not empty networks
Rolfe Windward (IBALWIN who-is-at mvs.oac.ucla.edu)
Tue, 23 Apr 96 09:00 PDT
Certainly network theories seem to have control as a rather central precept
but it is neither an object nor subject oriented control. As I read it,
whether from the anthropological-activity perspective (B. Latour) or the
sociological-structural perspective (H.C. White) there is: a) a deep
problematizing of what is subject and object and even a rejection of the
entire notion as misguided; b) a notion of control as central to the
stabilization of an (apparently) contingent universe rather than as
something one simply does to somebody else; c) a rather anachronistic
quality since network actors can persist for very long periods (e.g., a
physics student encounters Newton's _Principia_ for the first time and
engages it); and d) the assumption that mediating agents, including
decidedly the non-human ones, are all in the network and therefore are not
only controlled but controlling. That is, any given nexus of mediation can
be read as the collective control projects of all participants, human and
non-human alike.
In network theory, it seems clear that the trajectories of all identities,
including our own, are the traces of past and ongoing mediated
relationships. Not so much coercive as a struggle for cohesion (which can
certainly harm others regardless of whether it is the central aim or not)
and not so much entrepreneurial as essential. One does not encounter ideas,
at least initially, one encounters other actors who have an actual, material
presence. Possibilities arise from those encounters in ways that can not be
predicted; e.g., new network ties in the form of stories.
At least that is how I read it.
Rolfe
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Rolfe Windward (UCLA GSE&IS, Curriculum & Teaching)
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