Networks, Societies, Spheres – Reflections of an Actor-Network Theorist

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Networks, Societies, Spheres – Reflections of an Actor-Network Theorist application/pdf icon
2010

Keynote Lecture, Annenberg School of Design, Seminar on Network Theories, February 2010, published in the International Journal of Communication special issue edited by Manuel Castells Vol 5, 2011, pp. 796-810.

Abstract

Although the word “network” is now ubiquitous and most of the time associated with IT, it has a much longer history and a deeper philosophical import. The paper reviews some of the meaning of the word in the so called “actor network theory” an especially what the new technique of digital tracing does to social theory. The argument is that the tracability of the social allowed by the notion of network has dissolved the two end points of social theory –the individual and the society- to replace it by a navigational experience that might stop at the aggregate or at the element without giving them any privilege.

Translations

201-: Italien/Italian
in Philosophy of the project. Towards a theory of design, Insege, Mimesis, sous la direction de Dario Mangano.