Situating
Process Networks against Actor Network Theory (ANT)
The
network theory advanced above seeks to remedy a perceived problem introduced by
theorizing the city, as a spatial form, from an ontologically overdeterminist
framework. Specifically, if all
processes exist ontologically in mutually constitutive/mutually constituted
relationships and space-time exists as the dimensionality of processes, then
overdetermination must presuppose an explosive transmission of effects from all
processes across a seamless universal space-time, as the spatio-temporal
dimensionality of all processes. Such a
universal space-time cannot be meaningfully theorized without abstracting
processes and their structural and spatio-temporal relationships from the
structured totality and universal space-time within which they reside. Articulation of processual networks provides
a mechanism for undertaking this theoretic abstraction. Specifically, it articulates the spatio-temporal
relationships of processes in a piecewise manner, identifying relatively
stationary nodes and the relatively mobile nodes, connecting them and
transmitting effects between the stationary nodes.
The general methodology followed
above in describing the network concept has consciously attempted to define
networks of processes through analogy to networks of actors and agencies,
succinctly advanced by theorists in the developing corpus of Actor Network
Theory (ANT).[7] My rationale for developing such an
analogous theory of networks is multifold, and an elaboration of this rationale
demands a brief outline of ANT and an account of its commonalities and
differences with the ontologically overdeterminist framework from which my
account proceeds.
In a general sense, conveyed most
succinctly by Latour (1993: 138-145), ANT theorizes material existence as an
assemblage of actors, organized into hybrid combinations with other types of
actors (hybrid actants). These
actor hybrids undertake acts of agency (i.e. transformations of material
existence) under the influence/effect of multifarious acts of agency undertaken
by many other actor hybrids at different times and in different places. In this manner, the actor to ANT exists as
an entity that is made to act by outside influences (Latour, 2007:
54-55). On the other hand, the actions
undertaken by an actor do not constitute unmediated outside imperatives –
actors maintain the freedom to mediate or translate the
imperatives that they internalize and to act in accordance with these
mediations (Law, 2003: 5-7). Agency,
within this framework, always constitutes a response to internalized
imperatives, where actors manifest some capacity to regulate the imperatives that
they internalize and the internalization of influences is formative to the
individualization/subjectivation of an actor (Latour, 2007: 207-213). The actor, as an entity, exists as a locus
for constitution by outside effects, but such effects are finite and their
internalization or rejection by the actor is a free act of mediation.
Some actors impact the
actions of other actors over relatively short distances while others effect
actions over relatively longer distances.
In either case, the capacity to exert these effects requires a mechanism
through which effects can be transmitted across space and/or time to exert
their influence on other actors.
Critically, ANT theorists insist on the empirical traceability of agency
between actors (Latour, 2007: 193-194).
ANT theorists describe the traceable spatio-temporal connections between
actors, through their acts of agency, by use of the network concept. That is to say, networks represent an
ontological tool to describe an empirically traceable material relationship
between actor hybrids, in whatever form such a relationship takes. Such networks only manifest durability,
moreover, to the extent that the actor hybrids whose agency traces them are
capable of reproducing the connection over time. The production of network connections, especially over relatively
long distances, carries non-trivial costs for actors and they must be repaid
for every connection to remain open over time.
Actor networks may, thus, be tenuous and fragile constructs, liable to
collapse if any of the pieces assembled to facilitate a connection across
space-time is omitted or otherwise breaks down.
This basic characterization of ANT
needs to be qualified against certain other features of its theoretic
development. Notably, the actors that
constitute the basic elements of ANT are not strictly human and the
agency described in the construction of networks is not strictly human
social agency. Rather, ANT pursues a
dissolution of the boundary between human and non-human actors, insisting on
the necessity of human/non-human hybrids (e.g. humans plus machinery; humans
plus theoretically produced ideas; humans plus natural materials) in the
assemblage of networks capable of diffusing the effects of agency over
space-time (Murdoch, 1997). In this
manner, the social processes whose effects are traceable as networks are not
objects of human agency, and still less of human intentionality, but outcomes
arising from the hybridization of human actors with non-human actors. This hybridization does not reflect a pure
appropriation of tools to perform ends defined by a human actor, but a mutual translation
of the collective agency of multiple actors, where each human and non-human
agent possesses some degree of freedom to mediate the sources of agency against
which its actions are a response.[8]
The ability of a human
theorist to influence others, for example, may require the theorist to enlist
and transform ideas developed by other theorists and codified in printed or
electronic materials, to utilize technologies in order codify her own ideas, to
access computer networks for dissemination or to rely on the actions of many
other human agents utilizing other technologies to disseminate her
theories. Once codified, the theories
developed by the theorist will influence individuals only to the extent
that such individuals can access, read, and otherwise appropriate the ideas
expressed in these theories. They will
be effective theories (in a performative sense) only if they motivate actions
on the part of those who expose themselves to the theories.
