[Air-L] Using ANT as ethos and method

[jeremy hunsinger]

On Feb 10, 2009, at 10:14 AM, Tamara Paradis wrote:

> Hi all
>
> I'm working on a graduate project that explores the controversies and
> understandings of MMO gaming as valid leisure. I'm curious what is  
> it about
> MMO gaming that results in it being viewed as geeky, strange, "luser- 
> ish",
> etc. I've been struck by the ways in which MMO gamers themselves, as  
> well as
> everday non-gaming folks and mass media reportage (outside of  
> financial
> reports!) seem to accept that MMO gaming is somehow a type of  
> strange and
> suspect pursuit.
>
> I've long been intrigued with the work of Bruno Latour and others  
> from SST
> and material culture studies who use an Actor-Network Theory (ANT)  
> approach
> to studying the world and its phenomenon. I am drawn to the ethos of  
> ANT
> which flattens the divide between researcher and the researched, and  
> which
> advocates jettisoning old notions of society and "the social", and  
> the old
> (artificial?) divides between micro/macro, structure/individual,
> power/domination etc. in the interests of letting the actions tell  
> the story
> of the results. I'm equlally drawn but intimidated by the methods  
> built into
> ANT -- the mapping of actors and connections and associations.

actually ANT is not a method, it is just a way of thinking about  
methods.  The methods usually employed are ethnography, network  
analysis, discourse analysis, citation analysis, and semiotics, much  
of the terminology of ANT comes from semiotics.

>
> I'm trying to convince a reluctant adviser that an ANT approach is a  
> valid
> way of studying my research question.

If you are studying the ways things in networks mould and affect the  
network, then ANT is a good theory to have under your belt.  However,  
when you start to talk about systems like media and reporting, ANT  
loses power, it is interested in the singular objects and the systems  
of objects/subjects, not the system itself.  So for instance, you  
could use ANT to easily discuss how certain elements of the MMO  
interfaces recruit users and provide translations of various meanings  
to users.  You can't really use it to talk about 'newspapers', you can  
use it to talk about a story in a newspaper that convinced 3 people to  
contact 6 other people, and those people were confronted by people who  
understood the story differently and to describe the relationships  
between signs, the object(newspaper story) and the various individual  
to tell a story about how the tensions in the groups developed due to  
different interpretations of the singular object.  Then you could add  
more to that story....

> Given the digital focus and the desire
> to use ANT as ethos and method, as well as the ways in which ANT  
> approaches
> study and fieldwork, I'm having a rough go of it.  I'm wondering if  
> any of
> you are using ANT or have used it in the past for qualitiative  
> research
> purposes (e.g. virtual ethnography; findings reporting; etc.). If  
> you have
> done so in the past, are in the midst of doing so now or are at least
> intrigued by the possibilities, I'd be interested in talking with you
> off-list.

I use ANT as a way to think about objects/subjects and relationships,  
but I tend not to say ANT, I also tend to argue about ANT a fair  
amount, so take the above with a grain of salt.  most people who work  
with ANT will tell you that they stopped using it in the 90's and they  
are definitely working in an age that is past, after, beyond ANT.  I  
tend to recommend reading John Law's recent works on this and Latour's  
recent works, Reassembling the Social and Politics of Nature, which  
are all works, I'd argue, of 'after-ANT' .


>
>
> Thanks.
>
> Tamara Paradis
> tparadis at connect.carleton.ca
> tsparadis at gmail.com
> Carleton University - Sociology & Anthropology
> Ottawa, ON, Canada
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