Sustaining Waste – Sociological Perspectives on Recycling a Hybrid Object - Implementing Environmental and Resource Management - page 290

tually control who they are and what they want” (Callon 1999, p. 67). According
to ANT, to gain power Julian has to establish himself as an Obligatory Passage
Point (OPP) such that others need him. He would construct obstacle-problems for
others, i.e., make them believe a) that they have a certain aim, b) that such an ob-
stacle-problem is in their way and c) that he is/provides the solution. Thus, by con-
structing an obstacle-problem one creates problems for others. In this process enti-
ties/elements/actants are enlisted . To enlist them they need to be interested. To
bring this about Julian interposes himself between their obstacle-problem and their
aim. To actually mobilise actants one creates new, rather than pre-existing, roles
in which they are put. This is called enrolment . Callon (1999) postulates that the
actants need to be willing to be enrolled 22 . If Julian, who enrols other actants, is
successful and establishes himself as an OPP then he can represent the others. In
his representation he construes himself as speaking and acting for the others. If the
others do not participate in these processes they become dissidents and, by that,
destabilise the network which Julian aims to construct. The processes which are
necessary to construct the network successfully, i.e., to shape other actants such
that they support a network, are called translation. With this Callon refers to two
aspects of the processes: a) the other actants are displaced and b) the constructor,
i.e., Julian establishes himself as a spokesperson. Through translation “social and
natural worlds progressively take form” (1999, p. 81). To exercise the sociology
of translations it is necessary to provide a “symmetrical and tolerant description”
(ibid), starting with a clean slate (Law 1992), of complex socio-natural processes
and by that one explains how some obtain the right to represent. Of course the
constructor is in conflict with other actants who also want to gain power. Hence,
to become stronger a constructing agent needs to enrol others and disassociate the
black boxes of others such that the agent can enlist their elements. Callon (1995)
points out that translation is not about truth. What ANT does seems to be a transla-
tion of the strategies of the actants. Let us see how this analytical approach works
in practice. ANT takes all interaction between written marks (inscriptions), techni-
cal devices and embodied skills as translation.
This is, taking an ANT perspective, how Julian tried to construct a glass-
recycling scheme: First, Julian established himself as an OPP by construing glass
waste as an obstacle-problem. By this move he connected all actants, i.e., himself,
the glass waste, the recycling company, his boss, the club, other glass waste pro-
ducers and a governmental authority. He pointed out to them that the glass waste
constitutes an obstacle-problem for them (problematisation) and hence they should
22 In his famous study Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the
Scallops and the Fishermen of Saint Brieuc Bay , Callon (1999) looks at a situation in
which scientists try to make themselves necessary to problems which a fishermen's
community supposedly has. In the course of his study we come across several actants:
fishermen, scientists, and scallops. According to his sociology of translation, for enrol-
ment to be successful the scallops need to want to be enrolled: “To negotiate with the
scallops is to first negotiate with the currents” (1999, p. 74). Thus, he suggests that the
scientists try to communicate with natural objects (which he, of course, sees as social). I
will criticise this later on.