sociol essay

Systems Practice, Vol. 5, No. 4, 1992

Notes on the Theory of the Actor-Network: Ordering, Strategy, and Heterogeneity

J o h n L a w I

Received April 10, 1992

This paper describes the theory of the actor-network, a body of theoretical and empirical writing which treats social relations, including power and organization, as network effects. The theory is distinctive because it insists that networks are materially heterogeneous and argues that society and organization would not exist if they were simply social. Agents, texts, devices, architectures are all generated in, form part of, and are essential to, the networks of the social. And in the first instance, all should be analyzed in the same terms. Accordingly, in this view, the task of sociology is to characterize the ways in which materials join together to generate themselves and reproduce institutional and organizational patterns in the networks of the social.

KEY WORDS: actor network; translation; heterogeneity; agency; technology; strat- egy; ordering; punctualization; power; materialism.

1. I N T R O D U C T I O N

J u s t o c c a s i o n a l l y w e find o u r s e l v e s w a t c h i n g o n t h e s i d e l i n e s as a n o r d e r c o m e s

c r a s h i n g d o w n . O r g a n i z a t i o n s o r s y s t e m s w h i c h w e h a d a l w a y s t a k e n f o r

g r a n t e d - - t h e U n i o n o f S o v i e t S o c i a l i s t R e p u b l i c s , o r C o n t i n e n t a l I l l i n o i s - - a r e

s w a l l o w e d u p . C o m m i s s a r s , m o g u l s , a n d c a p t a i n s o f i n d u s t r y d i s a p p e a r f r o m

v i e w . T h e s e d a n g e r o u s m o m e n t s o f f e r m o r e t h a n p o l i t i c a l p r o m i s e . F o r w h e n

t h e h i d d e n t r a p d o o r s o f t h e s o c i a l s p r i n g o p e n w e s u d d e n l y l e a r n that t h e m a s t e r s

o f t h e u n i v e r s e m a y a l s o h a v e f e e t o f c l a y .

H o w is it t h a t it e v e r s e e m e d o t h e r w i s e ? H o w is t h a t , at l e a s t f o r a t i m e ,

t h e y m a d e t h e m s e l v e s d i f f e r e n t f r o m u s ? B y w h a t o r g a n i z a t i o n a l m e a n s d i d t h e y

k e e p t h e m s e l v e s in p l a c e a n d o v e r c o m e t h e r e s i s t a n c e s t h a t w o u l d h a v e b r o u g h t

t h e m t u m b l i n g d o w n m u c h s o o n e r ? H o w w a s it w e c o l l u d e d in t h i s ? T h e s e a r e

s o m e o f t h e k e y q u e s t i o n s o f s o c i a l s c i e n c e . A n d t h e y a r e t h e q u e s t i o n s t h a t l i e

at t h e h e a r t o f " a c t o r - n e t w o r k t h e o r y " 2 - - t h e a p p r o a c h to s o c i o l o g y t h a t is t h e

~Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Keele University, Keele, Staffs, ST5 5BG, UK.

2This is the product of a group of sociologists associated with, and in several cases located at, the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation of the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris. The

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0894 9859/92/0800 0379506.50/0 �9 1992 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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topic o f this note. This t h e o r y - - a l s o k n o w n as the sociology o f translation--is concerned with the mechanics o f power. It suggests, in effect, that we should analyze the great in exactly the same w a y that we would a n y o n e else. O f course, this is not to d e n y that the nabobs o f this world are powerful. T h e y certainly are. But it is to suggest that they are no different in kind sociologically to the wretched o f the earth.

