The 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.

The Paris group of science and technology studies has set out to explore the properties of actor-networks since the beginning of the 1980s

Bruno Latour’s paper lists some interesting properties of networks and explains some of the misunderstandings which have arisen (due to common usages of the word network and the implied connotations).

According to Latour, the first mistake/understanding is to “give it a common technical meaning in the sense of sewage, or train, or subway, or telephone ‘network’”.

The second misunderstanding is that the actor-network theory has very little to do with the study of social networks.