10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17500
application/pdf
2038-3460
17500
1
en
Bethan Mitchell
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Barbara Czarniawska and Tor Hernes (eds.), Actor-Network Theory and Organizing (2nd edition), Studentlitteratur, 2020
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
12
Book Reviews
2021-11-01
2023-06-27
2021-11-01
2023-10-19
127-131
TS
Bethan Mitchell
2021/11/01
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17500
127
Bath Spa University
2038-3460
1
en
131
Barbara Czarniawska and Tor Hernes (eds.), Actor-Network Theory and Organizing (2nd edition), Studentlitteratur, 2020
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17500/16345
12
Book Reviews                                                                     127
    At the same time, the inclusion of technology in care processes asks us
to take note of the need to recognise the agency of technologies and the
political dimension of their existence among us in a plurality of “political”
arenas that are far from stable and homogeneous.
    Despite these aspects, it is important to acknowledge the book's efforts
in exploring the topic in a very broad manner and it has the merit of adding
interesting descriptions to the search for health data on the Internet by
chronic patients. The digitization processes in healthcare in Italy are still in
their infancy. Hopefully, the contributions of those exploring these topics
will increase. At the same time, we hope that awareness will increase about
how STS sensitivity can provide interesting research questions to under-
stand these emerging phenomena.

References
Crabu, S. (2016) Dalla molecola al paziente: La biomedicina nella società contem-
       poranea, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Lupton D. (2014) Apps as artefact: towards a critical perspective on mobile health
      and medical apps, in “Societies”, 4(4), pp. 606-622.
Lupton, D. (2017) How does health feel? Towards research on the affective atmos-
      pheres of digital health, in “Digital Health”, 3, pp. 1-11.
Magaudda, P. and Neresini, F. (eds.) (2020) Gli studi sociali sulla scienza e la tec-
      nologia, Bologna, Il Mulino.



                                        ***
   Barbara Czarniawska and Tor Hernes (eds.)
Actor-Network Theory and Organizing (2nd edition), Lund, Studentlitter-
atur, 2020, pp. 392

Bethan Mitchell Bath Spa University

    This second edition of Actor-Network Theory and Organizing has
been updated from the original version fifteen years previously. The book
comprises a variety of chapters that draw from Actor-Network Theory
(ANT) ideas and tenets, situated in organizational learning and Science
and Technology Studies. There are sixteen chapters, most of which
describe research in the field from many different countries including
Sweden, Central America, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Poland, Finland, the
US and the UK. Further added to this richness of sources is the variety of
settings. There are examples from engineering to healthcare, which create
128                                                         Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