Here is the argument. I f we want to understand the mechanics o f p o w e r and organization it is important not to start out assuming whatever w e wish to explain. F o r instance, it is a g o o d idea not to take it for granted that there is a macrosocial system o n the one hand, and bits and pieces o f derivative micro- social detail on the other. I f w e do this w e close off most o f the interesting questions about the origins o f p o w e r and organization. Instead, we should start with a clean slate. F o r instance, w e might start with interaction and assume that interaction is all that there is. Then we might ask h o w some kinds o f interactions more or less succeed in stabilizing and reproducing themselves: h o w it is that they o v e r c o m e resistance and seem to b e c o m e " m a c r o s o c i a l " ; h o w is it that they seem to generate the effects such as p o w e r , fame, size, scope, o r organi- zation with which w e are all familiar. This, then, is one o f the core assumptions o f a c t o r - n e t w o r k theory: that N a p o l e o n s are no different in kind to small-time hustlers, and I B M s to whelk-stalls. A n d if they are larger, then we should be studying how this c o m e s a b o u t - - h o w , in other words, size, p o w e r , o r organi- zation are generated.

In this note, I start by exploring the m e t a p h o r o f heterogeneous network. This lies at the heart o f a c t o r - n e t w o r k theory, and is a w a y o f suggesting that society, organizations, agents, and machines are all effects generated in patterned networks o f diverse (not simply human) materials. Next I consider network consolidation, and in particular h o w it is that networks m a y c o m e to look like single point actors: h o w it is, in other words, we are sometimes able to talk o f " t h e British G o v e r n m e n t " rather than all the bits and pieces that make it up. I then examine the character o f network ordering and argue that this is better seen as a v e r b - - a s o m e w h a t uncertain process o f o v e r c o m i n g resistance--rather than as the fait accompli o f a noun. Finally, I discuss the materials and strategies o f network ordering, and describe some organizationally-relevant findings o f a c t o r - network theory. In particular, I consider s o m e o f the ways in which patterning generates institutional and organizational effects, including hierarchy and power.

authors associated with this approach include Akrich (1989a,b, 1992), Bowker (1988, 1992), Callon (1980, 1986,* 1987, 1991; Latour, 1981; Law and Rip, 1986 ), Cambrosio et al., (1990), Hennion (1985, 1989, 1990; Meadel, 1986, 1989), Latour (1985,* 1986, 1987,* 1988a,b, 1990,* 1991a,b, 1992a,b), Law (1986a,*b, 1987, 1991a,b, 1992a,b; Bijker, 1992; Callon, 1988,* 1992), Medeal (see Hennion and Meadel), Rip (1986), and Star (1990b, 1991;* Griesemer, 1989). Those items marked out with an asterisk might be particularly helpful for those not familiar with the approach.

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2. SOCIETY AS HETEROGENEOUS NETWORK

Actor-network authors started out in the sociology o f science and technol- ogy. With others in the sociology o f science, they argued that knowledge is a social product rather than something generated through the operation o f a priv- ileged scientific method. And, in particular, they argued that " k n o w l e d g e " (but they generalize from knowledge to agents, social institutions, machines, and organizations) may be seen as a product or an effect o f a network o f heteroge- neous materials.

I put " k n o w l e d g e " in inverted c o m m a s because it always takes material forms. It comes as talk, or conference presentations. Or it appears in papers, preprints, or patents. Or again, it appears in the form o f skills embodied in scientists and technicians (Latour and Woolgar, 1979). " K n o w l e d g e , " then, is embodied in a variety o f material forms. But where does it come from? The actor-network answer is that it is the end product o f a lot o f hard work in which heterogeneous bits and pieces--test tubes, reagents, organisms, skilled hands, scanning electron microscopes, radiation monitors, other scientists, articles, computer terminals, and all the rest--that would like to make off on their own are juxtaposed into a patterned network which overcomes their resistance. In short, it is a material matter but also a matter o f organizing and ordering those materials. So this is the actor-network diagnosis o f science: that it is a process o f "heterogeneous engineering" in which bits and pieces from the social, the technical, the conceptual, and the textual are fitted together, and so converted (or " t r a n s l a t e d " ) into a set o f equally heterogeneous scientific products.

So much for science. But I have already suggested that science isn't very special. Thus what is true for science is also said to be true for other institutions. Accordingly, the family, the organization, computing systems, the economy and technologies--all o f social l i f e - - m a y be similarly pictured. All o f these are ordered networks o f heterogeneous materials whose resistance has been over- come. This, then, is the crucial analytical move made by actor-network writers: the suggestion that the social is nothing other than patterned networks of het- erogeneous materials.

