Desiree Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
Innovative Teaching ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Innovative Methods ◽  
Secondary Classroom

Teaching innovative schools of thought call for innovative methods of instruction. This article investigates the challenges associated with teaching Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and proposes a creative pedagogical approach of ‘performing’ ANT in the classroom. This article presents a small case study of an instance where this theatrical method was employed in an undergraduate classroom to teach Annemarie Mol’s The Body Multiple. Based on the qualitative data collected from reflections of students and the professor, it investigates the successes of this creative pedagogical approach to teach ANT. This article argues that it is only through innovative teaching methods that ANT can be effectively explored in the classroom.

Performing Actor-Network Theory in the Post-Secondary Classroom

2013 ◽  
pp. 56-66
Author(s):  
Andrea Quinlan ◽  
Elizabeth Quinlan ◽  
Desiree Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
Innovative Teaching ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Innovative Methods ◽  
Secondary Classroom

Teaching innovative schools of thought call for innovative methods of instruction. This article investigates the challenges associated with teaching Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and proposes a creative pedagogical approach of ‘performing’ ANT in the classroom. This article presents a small case study of an instance where this theatrical method was employed in an undergraduate classroom to teach Annemarie Mol’s The Body Multiple. Based on the qualitative data collected from reflections of students and the professor, it investigates the successes of this creative pedagogical approach to teach ANT. This article argues that it is only through innovative teaching methods that ANT can be effectively explored in the classroom.

The Iranian Wheat Growers’ Climate Information Use

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Sharifzadeh ◽  
Gholam Zamani ◽  
Ezatollah Hossein Karami ◽  
Davar Khalili ◽  
Arthur Tatnall
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Information Access ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Fars Province ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
Processing Factors

This research project employed an interdisciplinary attempt to study agricultural climate information use, linking sociology of translation (actor-network theory) and actor analysis premises in a qualitative research design. The research method used case study approaches and purposively selected a sample consisting of wheat growers of the Fars province of Iran, who are known as contact farmers. Concepts from actor-network theory (ANT) have been found to provide a useful perspective on the description and analysis of the cases. The data were analyzed using a combination of an actor-network theory (ANT) framework and the dynamic actor-network analysis (DANA) model. The findings revealed socio political (farmers’ awareness, motivation, and trust), and information processing factors (accuracy of information, access to information, and correspondence of information to farmers’ condition) as the key elements in facilitating climate information use in farming practices.

Nonhuman Actors, Hybrid Networks, and Conflicts Over Municipal Waste Incinerators

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Magnani
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Municipal Waste ◽  
Waste To Energy ◽  
Natural Material ◽  
Environmental Conflicts ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Waste Incinerators

This article seeks to make an original contribution to the study of environmental conflicts on waste management infrastructures by applying concepts derived from actor-network theory in an empirical case study. The article is organized into three main parts. The first highlights how the bulk of the literature on the subject has systematically ignored the role of natural/material factors. The second part analyzes the theoretical and methodological contribution of actor-network theory to the analysis of environmental conflicts. Finally, the third part focuses on a case study from northern Italy concerning a conflict over a project for a large-scale municipal waste-to-energy incinerator. The author shows how the outcome of the conflict, namely the failure of the project notwithstanding a convergence of powerful interests, can only be fully understood by adopting a relational definition of agency that sees it as the effect of the process of building associations between humans and nonhumans.

Technology and Ethical Behavior in Running Sports

2021 ◽  
pp. 534-549
Author(s):  
Norma Smith
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Behavior ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Distance Running ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Wearable Technologies ◽  
Long Distance Running ◽  
The Individual

Wearable technologies' popularity in sporting practices continues to grow. Runners use GPS watches and activity trackers to track steps, log miles, map courses, and monitor heart rates. Likewise, wearables are integrated into long distance running events, with race officials relying on technologies to effectively execute events. However, technologies can also enable and monitor cheating. Many studies focusing on the individual explore why cheaters make unethical decisions. Actor-Network Theory shifts cheating's focus from the individual and moral failings to an assemblage that includes not only the runner, but nonhumans, such as technology, as well. A 2015 Canadian Ironman cheating incident case study illuminates intricate relationships and networks between humans and nonhumans. By examining the intersections of cheating and technology in running sports, the authors see where and how technology works as intended or is repurposed. Whereas a human-centered approach to sport and cheating dismisses wearables' agency, Actor-Network Theory reveals their underexamined, sociotechnical complexities.

scholarly journals I feel my wrist buzz. Smartbody and performative sensibility in Fitbit devices

2017 ◽  
pp. 5-17
Author(s):  
André Luiz Martins Lemos ◽  
Elias Bitencourt
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
User Community ◽  
Central Thesis ◽  
The World ◽  
Community Forum ◽  
Body Care

