Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
move into an advantaged position by dealing with the glass waste. These advan-
tages were construed by pointing out what was at stake for each actant: For exam-
ple, the recycling company could earn money and needed to pass the obstacle-
problem 'glass waste as potential source for profits', the authority could reach its
environmental policy goals better by giving financial support for recycling of
'glass waste'. By showing this, Julian established himself as representing their in-
terests: he translated his interests into theirs with the result that his organisation of
the glass recycling scheme constituted acting and speaking on their behalf. Thus,
Julian tried to enrol the other actants in order to get his job done. ANT says that
Julian's enrolment had the aim to black-box the actants. Actors outside, then,
would take the black box for-granted, rather then questioning its configuration.
This implies he controlled the actor-network 'glass recycling' consisting of several
human and non-human entities. It included 'glass' as a hybrid of culture and mate-
riality. This means, with ANT, 'glass' emerges as an entity which was signifi-
cantly shaped by humans. Human actors: first construe glass through a socially
shaped process of understanding and recognition and second inscribe culture on
the materiality of glass. Some of the relevant actants and their relations are shown
in Figure 22.1 . To summarise, Julian's aim was the translation of actants and the
establishment of himself as a spokesperson 23 . The ANT reading suggests that he
negotiated with all the actants and that each of them either wanted to participate in
this actor-network or not.
The main problem with ANT is its construal of agents and agency. Many have
pointed out that not all entities are actors 24 . Indeed when Callon (1981, p. 299)
claims that “(i)t is no more difficult to send tanks into Kabul than to dial 999” it
becomes obvious that their analysis of power is not in touch with reality: it is nei-
ther possible for me to send tanks into Kabul nor can I imagine how my cup of tea,
which helps me a lot in writing this text, should be able to dial 999. Hence, ANT
cannot convince totally. Nevertheless, ANT helps to recognise how significant en-
tities can be as conditions under which we act . For analysis we need to appreciate
this approach to break up 'taken-for-grantedness' regarding the relevancy of mate-
rials.
The discussion of Julian's set up of the recycling scheme reveals how it is
meaningful to see it as a network which was stabilised through the various humans
involved and their material and virtual products. While Julian emerged as acting
as a key person to co-configure and stabilise the recycling network, with ANT we
have to wonder: how is the agency to alter the network configured? If ANT's in-
terpretation of agency is too broad then we need to move on to another sociologi-
cal approach which may problematise the agency we have in affecting realities.
23 In order to construct this overall translation aim he also engaged with 'minor' translations
like: job task to email 1 to Governmental authority to Public/private organisation to
communication 1 to Recycling company to collecting glass waste . The length of this pa-
per does not permit to open this black box as well.
24 Cf. e.g. Sibeon (1999, p. 322).
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