So, we’ve been introduced to something that is entirely new to me as part of a Theory and Concepts in Human Geography course in second year Geography: Actor-Network Theory (ANT). I realised as I went through for all the stuff that was problematic it was an argument for God as Trinity! I’ll start by introducing some of the main ideas and then proceed to reflect about the implications of this for Christianity or what the Bible might affirm and critique. I’m starting to get to grips with the stuff so I could be fairly wide of the mark in thinking through the implications!

[The main theorist here is Bruno Latour and one example of his work is: Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-network-theory (which is reviewed here and here). John Law (who we met here) has also written books and journal articles popularising ANT: Actor Network Theory and After: Edited by John Law and John Hassard and After Method: Mess in Social Science Research by John Law.]

So what’s the big deal?

Latour suggests that the task of the social sciences has gone massively awry. Whereas reality consists of irreducible complex networks of people and things and ideas (all are ‘actors’) which may be described, social scientists have tended to cut up these networks and by a “work of purification” (see diagram above) chunk things up into spheres so that we may use them to explain things. This often means dualisms: power/knowledge, human/non-human,  man/woman, gay/straight, context/content, activity/passivity, large/small, false/true, agency/structure, good/bad. Latour goes, “hang on a minute!” and suggests that all of these ‘purify’ the irreducible complex: any explanation cuts up the network and so excludes something that may be very important. By looking at processes we see that huge numbers of processes may be active in any one thing we’re looking at and its this multiplicity of process that make things complex.

How do we know what we can include or exclude as important? Rather than assuming we know what the important social relationship is (say, parent with child or labour with capital – two more dualisms by the way) we take a wait and see approach where, “We have to be as undecided as possible on which elements will be tied together; on when they will start to have a common fate, on whose interest will eventually win out over which. In other words we have to be undecided about the actors we follow. The question for us, as well as for those we follow, is only this: which of the links will hold and which will break apart”  (Latour 1987: 175-6) The coherence thing then is very important but Latour does imply that we must have uncertainty here because there is no knowledge of the future, we don’t know which bundle of relationships to follow and there is no way of predicting what will cohere or fall apart. This has pretty wapping implications for science which attempts to not just describe but explain and therefor predict. That get’s blown out of the water by ANT.

What’s the big idea then?

Anything can act. This shatters the Human/Non-Human dualism by asking “who or what participates in the action” and showing how non-humans may “authorise, allow, afford, encourage, permit, suggest, influence, block, render possible, forbid, and so on” (Latour 2005: 72) Latour explores a number of examples including the seemingly trivial  such as seat-beat and hotel keys. His point though is that: “As a more general descriptive rule, every time you want to know what a nonhuman does, simply imagine what other humans or other non-humans would have to do were this character not present. This imaginary substitution exactly sizes up the role, or function, of this little character.”
This means that things matter and it’s the relationships that form networks that social scientists need to look at and describe. It is worth saying that just because everything matters doesn’t mean everything ends up mushy and undifferentiated. Critically divisions or distinctions are seen as effects or outcomes. They are not given in the order of things. This is a symmetrical theory i.e. a-priori it treats everything in the same way.

So what is an actor network? What’s the deal with relations?

So actors are the things which act and make a difference in a situation (remember this is not just humans, non-human actors may well be more important). Networks are the things which act together and take on significance within that particular context. They hold together for however briefly but that coherence is vitally significant. So for example law says that “Entities take their form and acquire their attributes as a result of their relations with other entities” (Law, 1999: 3). This is similar to the idea that Orange have used in their latest advertising campaign, “I am who I am because of everyone“. Rather than have some kind of ‘Matt’ essence I take on form and attributes as I relate to everything around me. This is potentially profoundly destabilising to take one example, rather than being male – possess an “essence of maleness” (what a silly phrase) – I perform gender as I relate to everything around me. Gender then is entirely fluid and exists as a changing quality of relations. I am who I am because of everyone. I’m come back to this later!

So three key points about networks:

1. Composed from heterogeneous relations i.e. a set of associations between humans and non-humans.
2. Network describes the ‘relations between relations’ i.e. the ordering of those relations.
3. Networks are performed. (This means for a network to remain it must be maintained. Coherence is contingent on the performance of the relations of relations.

Thinking theologically

Bret Stephenson has written a paper called, “Nature, Technology and the Imago Dei: Mediating the Nonhuman through the Practice of Science” which explores some of these themes I noticed in the lecture in more detail. These are some intial thoughts and I’d love some feedback if you have anything you’d like to comment about.

Trinitarian theology

If it’s the case that “Entities take their form and acquire their attributes as a result of their relations with other entities” then if God was unitary, then God’s form and attributes would be contingent on that which was not God because it would require relationship from which to arise. In Christian theology the understanding that God is Trinity (Father, Son and Spirit) sees that form and attributes are the outgrowth of ontologically prior relationships. One could say that God is a network which has eternal and complete coherence. This means that since coherence is significant as to what one should follow – God does become the dominant social relationship or centre because He has within Himself eternal and complete coherence but to in Christ “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together”. Applying ANT and its vocabulary of coherence here, it suggests the supremacy or priority of Jesus as an actor in a network consisting of the relationship between this actor and all things. In this sense for all we are who we are because of everyone but for the Christian I will be who I will be because of Christ. If this is the case them some dualisms are not just a feature of human social construction but a reflection of the relation that the Creator has with his Creation.

Networked in Adam, Networked in Christ

Whilst the whole set of relations are important, two seem to predominate. At the fall Adam’s sin “denied dependence and derivation” and instead of enjoying ‘likeness to God’ as a gifted state from God he chooses to become God-like by his own action and in doing so chooses self-definition over identity conferred by relationship with God. More than any other relationship through history and time are ‘networkedness’ in Adam confers form and attributes of falleness. Everything that was given as a gift from God now becomes something to possess and protect. Yet, God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. It is now networked in Christ that we find our identity as in repentance we “discover ourselves as beings made to receive our existence and identity from beyond ourselves”. Again a whole set of relations really are important but Christ and identity in him is pre-eminent because, “you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” it is “no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”.