Abstract This paper discusses the concepts of performative sensibility and smartbody. The central thesis is that performative sensibility highlights the instrumental nature of sensations in which objects act on the world. We show how the prescriptions of this new sensibility associated with wearables affect the body and subjectivity that we propose to call a smartbody. There were one hundred testimonials analyzed from the oldest thread with the greatest number of comments in the Fitbit user community forum. Quantitative tools and actor-network theory were used as a guide to assemble and analyze the corpus. The preliminary findings show that Fitbit users demonstrate particular changings in body care. Extreme behaviors, physical limits defined by system goals and quantification habits without utilizing the device are some of the examples found. These findings appear to indicate that the performative sensibility of wearables mobilizes new body performatic patterns and practices oriented by data.

On the Definition of Cultivated Ecology

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-201
Author(s):  
Diane E. Pataki ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Urban Ecology ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultivated Plants ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
History Of

Sagoff (2017) critiqued the exclusion of cultivated plants and animals from much of the body of work in ecology. However, there is a history of attempting to incorporate cultivated landscapes in ecology that goes back at least two decades, particularly in urban ecology. The subdiscipline of urban ecology has received relatively little attention in philosophy, although some of its methodologies, such as coupled human-natural systems research, have been critiqued. Here I will attempt to explicitly address the conceptual limitations in ecology for studying cultivated ecosystems and evaluate these limitations in the context of coupled human-natural systems and socioecological research, urban ecosystem services frameworks, and actor-network theory. I argue that the history of cultivated organisms is highly germane to their ecology, necessitating the incorporation of human agency into ecological theory. However, human agency and nonhuman nature exist along a continuum of nature vs. culture. As a result, dualistic approaches to studying the role of human agency in ecosystem processes, such as socioecology and ecosystem services assessments—which explicitly separate humans from nature—have had limited success in cultivated landscapes. More fully integrated frameworks such as actor-network theory may better address ecological research questions in cultivated landscapes.

scholarly journals Obraz jako aktor społeczny w sieci. Treści przekazywane w obrębie mikroblogów na przykładzie serwisu soup.io

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 79-98
Author(s):  
Magdalena Szubstarska
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Actor Network

Images: Actors in the Network examines the properties of an image floating around the Internet: the ability of connecting people without usage of words, bonding them because of the mutual feelings they have about the reality outside. Images that are reposted between the users of digital forms such as tumblelogs or microblogs (the article uses soup.io for the case study) cover the needs, fears and aspirations of not only ordinary web-users, but also the users of the contemporary culture and economic system. An image is no longer a passive, visual piece – it acts by joining, addressing and portraying the desires, thoughts of the users. This phenomenon can be connected with Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, and with the ideas of W.J.T. Mitchell about the active images. The example of soup.io shows how easy it is to bond people through sharing particular images, but also how certain tools of popular culture can be used to create something new. Although it seems as soup.io users are not interested in connecting with anyone but themselves, their microblog is the message to the outside, it is their collage portrait that makes them visible to the others. Image is then not only the tool of connection, but also the tool of representation. What is important, most of the images that can be found on soup.io are anonymous – which means that they no longer belong to a certain person, but become independent and free to act.

scholarly journals Appearance, Disappearance and Reappearance of Activity Based Costing: A Case Study from a Sri Lankan Manufacturing Firm

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-81
Author(s):  
Chamali Wijerathne ◽  
◽  
Tharusha Gooneratne ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Activity Based Costing ◽  
Manufacturing Firm ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Prior Literature ◽  
Human Actors

The purpose of this paper was to identify why activity based costing (ABC) implementation in organizations at times do not continue despite their early interest, but later regain importance. Using the qualitative case study approach, the paper explored the reasons for the appearance, disappearance and reappearance of ABC drawing field data from a Sri Lankan porcelain manufacturing firms, called Gamma. Guided by the theoretical underpinnings of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), and the translation process therein, we follow organizational managers (human actors) and their interactions with various objects and systems (non-human actors) within the particular context of Gamma, during the different phases of the ABC project. Our findings suggest that the appearance, disappearance and reappearance of ABC have been shaped by a network of actors comprising both humans and non-humans, and that the implementation and continuation of ABC is constrained by the interests of these various actors both inside and outside of the firm. While most prior research has focused on a single phase of ABC implementation, such as the success or the failure, this study brings out its reappearance, following a phase of appearance and disappearance, hence it is a useful addition to prior literature. Furthermore, the findings of this research have important implications for practitioners who are striving to revive projects, such as ABC in organizations. Keywords: activity based costing, appearance, disappearance, reappearance, actor-network theory, case study

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document