At each stage in this
process, the elements the theorist utilizes (e.g. other theories in print,
technologies for codification and dissemination, other human agents using other
technologies and knowledges) all represent actors in their own right or
human/non-human actor hybrids. The
ability of the theorist to influence others with her ideas relies on the
mobilization of every actor in this actor network, where the failure of any
element to be successfully mobilized (e.g. the failure of a computer to
successfully transmit theoretic materials, the negligence of a human actor in
handling materials) will transform/undermine the agency exercised by the
theorist. Collectively, the agency
exercised by the theorist, in association with diverse other human and
non-human actors, traces the network.
The imagery of the
network, thus, expressed by ANT seeks to emphasize a decentered
ontology, within which, on the one hand, human actors must successfully
mobilize other human actors and non-human actors in order to act and, on the
other hand, the motivations for action by the human actor (or, for that matter,
non-human actors) arise from myriad other sources of agency, the
internalization of which constitutes the imperative for action. Agency, in general, ceases to be coextensive
with human agency, and neither human nor non-human agencies reflect pure
manifestations of intentionality.
Finally, the material
existence that emerges from ANT supports a kind of constructivist ontology,
through which human actors mobilize non-human actors into hybrid forms to
create the elements of social life and to continuously transform and, thus,
reproduce nature. Human actors produce
society, but only through the mediation of mobilized non-human actors
(technologies, ideas, “natural” substances).
In the latter regard, the mediations of specific non-human actors (e.g.
computer systems, ideas about the intervention of animal spirits in day-to-day
life, etc.) shape the existence of specific forms of society, while
simultaneously shaping the forms of nature to which human actors respond. Material existence becomes a combinatory
construction of society and nature in such a way that any polar distinctions
between nature and society break down, leaving a totality of actors/substances of
varying complexity, free to be mobilized as mediators in collective
agency.
The most obvious point of
divergence between ANT and the Althusserian overdeterminist ontology on which
my theorization of networks is based concerns the role of agents/actors
relative to structural processes. The
processual characteristics of material existence (i.e. the continuous
transformation of substances and the diffusive effects of such transformations
on other processual transformations) in overdetermination prioritize the
transformation of substances/agents rather than the momentary existence of
substances in forms that can be made to act.
In this manner, overdetermination proceeds from a different basic unit
in conceptualizing material existence – an articulation of connections between
processes is not an articulation of connections between substances/actors whose
agencies may, however, constitute such processual transformations. In the most basic terms possible, the
Althusserian understanding of overdetermination and ANT proceed from different
moments or modes of material existence (static substantiality versus movement
and transformation).[9]
On the other hand, the
significance of this basic difference in the mode of theorization appears less
clear if certain points of analogy are brought to bear. Most notably, the basic units of
overdeterminist ontology (individual processes) and ANT (individual actors)
exist as loci against which multifarious outside elements facilitate
transformation or, at least, its potentiality.
For ANT, the agency of an individual actor is motivated/incited by the
agency of multifarious other actors, separated across space-time and connected
by vehicles through which the effects of agency can be transported. For overdetermination, the transformation
produced by a given process is effected by the transformations of multifarious
other processes. In accordance with the
distinctions I have made between the fields of structured totality and
theoretical articulation, this means one of two things: that every process
exists as a locus for overdetermination by all other processes in structured
totality; and that theorized connections can be made between processes,
separated across space-time and connected by transmission vehicles, in which
possibly uneven mutually constitutive relations can be specified. Leaving aside the ontological background of
structured totality for the moment, an analogy can be made regarding the
complex determination/incitement of theorized units.
Noting the analogy that
exists between the complex determination of processes and the complex
construction of motivation/incitement to agency by multifarious outside sources
of agency, a separation exists in the conception of necessity/determination and
motivation/incitement. Specifically,
ANT insists on the role of actors as mediators of outside influences/sources of
motivation to action. Thus, actors are
made to act, but only to the extent that they freely internalize
particular influences that cause them to act in a particular way – individual
actors are not openly effected by outside determinants. The understanding of overdetermination
advanced by this project, by contrast, omits the possibility of mediation. Any apparent mediation of effects on an
overdetermined process manifests the incomplete resolution of structural
causation (i.e. of the determinate constitution of a particular locus by an
infinity of processual effects across space-time). This project rejects the ontological possibility of mediation for
the same reason that it rejects the notion of the relative autonomy of
particular structural levels, initially advanced by Althusser (Althusser and
Balibar, 2009: 115), on the field of structured totality – this conception
amounts to an attempt at theoretic resolution for the irreducible complexity of
an overdetermined totality.
