Marco Bontempi

Networks of actants. Conceptualizing agency and actor as networks' effects in Actor- Network Theory

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Abstract

Actor Network Theory has made an epistemic shift with the introduction of objects in the conceptualization of agency. This paper intends to show two significant consequences of this shift. The first consequence is the transition from the actor/action's semantics to a logic of the associations and their effects. In this line, actants and networks are not ontologically different, and can be studied as two sides of the same reality. The second important consequence for sociological theory is the materialization of the frame. In this line, the differences between micro and macro levels of action are not epistemological differences, but they are restructured as frame differences. Showing the market as a socio-material frame, the paper discusses the differences between the Goffmanian concept of frame and the frame sense in Actor-Network Theory.

Keywords

  • Actor-Network Theory
  • Agency
  • Material Turn
  • Frame
  • Goffman

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