This is a radical claim because it says that these networks are composed not only o f people, but also o f machines, animals, texts, money, architectures-- any material that you care to mention. So the argument is that the stuff o f the social isn't simply human. It is all these other materials too. Indeed, the argu- ment is that we wouldn't have a society at all if it w e r e n ' t for the heterogeneity o f the networks o f the social. So in this view the task o f sociology is to char- acterize these networks in their heterogeneity, and explore how it is that they come to be patterned to generate effects like organizations, inequality, and power.

Look at the material world in this way. It isn't simply that we eat, find shelter in our houses, and produce objects with machines. It is also that almost all o f our interactions with other people are mediated through objects o f one

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kind o r another. F o r instance, I s p e a k to y o u t h r o u g h a text, e v e n t h o u g h w e will p r o b a b l y n e v e r m e e t . A n d to do that, I a m tapping a w a y at a c o m p u t e r k e y b o a r d . At a n y rate, o u r c o m m u n i c a t i o n with one a n o t h e r is m e d i a t e d b y a n e t w o r k o f o b j e c t s - - t h e c o m p u t e r , the p a p e r , the printing press. A n d it is also m e d i a t e d b y n e t w o r k s o f o b j e c t s - a n d - p e o p l e , such as the postal s y s t e m . T h e a r g u m e n t is that these v a r i o u s n e t w o r k s participate in the social. T h e y shape it. In s o m e m e a s u r e they h e l p to o v e r c o m e y o u r reluctance to read m y text. A n d ( m o s t crucially) they are necessary to the social relationship b e t w e e n a u t h o r and reader.

H e r e is a second e x a m p l e . I a m standing on a stage. T h e students face m e , behind seried ranks o f desks, with p a p e r and pens. T h e y are writing notes. T h e y can see m e , and they c a n h e a r m e . But they c a n also see the transparencies that I put in the o v e r h e a d projector. So the projector, like the s h a p e o f the r o o m , participates in the shaping o f o u r interaction. It m e d i a t e s o u r c o m m u n i c a t i o n and it does this a s y m m e t r i c a l l y , a m p l i f y i n g w h a t I say without giving students m u c h o f a c h a n c e to a n s w e r b a c k ( T h o m p s o n , 1990). In a n o t h e r world it might, o f course, b e different. T h e students m i g h t s t o r m the p o d i u m and take control o f the o v e r h e a d projector. O r they might, as they do i f I lecture b a d l y , s i m p l y ignore m e . But they d o n ' t , and while they d o n ' t the p r o j e c t o r participates in o u r social relations: it helps to define the l e c t u r e r - s t u d e n t relationship. It is a part o f the social. It o p e r a t e s on t h e m to influence the w a y in w h i c h they act.

Perhaps it is only in l o v e m a k i n g that there is interaction b e t w e e n u n m e - diated h u m a n b o d i e s - - t h o u g h e v e n here the e x t r a - s o m a t i c usually p l a y s a role too. But the general case, and the o n e p r e s s e d b y a c t o r - n e t w o r k theory, is this. I f h u m a n b e i n g s f o r m a social n e t w o r k , it is not b e c a u s e they interact with o t h e r h u m a n beings. It is b e c a u s e they interact with h u m a n b e i n g s and endless o t h e r materials too. A n d , j u s t as h u m a n b e i n g s h a v e their p r e f e r e n c e s - - t h e y p r e f e r to interact in certain w a y s rather than in o t h e r s - - s o too do the o t h e r materials that m a k e up the h e t e r o g e n e o u s n e t w o r k s o f the social. M a c h i n e s , architectures, clothes, t e x t s - - a l l contribute to the patterning o f the social. A n d - - t h i s is m y p o i n t - - i f these materials w e r e to d i s a p p e a r then so too w o u l d w h a t w e s o m e t i m e s call the social order. A c t o r - n e t w o r k theory says, then, that o r d e r is an effect generated by heterogeneous means.