Proceeding further, by
insisting on the existence of an ontological background (i.e. structured
totality) whose theorization shapes the processes through which theoretic
knowledge is produced, determining that all theoretic knowledge must be partial
and partisan, this project proceeds from a very different epistemological basis
than ANT. ANT theorists like Latour,
Law, and Callon proceed from an epistemological approach that can, at best, be
described as a kind of infinitely skeptical empiricism, forever holding out the
hope for ever more objective articulations of empirical facts that can unravel
the complexity of material existence but arguing that the theoretic production
of objective truths, in either the natural or social sciences, is a
continuously open and incomplete process.
Conceptually, Callon (2007) describes this kind of epistemological
approach as performative, in the sense that theoretic statements,
striving toward objectivity but never reaching it, participate fully as actors
with other human and/or non-human actors in the acts of agency that they
motivate. Theory, thus, performs a
particular reality in participation with other actors in which the influence of
theory, as a component within the larger hybrid, is mediated through the
mobilization of the other actors (e.g. Callon, 1986). The outcomes of this reality and, thus, the objectivity of theory
remain continuously uncertain because theory must mobilize all of the other
actors to perform in a predicted manner.
Critically, ANT accounts may not conceive of the possibility of reaching
closure in the production of objective “matters of fact” (Latour, 2007: 115)[10],
but they nonetheless acknowledge as their goal to strive toward such illusive
ends.
My borrowing of Callon’s
concept of performation, by contrast, seeks to acknowledge, with Callon, that
theoretic processes shape the realities that they describe while substituting,
for faith in the quest for objectivity through empirically-founded theoretic
methods, hope that theoretic accounts can persuasively effect the actions of
individuals exposed to theory in ways that achieve the partisan ends of the
theory. The difference between
these two perspectives invariably leads back to the basic difference between
mediation and overdetermination. The
effects of theoretic processes in an overdeterminist account are uncertain, not
because they fail to mobilize other actors, but because the overdetermination
of the reality that theory seeks to address is too irreducibly complex to
permit the articulation of an objective account or an objective understanding
of how theory does in fact effect it.
Thus, where ANT articulates networks as empirically traced connections
between actors for the purpose of participating in a search for
empirically-founded objective truths, this project seeks to articulate networks
as theoretically conceived connections between processes in an effort to
contribute to uncertain partisan projects of social transformation in an
irreducibly complex material reality in which objectivity can never even be
approached.
It suffices to say in
concluding this section that the theory of process networks that I have
advanced does not belong to the body of Actor Network Theory. On the other hand, particular themes
advanced by ANT appear persuasive enough to merit integration into a larger
understanding of spatio-temporality consistent with an overdeterminist,
process-based ontology. Specifically,
the acknowledgement that integrated class processes, constituting specific
class structures, involve dispersed, non-simultaneous spatio-temporal relations
demands the development of an account to specify the particular spatio-temporal
relations between processes of surplus production, appropriation/distribution,
and receiving and to inquire into the formative significance of
dispersion. By insisting on the
theoretic traceability of spatio-temporal connections and, above all, the
necessity of transmission vehicles to connect all points, arguments emphasized
strongly by ANT, Marxian class analytic accounts can develop new understandings
on the construction of globally-extensive capitalist firms, interregional
non-capitalist class structures, and non-class structures existing as conditions
of existence to myriad, diverse class processes in multiple geographic
locations. For these reasons, it
appeared imperative to situate my own theoretic approach and acknowledge its
indebtedness to this other theoretic body, notwithstanding the clear
differences that exist between ANT and overdeterminist ontology.
[7] Following
Law’s (2007) warnings on defining ANT, this body of theory should neither be
characterized as a theory, per se, nor as uniform body of theoretically
informed explanations on society.
Rather, it constitutes a loose body of approaches to analysis insistent
on the empirical traceability of connections between actors through their acts
of agency.
[8] The best
example of such hybrid agency is apparent in Callon’s (1986) account on the
domestication of scallops for commercial harvesting. He explains, for example, the possibility for contestation and
betrayal of collective agency by individual actors (scientific/oceanographic
researchers, institutional colleagues/research financiers, fisherman, scallops),
through which the inability to mobilize one actor causes the network to fail.
On Callon’s explanation, see also Murdoch (1997: 738-740).
[9] Law’s (2003:
5) characterization of translation as process and his argument that
“actor-network theory assumes that social structure is a not a noun but a verb”
muddies any clear delineation between Althusserian overdetermination and ANT in
relation to process. In this regard, my
differentiation between the two ontologies cannot rest on the argument that ANT
constitutes an ontology of materially static agents.
[10] Latour
(2007: 114-115) differentiates, in particular, between matters of fact
and matters of concern, where the former describe non-human objects that
lack the capacity for mediation and the latter describe non-human
mediators. In this respect, he
introduces a differentiation between a first and second empiricism,
the former concerned solely with matters of fact and the latter, associated
with ANT, investigating matters of concern.
For Latour, there is no question that ANT accounts seek to be empirical
and objective, but such accounts can simply never realize a premature
unification (Ibid: 115) of matters of concern into matters of fact.
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