Main Claims
At this point in his analysis of the Telecorp network, Spinuzzi recognizes the need to more clearly justify the use of both ANT and activity theory. Rather than attempt to force peace between them, he posits the two in a sort of theoretical celebrity death match. (jk)
I think a good metaphor to understand the basic differences between the two would be that AT could well describe the butterfly's wing causing a typhoon, where as ANT might be visualized more like watching raindrops hitting the surface of a pond- all the ripples blend into and change one another. I would label AT modernist and ANT postmodernist.
It seems that the two theories have more disagreements than commonalities (93-5), and that what we get from placing them together is presumably that ANT can gain from AT the attention to "developmental issues and issues of competence and cognition, it is in a much stronger position to explain how workers learn and how the develop resources" (93). ANT's benefits include the understanding that every point in a network changes every other, and that these relations are continually renegotiated, in any direction. ANT is less prescriptive.
Essentially, Spinuzzi agues that we must take each on its own merits- we cannot expect ANT to be a theory of learning and AT is not an ontology. Hence, they can mutually inform each other.
Assumptions about Method/ologies
It's difficult for me to pin this down because I know sooo many of the theories he's drawing on, but I've never seen them talking to each other in this way. For instance, the chain: Socrates, Machiavelli, pragmatism, and ANT. What!? I think in a way Spinuzzi is sort of embodying his commitments to both ANT and AT as he brings together all these actors and tries to understand the systems they construct and how they change each other.
Key Words
Activity theory, actor network theory, weaving and splicing, dialectics, symmetry-as-negotiation, boundary crossing, polycontextuality
Key Texts
Machiavelli, Latour, Callon, Engestrom, Deleuze and Guatarri
Questions/Challenges
For me, this stuff is really complicated-I wonder what kind of reaction people committed to either AT or ANT have had. I wonder if they bought his bridging of the two was effective. I bet not, the way he described the bitter criticism they have offered each other. Do you buy it?
What is the point of bringing the two together if they have such distinctions? Why not just propose that one adopt the principle it's missing from the other? Can the two be held together as units at the same time or do they become a network which change each other?
At this point in his analysis of the Telecorp network, Spinuzzi recognizes the need to more clearly justify the use of both ANT and activity theory. Rather than attempt to force peace between them, he posits the two in a sort of theoretical celebrity death match. (jk)
I think a good metaphor to understand the basic differences between the two would be that AT could well describe the butterfly's wing causing a typhoon, where as ANT might be visualized more like watching raindrops hitting the surface of a pond- all the ripples blend into and change one another. I would label AT modernist and ANT postmodernist.
It seems that the two theories have more disagreements than commonalities (93-5), and that what we get from placing them together is presumably that ANT can gain from AT the attention to "developmental issues and issues of competence and cognition, it is in a much stronger position to explain how workers learn and how the develop resources" (93). ANT's benefits include the understanding that every point in a network changes every other, and that these relations are continually renegotiated, in any direction. ANT is less prescriptive.
Essentially, Spinuzzi agues that we must take each on its own merits- we cannot expect ANT to be a theory of learning and AT is not an ontology. Hence, they can mutually inform each other.
Assumptions about Method/ologies
It's difficult for me to pin this down because I know sooo many of the theories he's drawing on, but I've never seen them talking to each other in this way. For instance, the chain: Socrates, Machiavelli, pragmatism, and ANT. What!? I think in a way Spinuzzi is sort of embodying his commitments to both ANT and AT as he brings together all these actors and tries to understand the systems they construct and how they change each other.
Key Words
Activity theory, actor network theory, weaving and splicing, dialectics, symmetry-as-negotiation, boundary crossing, polycontextuality
Key Texts
Machiavelli, Latour, Callon, Engestrom, Deleuze and Guatarri
Questions/Challenges
For me, this stuff is really complicated-I wonder what kind of reaction people committed to either AT or ANT have had. I wonder if they bought his bridging of the two was effective. I bet not, the way he described the bitter criticism they have offered each other. Do you buy it?
What is the point of bringing the two together if they have such distinctions? Why not just propose that one adopt the principle it's missing from the other? Can the two be held together as units at the same time or do they become a network which change each other?
Your response summarizes mine, especially to the latter half of the book. I kept wondering about what Spinuzzi was doing here as he tried to work across both and to see what they would yield. I think I'll go look up reviews of the book now to try to see what the response has been. Maybe Justin has a sense of this since his project touches on both as well.
I had a similar moment as you did--Machiavelli, huh? But that's also what was fun and surprising about this book. Not to mention the references to Rex, the dead dog.
I also think that this study raises the interesting question of what a "networked" study of a network might look like. I found his chapter on the network particularly interesting.
I think calling this a networked study of a network is dead on. This is juxtaposition in all its unfettered glory. Using the power play of Machiavelli was interesting and offered an interesting dynamic to the way we understand the difference between the two approaches.