At this point there is a parting o f the w a y s . F o r the a r g u m e n t about the material patterning o f the social can b e treated in a reductionist m a n n e r . T h e reductionist v e r s i o n s tell that either m a c h i n e s or h u m a n relations are determinate in the last instance: that o n e drives the other. 3 H o w e v e r , t h o u g h these reduc- tionisms are different, they h a v e t w o things in c o m m o n . First, they divide the h u m a n and the technical into t w o separate heaps. A n d second, they a s s u m e that one drives the other.

3Machine reductionism is current in the technological determinism of sociotechnical organizational theory. Human reductionism is current in many sociologies--for instance in labor-process theory.

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Actor-network theory does not accept this reductionism. It says that there is no reason to assume, a priori, that either objects or people in general deter- mine the character o f social change or stability. To be sure, in particular cases, social relations may shape machines, or machine relations shape their social counterparts. But this is an empirical question, and usually matters are more complex. So, to use Langdon Winner's (1980) phrase, artefacts may, indeed, have politics. But the character o f those politics, how determinate they are, and whether it is possible to tease people and machines apart in the first instance-- these are all contingent questions.

3. A G E N C Y AS N E T W O R K

Let me be clear. Actor-network theory is analytically radical in part because it treads on a set o f ethical, epistemological, and ontological toes. In particular, it does not celebrate the idea that there is a difference in kind between people on the one hand, and objects on the other. It denies that people are necessarily special. Indeed it raises a basic question about what we mean when we talk o f people. Necessarily then, it sets the alarm bells o f ethical and epistemological humanism tinging. What should we make o f this? A clarificatory point, and then an argument.

The clarificatory point is this. W e need, I think, to distinguish between ethics and sociology. The one m a y - - i n d e e d should--inform the other, but they are not identical. To say that there is no fundamental difference between people and objects is an analytical stance, not an ethical position. And to say this does not mean that we have to treat the people in our lives as machines. We d o n ' t have to deny them the rights, duties, or responsibilities that we usually accord to people. Indeed, we might use it to sharpen ethical questions about the special character o f the human effect--as, for instance, in difficult cases such as life maintained by virtue o f the technologies o f intensive care.

N o w the analytical point. This can be made in several ways. For instance, I could argue (as have sociologists such as Woolgar, 1992 and psychologists o f technology like Turkle, 1984) that the dividing line between people and machines (and for that matter animals) is subject to negotiation and changes. Thus, it is easily shown that machines (and animals) gain and lose attributes such as inde- pendence, intelligence, and personal responsibility. And, conversely, that people take on and lose the attributes o f machines and animals.

However, I will press the argument in another way by saying that, analyt- ically, what counts as a person is an effect generated by a network o f hetero- geneous, interacting, materials. This is much the same argument as the one that I have already made about both scientific knowledge and the social world as a whole. But converted into a claim about humans it says that people are who they are because they are a pattemed network o f heterogeneous materials. I f you took away m y computer, m y colleagues, my office, m y books, m y desk,

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my telephone I wouldn't be a sociologist writing papers, delivering lectures, and producing " k n o w l e d g e . " I ' d be something quite other--and the same is true for all o f us. So the analytical question is this. Is an agent an agent primarily because he or she inhabits a body that carries knowledges, skills, values, and all the rest? Or is an agent an agent because he or she inhabits a set o f elements (including, o f course, a body) that stretches out into the network o f materials, somatic and otherwise, that surrounds each body?

Goffman's (1968) answer is that props are important, but the moral career o f the mental patient is not reducible to the props. Actor-network theory, like symbolic interaction (Star, 1990a, 1992) offers a similar response. It doesn't deny that human beings usually have to do with bodies (but what o f Banquo's ghost, or the shadow o f Karl Marx?). Neither does it deny that human beings, like the patients in the asylums described by Goffman, have an inner life. But it insists that social agents are never located in bodies and bodies alone, but rather that an actor is a patterned network o f heterogeneous relations, or an effect produced by such a network. The argument is that thinking, acting, writ- ing, loving, earning--all the attributes that we normally ascribe to human beings, are generated in networks that pass through and ramify both within and beyond the body. Hence the term, a c t o r - n e t w o r k - - a n actor is also, always, a network.

