ANT in simple terms
I was left quite confused after the Latour reading and couldn’t quite grasp the idea of ANT.
Deciding to investigate the web for a clearer explanation, good old Wikipedia pulled through with summarizing the approach in much clearer terminology.
Even the opening paragraph gave me a clearer understanding.
Actor–network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is an approach to social theory and research, originating in the field of science studies, which treats objects as part of social networks. Although it is best known for its controversial insistence on the capacity of nonhumans to act or participate in systems and/or networks, ANT is also associated with forceful critiques of conventional and critical sociology. Developed by science and technology studies scholars Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, the sociologist John Law, and others, it can more technically be described as a “material-semiotic” method. This means that it maps relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and semiotic (between concepts). It assumes that many relations are both material and semiotic.