Dario Minervini, Politica e Rifiuti. Connessioni socio-tecniche nella governance dell’ambiente, Liguori Editore, 2010
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17000
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2038-3460
17000
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Attila Bruni
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Dario Minervini, Politics and Waste. Socio-technical Connections in Environmental Governance, Liguori Editore, 2010
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
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Book Reviews
2011-06-27
2023-05-22
2011-06-27
2023-07-03
114-116
TS
Attila Bruni
2011/06/27
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17000
114
Università di Trento
2038-3460
1
en
116
Dario Minervini, Politics and Waste. Socio-technical Connections in Environmental Governance, Liguori Editore, 2010
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17000/15899
2
114   BOOK REVIEWS



                                                   minds us of a particular band or music
                    Dario Minervini                genre. And that’s all. But if this book
        Politica e Rifiuti. Connessioni            were a piece of music, it would not
       socio-tecniche nella governance             simply sound like ANT. It would push
                    dell’ambiente                  a little bit forward the borders of a
         (Politics and Waste. Socio-technical      ‘genre’ that, although sometimes theo-
      Connections in Environmental Governance)     retically celebrated and with a lot of
          2010, Liguori Editore, 176 pp.           followers in the field of STS, still has
                                                   some difficulties in finding its audience
                     Attila Bruni                  in the field of political sciences and,
                (Università di Trento)             more in general, politics. Which is
                                                   quite strange, given that ANT, as Mi-
      Being a music lover (and partly a musi-      nervini aptly states referring to Latour
      cian), I have always thought that Italian    (1999), is actually a political theory.
      singers and bands suffer from two ma-            Thus, contrary to the common re-
      jor problems: a kind of ‘subsidiary de-      frain that ANT does not take ‘power’
      pendency’ on Anglo-American music,           seriously into account, here the de-
      together with the need to pay homage         scription (Akrich, 1987) of the ways in
      to the Italian melodic tradition. If this    which specific environmental issues en-
      book were a piece of music, it would         ter the political debate highlights how
      escape both. If this book were a piece       political decision-making is fragmented
      of music, it would be the first release of   into an action-net (Czarniawska, 2004)
      a young musician. I want to stress the       involving what I would label ‘negotia-
      importance of the word ‘musician’            tions-in-practice’. In the Italian litera-
      here. A musician is a person who is          ture there is a well-known antecedent
      able to convey a concept, to communi-        of this way of ‘playing’ ANT, Tradurre
      cate an idea, whatever music genre           le riforme in pratica (“Translating re-
      s/he plays; otherwise, s/he is just a        forms into practice”), a book edited by
      player.                                      Silvia Gherardi and Andrea Lippi in
          This same ability is clearly recog-      2000 (the first ANT-oriented book
      nizable in this book: this is not just an    written in Italian). And the approach
      ANT-oriented account of the process          of Minervini is clearly informed by
      leading to the construction of the           having listened to (and having taken
      “Fenice” waste incineration plant in         seriously) the tunes and the whispers
      Melfi, in the province of Potenza (Ita-      of that text, as well as the ANT ‘stand-
      ly). This is a book about the possibility    ards’ (Callon, Latour, Law…).
      of looking at politics, organization and         The roots of Minervini’s work, by
      decision making as the products of the       the way, are not in STS. The author
      relationships that bind together hu-         clearly comes from the area of policy
      mans, technologies and natural ele-          analysis, particularly from the French
      ments.                                       line of research (Mény and Thoenig,
          What I am trying to say is that on       1989). This means that policies are
      many occasions we listen to a song, a        seen as the non-linear outcome of deci-
      piece of music, that immediately re-         sional processes influenced by public
                                                              TECNOSCIENZA – 2(1)          115