The argument can easily be generalized. For instance, a m a c h i n e is also a heterogeneous n e t w o r k - - a set o f roles played by technical materials but also by such human components as operators, users, and repair-persons. So, too, is a text. All o f these are networks which participate in the social. And the same is true for organizations and institutions: these are more or less precariously pat- terned roles played by people, machines, texts, buildings, all o f which may offer resistance.

4. P U N C T U A L I Z A T I O N A N D R E S O U R C I N G

Why is it that we are sometimes but only sometimes aware o f the networks that lie behind and make up an actor, an object or an institution? For instance, for most o f us most o f the time a television is a single and coherent object with relatively few apparent parts. On the other hand when it breaks down, for that same user--and still more for the repair p e r s o n - - i t rapidly turns into a network o f electronic components and human interventions. Again, for the average small businessperson, the Bank o f Credit and C o m m e r c e International w a s a coherent and organized location for depositing and withdrawing money. Now, however, and even more so for the fraud investigators, it is a complex network o f ques- tionable, indeed criminal, transactions. And again, for the healthy person, most o f the workings o f the body are concealed, even from them. By contrast, for someone who is ill and even more so for the physician, the body is converted into a complex network o f processes, and a set o f human, technical, and phar- maceutical interventions.

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W h y is it that the networks which make up the actor c o m e to be deleted, o r concealed from view? A n d w h y is this sometimes not the case? Let m e start with tautology. E a c h o f the a b o v e examples suggests that the appearance o f unity, and the disappearance o f network, has to do with simplification. T h e argument runs like this. All p h e n o m e n a are the effect o r the product o f heter- ogeneous networks. But in practice w e d o not cope with endless network ram- ification. Indeed, m u c h o f the time w e are not even in a position to detect network complexities. So what is happening? T h e a n s w e r is that if a network acts as a single block, then it disappears, to be replaced by the action itself and the seemingly simple author o f that action. A t the same time, the way in which the effect is generated is also effaced: f o r the time being it is neither visible, nor relevant. So it is that something m u c h s i m p l e r - - a working television, a well- m a n a g e d b a n k o r a healthy b o d y - - c o m e s , for a time, to mask the networks that produce it.

A c t o r network theorists sometimes talk o f such precarious simplificatory effects as punctualizations, and they certainly index an important feature o f the networks o f the social. Thus, I noted earlier that I refuse an analytical distinction between the m a c r o - and the microsocial. O n the other hand, I also noted that some network patterns run wide and d e e p - - t h a t they are m u c h more generally performed than others. Here is the connection: network patterns that are widely performed are often those that can be punctualized. This is because they are network p a c k a g e s - - r o u t i n e s - - t h a t can, if precariously, be more o r less taken for granted in the process o f heterogeneous engineering. In other words, they can be counted as resources, resources which m a y c o m e in a variety o f forms: agents, devices, texts, relatively standardized sets o f organizational relations, social technologies, b o u n d a r y protocols, organizational f o r m s - - a n y o r all o f these. Note that the h e t e r o g e n e o u s engineer cannot be certain that any will w o r k as predicted. Punctualization is always precarious, it faces resistance, and m a y degenerate into a failing network. O n the other hand, punctualized resources offer a w a y o f drawing quickly on the networks o f the social without having to deal with endless complexity. A n d , to the extent that they are e m b o d i e d in such ordering efforts they are then performed, reproduced in, and ramify through the networks o f the social. 4

5. T R A N S L A T I O N : S O C I A L O R D E R I N G A S P R E C A R I O U S P R O C E S S

I have insisted that punctualization is a process o r an effect, rather some- thing that can be achieved o n c e and for all. Thus, a c t o r - n e t w o r k theory assumes that social structure is not a n o u n but a verb. Structure is not free-standing, like

4This is one of the places where actor-network theory maps onto the sociology of organizations: the affinity between this argument and the theory of institutional isomorphism is evident.