narratives to bring ANT ideas alive. As someone with a varied work
background, I found I could relate to many of the accounts. The chapters
outside my experience were also presented very clearly and accessibly, and
were rewarding in their insights. In particular, I found Chapter 4 Artefacts
Rule a fascinating read, situated in the area of software development, which
I would normally have found intimidating and alien. A real strength of the
book is that it invites the reader into these different worlds with the
purpose to better understand what ANT does rather than what it is, much
like the search for a “spink” described in Chapter 11 The Making of
Knowledge Society.
    The book is framed in Chapter 1 Constructing Macro-Actors
According to ANT, and describes the development of the Macro-Actor
from the work of Callon and Latour. In the first chapter there is historical
development from the first to the current edition regarding the political
nature of ANT, and reflections on the seminal work Actor network theory
and After (Law and Hassard 1999) addressing reflexivity and criticality. In
Chapter 1, ANT is now positioned as a diaspora of approaches which Law
terms “material semiotics”. This provides the rationale for the selection of
chapters. The authors also highlight the influence of important
publications around and after the publication of the first edition, such as
Latour’s (2005) Reassembling the Social, and subsequent, important works
that have shaped ANT. The aim is the same as the first edition: “How
power emerges through organizing”. The authors go back to Greimas as
the source for the idea of the “actant”, which challenges the notions of
heroism and anthropocentrism by introducing narrative trajectories and
anti-programmes, expanded upon in other chapters. For example, Chapter
2 Technological Strategy as Macro-Actor describes anti-plans in strategic
research, Chapter 3 The Little Engine That Could draws from a field
example to describe anti-programs as engine- and project-programs, and
Chapter 8 Macro-Actors and the Sounds of the Silenced explores
compliance and alignment in the context of the anti-program.
    A lot has been written about ANT in the last 15 years; to reflect this in
ANT terms, we might see this book as a macro-actor. My own experience
of navigating ANT has been through building networks of ANT-in-the-
field experiences, and the theoretical connections developed through
situating ANT, and finding my own path through journal articles, blogs,
and conversations. I would argue that the publication of the new edition
of this book serves to develop other networks around how these ideas are
enacted in different situations. The works within Actor-Network Theory
and Organizing have formed part of the networks and will continue to do
so, but there is always the dilemma of situating the knowledge in the
“now”. Chapter 3 does this by providing a commentary. Updated
references and appropriate amendments to terminology are included in the
remaining chapters, notably in Chapters 5, 6, 9, 10 and 12. The chapters
are the same as the first edition, with the omission of My name is Lifebouy
Book Reviews                                                             129
by Lena Porsander and Explaining the Macro-Actors in Practice by Peter
Hagglund. Chapter 16, Actor-Network Theory, Organizations and
Critique by Rafael Alcapipani and John Hassard, is a new addition to the
current, second edition. This chapter is a reflection on developments in
ANT from ANT and after, and theorises about the applicability of ANT to
Management and Organizational Studies and Critical Management Studies
in terms of symmetry and performability.
    In the second edition, many of the chapters follow Latour’s (1996)
Aramis and Mol’s (2002) Body Multiple in their weaving together of events
over time, and emulate Law’s notion of ANT stories. In that sense I would
argue that the chapters hang together by tracing and retracing ANT themes
to build a more detailed and in-depth picture, but the chapters do not need
to be read in a particular order. In Chapter 3 The Little Engine That Could
there is a real sense of “what happened next?” and “how do we make sense
of this?”. The chapter draws out an engaging story of engineering
operations, referring to Latour’s sleeping policeman and bulky hotel keys.
The operational aspects are very accessible and well described, which
would allow non-technical readers to appreciate the details in the field. The
timings, risks and scale of engineering activities are conveyed in such a way
that brings across the importance of how humans and non-humans are
considered. Chapter 8 Macro-Actors and the Sounds of the Silenced draws
from a constellation of examples such as the use of CS spray in the UK
police force and Swedish food wholesaler’s practices, to demonstrate
programs and anti-programs. In Chapter 15 Net-working on a Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit, transcript excerpts are used to examine three
sequences of events in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in the UK to develop
an ANT story. In this chapter, the distinction between complexity and
complication is presented, alongside how to “cut the network”. This leads
on to the discussion of Serres’ blank objects/quasi-objects which circulate
in social relations. Chapter 2 Technological Strategy as Macro-Actor
explores the interconnectedness of strategy and humaneness in the context
of ANT’s notion of symmetry, and against the backdrop of technology
strategy research. This chapter makes some very interesting observations
regarding how language indicates humanness, for example, through the
development of “skills”. The chapter puts forward an approach to strategy
which is more performative, and shifts the focus away from strategy as a
purely human endeavour, following the “practice turn” in strategy theory.
    Stories unfold in subsequent chapters, weaving in some of the well-
known aspects of ANT such as symmetry and black boxes. In the setting
of human resources, Chapter 6 The Organisation as Nexus of Institutional
Macro-Actors, a challenging recruitment situation from a university in
Sweden is described in an ANT way, by shifting focus away from human
agency. The resulting description plays out the notion of the institution as
macro-actor and the trust of the nomination committee as a black box.
Black boxes are further investigated in Chapter 7 Powers in a Factory, an
130                                                        Tecnoscienza – 12 (1)