and institutional actors. In this view,      acquires a clear and visible dimension,
action is always ‘strategic’, but strategy   contrary to ANT, where power is al-
does not necessarily imply rational          ways in the making, has its effects, but
choice, if not a posteriori (Crozier and     it refers to a coalition of actors/actants
Friedberg, 1977).                            in relation to specific, and constantly
    Similarities and differences between     changing, spatio-temporal configura-
the French school of strate-                 tions”.
gic/bureaucratic analysis and ANT are            I must say that this argument is not
well depicted in the first chapters of       very convincing. From my point of
the book. Although both approaches           view, the principle of generalized
share a common interest in the study         symmetry is not a minor point and an
of processes of association, coopera-        instrumental approach to objects and
tion and betrayal (without imposing          technologies immediately reminds me
any particular structure on actors’ rela-    of a sort of predetermined structure
tions), they differ in their conception of   regarding relations and associations.
symmetric action. Minervini refers in        However, it is quite common, in my
particular to Friedberg (1993), when         experience, listening to a music piece
(commenting on Callon’s work on the          and not appreciating all the ‘solos’,
Saint Jacques’ mussels) he states that       which, in this case, is actually a really
the principle of generalized symmetry        minor one.
does not give enough emphasis to the             The main solo is in the research ac-
intentionality of human actors: objects      count, where the author describes and
(technologies, texts, laws, and so on)       interprets the making of an environ-
are relevant to social action and power      mental policy, adopting both the ANT
relations as long as they are in the         model proposed by Callon in 1986 (re-
hands of intentional actors. The differ-     garding the moments of a translation
ence between humans and non-                 process) and the one suggested by
humans is thus grounded in the in-           Latour in 1991 (regarding the study of
strumentality of the latter and in the in-   programs of actions). Here the author
tentionality of the former.                  gives voice (by making reference to
    How to reconcile the two approa-         documents and interviews with differ-
ches?                                        ent groups of actors) and visibility
    From a theoretical perspective, the      (through the use of numerous schema-
author argues that the main point is         ta) to the logics, the rhetoric, the strat-
that both approaches converge on a           egies, and to the very idea of ‘politics’
processual theory of action/power:           and ‘environment’ as emerging from
ANT takes into consideration how             and within relations.
processes of association translate into          It would be meaningless to summa-
‘collectives’; strategic analysis looks at   rize the whole story in a few words.
stabilisation, at the ways in which pow-     Thus, I prefer to skip directly to some
er ‘takes place’ in processes of associa-    of the final chords offered by Mi-
tion and negotiation. “For this same         nervini:
reason – argues Minervini (p. 33) – in           - a participatory process does not
strategic analysis the category of power     automatically imply a democratic atti-
116   BOOK REVIEWS



      tude in decision making: ‘open-ended’              Latour, B. (1999),Politiques de la nature, Paris,
      cannot be confused with ‘democratic’;                  Editions La Decouverte & Syros.
                                                         Mény, Y., Thoenig, J.C. (1989) Politiques
          - the power to define policies is the              publiques. Paris, Presse Universitaires de
      result of a relational process, not the                France.
      origin of the policy at stake: looking at
      power in objectivist terms, as a re-
      source individual actors can mobilize                                    ***
      for their own interests, does not ac-
      count for who, how and when actors
      acquire the capacity to mobilize re-
      sources, and what constitutes a re-                   João Arriscado Nunes, Ricardo
      source in the actors’ perspective;                                 Roque
          - sometimes, ANT looks for missing              Objectos Impuros. Experiências
      masses, but in this case social actors are            em Estudos sobre a Ciência
      missing: why didn’t the trade unions                   (Impure Objects. Science Studies
      take part in the whole negotiation pro-                         Experiences)
      cess?                                               2008, Edições Afrontamento, 328 pp.
          If this book were a piece of music,
      as it often happens nowadays, it could                         Laura Centemeri
      be of interest for different audiences.                 (CES – Universidade de Coimbra)
      ANT listeners would probably be its
      ‘natural’ public, but political scientists              Science Studies are today in Portu-
      and environmental sociologists could               gal a very dynamic field of investiga-
      maybe enjoy it even more, because of               tion. Edited by two Portuguese schol-
      the ‘fresh sound’ this book brings into            ars that actively participated in the
      established canons. And social scien-              emergence and development of this re-
      tists (in general) could find new sounds           search field, the contributions collect-
      and dissonances in it that could help              ed in the volume aim at showing how
      them better frame the relationships be-            the theoretical and empirical investiga-
      tween humans, technologies and na-                 tion on science practice, objects and
      ture.                                              institutions in the Portuguese society (a
                                                         “semi-peripheral society” is the defini-
                                                         tion given by the authors) “interferes”,
                                                         through original paths, with the broad-
      References                                         er international debate.
                                                              The interest in studying science and
      Akrich, M. (1987) Comment décrire les objects
                                                         its impact on society is far from being a
          techniques?, “Technique et Culture”, 9, pp.
          49-64.                                         novelty in Portugal. In fact, the promo-
      Crozier, M., Friedberg, E. (1977) L’acteur e le    tion of science and the dissemination
          systéme, Paris, Edition du Seuil.              of scientific knowledge, as part of a
      Czarniawska, B. (2004) On Time, Space and Ac-      broader process of citizenship-buil-
          tion Nets, “Organization”, 11, pp. 777-795.
      Friedberg, E. (1993) Le pouvoir et la règle. Dy-
                                                         ding, have been a crucial component
          namiques de l’action organisée. Paris, Edi-    of the movement of opposition to the
          tion du Seuil.                                 Estado Novo, the Portuguese authori-
