so this weeks reading by Bruno Latour was called “On Actor Network Theory: A Few Clarifications 1/2.” or, as i liked to call it, “pure evil”. if you wish to torture yourself, you can find it here.

as i’m sure you’ve gathered from those first two sentences, i did not like this reading. it just made no sense. and never really seemed to tell us what actor network theory was. all i did learn was what it wasn’t. for one, it wasn’t about actors. 2, it’s not even about networks. or, not in the traditional sense of networks, or even other senses of the term, such as social networks or train networks. so, if it’s not a network, what is it?

well, there was this sentence: “Put too simply ANT is a change of methaphors to describe essences: instead of surfaces one gets filaments”. but what on earth does that even mean? all just seems like a lot of hoopla over nothing. and don’t get me wrong, i tried re-reading this a bunch of times, it just refused to sink in. so much of this was over complicated jargon that just left me frustrated.

you know what… i give up. you want my interpretation of actor-network theory (or ANT)? here it is: