Prologue in the form of a dialogue between a student and his (somewhat) Socratic Professor

• Authors: Latour B.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The text is in the form of a dialogue between a professor representing the Actor-Network Theory and a doctor's degree candidate whose tutor has suggested to him that he applied the approach in his research. A talk is, then, one between an expert (in a given area) and a layman. Such a structure enables the staging of going through a variety of misunderstandings arising around the Theory and some typical accusations charged against it. The first to tackle were the troubles with the name itself and the improper use of the term 'theory'. Then came the question of understanding what a tool is; juxtaposing the frame (as a context) with a description; objectivity and empiricism and relativism at the same time; text approached as a social sciences laboratory. The notion of 'actor' made opposite to a marionette controlled by social forces, thus being an informer only, is discussed at more length. Along with those, accompanying issues appear of information as trans-formation, invisibility of actors and their criticality and reflexivity.

Keywords

EN

ACTOR-NETWORK THEORY; LABORATORY ANTHROPOLOGY

Discipline

• ANTHROPOLOGY: ANTHROPOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Teksty Drugie (Second Texts)
• Year: 2007
• Issue: 1/2(103/4)
• Pages: 127-143
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Latour B.

• B. Latour, Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

07PLAAAA02615381