Mind Map of Actor-Network Theory
Sourced from:
Heiki Santillana 2011, Mind Mapping the Actor Network Theory, blogger, Accessed 19 August 2014
Image is referenced as from the Wikipedia page on Actor-Network Theory however the image can no longer be found on the original source page.
My attempt at an Actor-Network Theory mind map:
Through constructing this image I have found that Actor-Network Theory:
- Does not account for human nature and allow for differentiation. The main criticism of Actor-Network theory is its treatment of human and non-human as equal. As mentioned in user davidbank's (2011) piece on Actor-Network Theory, there is no account for major factors such as power, race, gender, or any human influencers however these play a major role in behaviour within networks.
- Is impossible to fully satisfy. When including factors such as the computer that allows access, do we also include the company that made the computer, the people that designed the computer, the materials that make up the computer, the machinery that physically constructed the computer? Actor-Network Theory doesn't differentiate the extent to which we include or exclude factors.
- Has no rules. My mind map ended up looking like a Venn diagram because, true to the concept of a network, everything was linked. However it was difficult to figure out what to include and exclude (as mentioned in the above point) because of the main principle that everything should be treated as equal, even though in real life situations, certain factors have a greater magnitude of influence than other things, and these different magnitudes are apparent to us partially due to factors specific to being human, as mentioned in the first point.
In conclusion, the Actor-Network Theory is an interesting and admirable approach to describing the links between elements within a network however the main criticism, in my opinion, is not the equalising of human and non-human, but the larger umbrella issue, which is that it has poorly specified rules as to what can or cannot be accounted for in such a network.
References:
Banks, David (2011) ‘A Brief Summary of Actor-Network Theory’, Cyborgology, November 2, Accessed 19 August 2014
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