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scaffolding on a building-site, but a site o f straggle, a relational effect that recursively generates and reproduces itself. 5 T h e insistence on process has a n u m b e r o f implications. It means, for instance, that no version o f the social order, no organization, and no agent, is ever complete, a u t o n o m o u s , and final. Or, to put it another way, it means that notwithstanding the dreams o f dictators and normative sociologists, there is no such thing as " t h e social o r d e r " with a single center, o r a single set o f stable relations. Rather, there are orders, in the plural. A n d , o f course, there are resistances.

Caution is required here, for the theory is not pluralist in the usual sense o f the term. It d o e s n ' t say there are m a n y m o r e o r less equal centers o f p o w e r o r order. W h a t it says is that the effects o f p o w e r are generated in a relational and distributed manner, and nothing is ever sewn up. A n d that, to use the language o f classical s o c i o l o g y , ordering (and its effects including power) is contestable and often contested. Thus I said earlier that h u m a n beings and machines have their o w n preferences. This was an informal w a y o f talking o f resistance and the polyvalent character o f o r d e r i n g - - o f the w a y in which any particular effort at ordering encounters its limits, and struggles to accept o r o v e r c o m e those limits. A n o t h e r w a y o f saying this is to note that the bits and pieces assembled pro tem into an order are constantly liable to break d o w n , or make off on their own. Thus, analysis o f ordering struggle is central to a c t o r - network theory. The object is to explore and describe local processes o f pat- terning, social orchestration, ordering, and resistance. In short, it is to explore the process that is often called translation which generates ordering effects such as devices, agents, institutions, o r organizations. So " t r a n s l a t i o n " is a verb which implies transformation and the possibility o f equivalence, the possibility that one thing (for example, an actor) m a y stand f o r another (for instance a network).

This, then, is the core o f the a c t o r - n e t w o r k approach: a c o n c e r n with h o w actors a n d organizations mobilize, juxtapose, and hold together the bits and pieces out o f which they are c o m p o s e d ; h o w they are sometimes able to prevent those bits and pieces f r o m following their o w n inclinations and making off; and h o w they manage, as a result, to conceal f o r a time the process o f translation itself and so turn a network f r o m a heterogeneous set o f bits and pieces each with its o w n inclinations, into something that passes as a punctualized actor.

6. T H E S T R A T E G I E S O F T R A N S L A T I O N

How is the w o r k o f all the networks that make up the punctualized actor borrowed, bent, displaced, distorted, rebuilt, reshaped, stolen, profited from,

5In this respect it is similar to several other contemporary social theories. Think, for instance, of Giddens' (1984) notion of "structuration," Elias' (1978) theory of "figuration," or Bourdieu's (1989) concept of "habitus."

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and/or misrepresented to generate the effects o f agency, organization, and power? H o w are the resistances overcome? Here actor-network theory engages with the question that I posed at the outset: how is it that we never saw before that the Gorbachevs o f this world really had feet o f clay all along. For actor-network theory is all about p o w e r - - p o w e r as a (concealed or misrepresented) effect, rather than power as a set o f causes. Here it is close to Foucault (1979), but it is not simply Foucauldian for, eschewing the synchronic, it tells empirical stories about processes o f translation. Indeed, there is more than a hint o f Machiavelli in the method, and the author o f The Prince is cited approvingly by several actor-network theorists for his merciless analysis o f the tactics and strategies o f power.

But what can we say about translation and the methods o f overcoming resistance? Actor-network theory almost always approaches its tasks empiri- cally, and this is no exception. So the empirical conclusion is that translation is contingent, local, and variable. However, four more general findings emerge:

1. The first has to do with the fact that some materials are more durable than others and so maintain their relational patterns for longer. Imagine a con- tinuum. Thoughts are cheap but they d o n ' t last long, and speech lasts very little longer. But when we start to perform relations--and in particular when we embody them in inanimate materials such as texts and buildings--they may last longer. Thus a good ordering strategy is to embody a set o f relations in durable materials. Consequently, a relatively stable network is one embodied in and performed by a range o f durable materials.

