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The limitations of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) include: Difficulty in operationalizing the theory: ANT can be difficult to operationalize, making it challenging to test its hypotheses empirically. Lack of attention to power and politics: While ANT emphasizes the role of power and politics in shaping social phenomena, it does not provide a systematic framework for analyzing these factors.
Feb 13, 2024 · Critique. Examples. Latour’s actor-network theory states that human and non-human actors form shifting networks of relationships that define situations and determine outcomes. It is a constructivist approach arguing that society, organizations, ideas, and other key elements are shaped by the interactions between actors in diverse networks ...
Nov 1, 2010 · Discussion. Despite some limitations, an Actor-Network Theory-based approach is conceptually useful in helping to appreciate the complexity of reality (including the complexity of organisations) and the active role of technology in this context.
- Kathrin M Cresswell, Allison Worth, Aziz Sheikh
- 10.1186/1472-6947-10-67
- 2010
- BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2010; 10: 67.
Jun 9, 2016 · This article discusses the strengths and limitations of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a framework for Science and Technology Studies (STS). While ANT was originally rooted in Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approaches, ANT has become a theoretical framework commonly used by scholars in numerous disciplines beyond STS, including Information Sciences.
- Luis Fernando Baron, Ricardo Gomez
- 2016
- A Very Brief Introduction to Actor-Network Theory
- How Can Ant Inform The Study of It Implementations in Healthcare settings?
- Conceptual Value of The Ant-Informed Approach
- Practical Value of An Ant-Informed Approach
- Potential Challenges of Using An Ant-Based Approach
ANT's main feature is its focus on inanimate entities and their effect on social processes. An actor is thus defined as the "source of an action regardless of its status as a human or non-human"; this is a radical notion in that it contests that inanimate things (e.g. such as technology) can also have agency [11–14]. An actor can however only act i...
Purist applications of ANT remain uncommon and even when used the subject of considerable debate [13, 25, 26]. A case for such "authentic" ANT studies (i.e. those that adhere to the strict and original principles of ANT without modification) continues to be made , but we believe that such approaches are unlikely to be the most helpful way to study ...
Fluidity of reality
Conceptually, the ANT approach can be valuable in helping researchers to appreciate the complexity and fluidity of reality, which may be neglected by research approaches assuming a more linear and causal approach to studying IT implementations [15, 24, 35]. As a result, ANT helps to conceptualise how different realities are experienced and enacted by different actors, resulting in a more nuanced picture of the dynamic relationships between different actors without neglecting their inter-relat...
The active role of objects
The ANT approach can also help to guard against simplistic assumptions in relation to the role of objects in shaping social realities. They are no longer viewed as passive "black-box" containers of information, but as playing an active role that is determined by their position in the ever-changing network. Therefore, the essential value of ANT lies in challenging assumptions of separation between material and human worlds [21, 40, 41]. This conceptualisation provides a good tool for investiga...
Acknowledging multiplicities
ANT's focus on fluidity also means that it acknowledges that reality is not predictable and that multiple realities can coexist, with reality being actively performed in different contexts and by different actors . Social effects are assumed not necessarily to have any specific origin, but rather to emerge from these multiplicities. It follows that things (or actors, or tools) are what they are depending on the context in which they are embedded and used. This means that they can also be...
The ANT approach can also have practical relevance for investigating the introduction of IT in healthcare settings. It can be used as a tool for sampling by focussing on relevant informants that are related to the technology in question. In this context, ANT has been used in combination with multi-sited ethnography [48, 49]. This is an innovative a...
As with all other approaches to social theory, in attempting to answer the question of how social orders are created and maintained ANT faces epistemological, ontological and methodological challenges. Some of these will be outlined in turn, in line with ways in which these have been addressed in our ongoing research.
- Kathrin M Cresswell, Allison Worth, Aziz Sheikh
- 2010
Actor-Network theory (ANT) is a misnomer. ANT is, rather, a sociological approach, which focuses on the description and analysis of associations between natural, human and technological entities (Law, 2009). ANT informs Science and Technology Studies (STS) research with a method to trace associations between. Luis Fernando Baron (corresponding ...
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Oct 26, 2020 · Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is a framework for the study of sociology that emerged in the early 1980s with the work of Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, and John Law in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Bruno Latour continued to develop ANT throughout the 1990s, where its application moved beyond the boundaries of STS and made its ...