ethnographic study of a business is described using the idea of “core sets”,
and how enrolment in the core set is regulated through the techniques of
demonization, demarcating rationality and expertise, and rational
emotionality. Callon’s work on irreversibility is also drawn from, where
networks become black boxes. The story is about mergers and takeovers,
and how outward behaviours scuppered redundancy plans. In this chapter,
ANT allows for an account without reduction, a retelling rather than a
representation. This story also emphasises the constant work required to
build and stabilize networks as dynamic entities rather than the reduced
representations of causal flow process diagrams. The notion of the black
box is extended to the “leaky black box” as described in Chapter 5
Organizational Routines and the Macro-Actor and Chapter 11 The Making
of Knowledge Society, which draws from existing studies of organisational
practices in manufacturing and non-profit organisations in the US. By this,
the authors refer to the organisational routines as quasi-stable actor
networks. In Chapter 11, black boxes are related to part of the Intellectual
Capital Project in the government in Denmark. Like Chapter 2,
Technological Strategy as Macro-Actor really challenges humanness, and
examines our motives in the workplace for a human-centred focus, and
perhaps explains the reluctance from some to take on ANT ideas such as
symmetry.
   Different settings and scenarios are presented in other chapters, such
as Chapter 10 The Internet Web Portal as an Enrollment Device, which
explores markets, as well as Chapter 12 The Reformatting of Electricity
and the Making of a Market and Chapter 13 Productive Power, Organized
Markets and Actor Network Theory. Chapter 10 describes how internet
portals enrol citizens to education in the new market by drawing from
economic sociology, which allows for different interpretations of the
market economy in terms of choice and state power. Chapter 12 treats the
economy as an object within the Norwegian electricity market reform in
the 1990s. It draws from the stabilization of variable ontologies, and the
ANT notions of translation, enrollment and association. The history of the
market highlights how the integrated hierarchy came about, through
market reforms and from the move away from state governance and the co-
operative market, and toward commodification and internal governance.
Chapter 13 considers markets and macro-actors, or actor-networks. It
explores conceptions of power in organizational economics and economic
sociology in relation to making markets. This is based on ANT and
Foucault’s notions of power, postulating that power in economic sociology
can be conceived of as resource asymmetries in deep structures. The
chapter extends Callon’s treatment of power through ANT, and presents
the market as shaping behaviours and power.
   Callon’s ideas are further included, most notably with the four
principles of translation, in a number of the chapters. For example,
Chapter 9 Materiality and Organizing focuses on IT systems from an ANT
Book Reviews                                                                 131
perspective, and how these can be viewed in an organizational change
context where IT is viewed as part of the social structure rather than causal
and deterministic. The four principles are applied to draw out significant
stages of the project, including power dynamics and the enrollment of
politicians. It is interesting to see how the social defines big projects such
as IT, and provides an insightful account of when the social and material
are brought together. Chapter 14 Actor-Networks draws from Callon’s
four principles to develop two alternative versions of ANT: entrepreneurial
and ecological. The entrepreneurial version is played out with a study
which investigated an innovation in an Italian Small to Medium Enterprise
(SME), and the ecological version describes the implementation of a
management accounting system in the Italian Government. Evolutionary
theory in relation to ANT is discussed in Chapter 4 Artefacts Rule in the
context of open-source software projects.
    The stories included in the chapters are evocative and engaging, leading
the reader by the hand into ANT readings of workplace scenarios, and how
this changes how we might “see” the situations arising. This book is a
collection of very clear examples taken from the field and presented in
narrative form. ANT ideas are interwoven through the stories, bringing
theory to life, which is indicative of ANT being enacted as a diaspora of
approaches, as well as a sensibility. The book is invaluable to the researcher
seeking to articulate ANT in different situations, and to scholars of STS
and other disciplines, to expand their knowledge of what ANT does in
theory and practice.

References
Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-the-
       ory, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Latour, B. (1996) Aramis, or, the love of technology, Cambridge, MA, Harvard
       University Press.
Law, J. (2004) After method: mess in social science research, London, Routledge.
Law, J. and Hassard, J. (eds.) (1999) Actor network theory and after, Oxford,
       Blackwell.
Mol, A. (2002) The body multiple: ontology in medical practice, Durham, Duke
       University Press.
Mol, A. (2010) Actor-network theory: sensitive terms and enduring tensions, in
       "Kölner Zeitschrift Für Soziologie Und Sozialpsychologie“, 50, pp. 253–
       269.



                                      ***