The argument is attractive, but it is not as simple as it may seem. This is because durability is yet another relational effect, not something given in the nature o f things. I f materials behave in durable ways then this too is an inter- actional effect. Walls may resist the escape attempts o f prisoners--but only while there are also prison guards. Another way o f putting it is that durable material forms may find other uses: their effects change when they are located in new networks o f relations. In sum, th6 argument about durability is attractive and has much m e r i t - - b u t it needs to be handled with caution.

2. I f durability is about ordering through time, then mobility is about order- ing through space. In particular, it is about ways o f acting at a distance. Thus, centers and peripheries are effects too, effects generated by surveillance and control. The affinity with Foucault is obvious, but actor-network theory approaches the matter somewhat differently. In particular, it explores materials and processes o f communication--writing, electronic communication, methods o f representation, banking systems, and such apparent mundanities as early- m o d e m trade routes. In other words, it explores the translations that create the possibility o f transmitting o f what Latour calls immutable mobiles--letters o f credit, military orders, or cannon balls. Once again the stress is on precarious relational effects--though with a strongly historical emphasis, in part influenced by the " s y s t e m - b u i l d i n g " studies o f such historians o f technology as Hughes

388 Law

(1983), and in part by the Annales school o f materialist history with its insistence on the " longue d u r e e " (Braudel, 1975).

3. Translation is more effective if it anticipates the responses and reactions o f the materials to be translated. This idea is not n e w - - i t is, for instance, crucial to Machiavellian political science, and counts as a central theme in business history (Chandler, 1977; Beniger, 1986)--though actor-network writers resist the functionalism and technological determinism which tends to characterize the latter. Instead, they treat what Latour calls centers o f translation as relational effects and explore the conditions and materials that generate these effects and contain the resistance that would dissolve them. Drawing on the work o f his- torians (e.g., Ivins, 1975; Eisenstein, 1980) and anthropologists (Goody, 1977; Ong, 1982), they thus consider the relationship between literacy, bureaucracy, print, the development o f double-entry bookkeeping, and newer electronic tech- nologies on the one hand, and the capacity to foresee outcomes on the other. The argument is that under the appropriate relational circumstances such inno- vations have important calculational consequences, which in turn increases net- work robustness.

Note, again, the caveat about relational circumstances. As W e b e r well understood, calculation is not a deus ex machina. It is a set o f social methods or relations in its own right. Furthermore, it can only work on material repre- s e n t a t i o n s - t h e products o f surveillance which are also relational effects. Thus as I have indicated, systems o f representation, o f immutable mobiles, are also precarious. The analogy with the problem o f political representation is direct, for as with any other form o f translation, representation is fallible, and it cannot be foretold whether a representative will successfully speak for (and so mask) what it claims to represent.

4. Finally, there is the issue o f the scope o f ordering. I have been pressing the view that this is local. But, arguably it is possible to impute somewhat general strategies o f translation to networks, strategies which, like Foucauldian discourses, ramify through and reproduce themselves in a range o f network instances or locations. Note that if these exist, they are more or less implicit-- for explicit strategic calculation is only possible if there is already a center o f translation. 6

What might such strategies look like? This, again, is an empirical matter. But since no ordering is ever complete, we might expect a series o f strategies to coexist and interact. This, at any rate, is the claim made by several actor- network writers. Thus, in a recent study o f management, I have detected a range o f s t r a t e g i e s - - " e n t e r p r i s e , " " a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , " " v o c a t i o n , " and " v i s i o n " - which collectively operate to generate multi-strategic agents, organizational arrangements, and inter-organizational transactions. Indeed, the argument is that

6This concern with implicit strategy is again consistent with Foucauldian sociology (see, for in- stance, Foucault, 1981, pp. 94-95).

Theory of Actor-Network 389

an organization may be seen as a set o f such strategies which operate to generate complex configurations o f network durability, spatial mobility, systems o f rep- resentation, and calculability--configurations which have the effect o f generating the center/periphery asymmetries and hierarchies characteristic o f most formal organizations.

7. C O N C L U S I O N

In this note, I have described actor-network theory and suggested that this is a relational and process-oriented sociology that treats agents, organizations, and devices as interactive effects. I have touched on some o f the ways in which such effects are generated, and emphasized their heterogeneity, their uncertainty, and their contested character. In particular, I have argued that social structure is better treated as a verb than as a noun.

As is obvious, the approach has a number o f points in common with other sociologies. However, its relational materialism is quite distinctive. To be sure, materialism is not new to sociology. Nevertheless, materialism and social rela- tions have not always been the happiest o f bedfellows. In the best sociologies such as Marxism and feminism they have interacted. Even so, it has been usual to treat them as if they were naturally different in kind, as a dualism rather than a continuity. However, as the dualisms fall in sociology, the actor-network approach joins the party in a radical spirit, for it not only effaces the analytical divisions between agency and structure, and the macro- and the micro-social, but it also asks us to treat different materials--people, machines, " i d e a s " and all the rest--as interactional effects rather than primitive causes. The actor- network approach is thus a theory o f agency, a theory o f knowledge, and a theory o f machines. And, more importantly, it says that we should be exploring social effects, whatever their material form, if we want to answer the " h o w " questions about structure, power, and organization. This is the basic argument: to the extent that " s o c i e t y " recursively reproduces itself it does so because it is materially heterogeneous. And sociologies that do not take machines and architectures as seriously as they do people will never solve the problem o f reproduction.

What does actor-network theory have to say to the sociology o f organi- zations? One answer is that it defines a set o f questions for exploring the pre- carious mechanics o f organization. I have implied above that these questions come in several forms. Thus it is convenient to distinguish, on the one hand, between questions to do with the materials o f organization, and on the other, with those to do with the strategy o f organization. So when actor-network theory explores the character o f organization, it treats this as an effect or a conse- q u e n c e - t h e effect o f interaction between materials and strategies o f organiza- tion.

390 L a w

These, then, are the kinds o f questions it asks o f organizations, and the powerful who head those organizations. What are the kinds o f heterogeneous bits and pieces created or mobilized and juxtaposed to generate organizational effects? H o w are they juxtaposed? H o w are resistances overcome? H o w it is (if at all) that the material durability and transportability necessary to the organi- zational patterning o f social relations are achieved? What are the strategies being performed throughout the networks o f the social as a part o f this? H o w far do they spread? H o w widely are they performed? H o w do they interact? H o w it is (if at all) that organizational calculation is attempted? H o w (if at all) are the results o f that calculation translated into action? H o w is it (if at all) that the heterogeneous bits and pieces that make up organization generate an asym- metrical relationship between periphery and center? H o w is it, in other words, that a center may come to speak for and profit from, the efforts o f what has been turned into a periphery? H o w is it that a manager manages?

Looked at in this way, organization is an achievement, a process, a con- sequence, a set o f resistances overcome, a precarious effect. Its c o m p o n e n t s - - the hierarchies, organizational arrangements, power relations, and flows o f infor- m a t i o n - a r e the uncertain consequences o f the ordering o f heterogeneous mate- rials. So it is that actor-network theory analyses and demystifies. It demystifies the power o f the powerful. It says that, in the last instance, there is no difference in kind, no great divide, between the powerful and the wretched. But then it says that there is no such thing as the last instance. And since there is no last instance, in practice there are real differences between the powerful and the wretched, differences in the methods and materials that they deploy to generate themselves. Our task is to study these materials and methods, to understand how they realize themselves, and to note that it could and often should be otherwise.

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

I did not want to clutter the text, so I have included few references to actor- network theory in the body o f this note. (Citations will be found in footnote 2.) However, the note reports on a large body o f (substantially empirical) work by a series o f authors. I a m grateful to them all for their support o v e r a decade.

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