Hi Jay,
You make excellent points. I must agree with everything you said - but I
think that we have a different "zoom". I am only slightly familiar with
Latour's work, but from what I understand, and from a lot of your writings I
can see that the his main goal is as you say:
"He is trying to get social analysts to look beyond persons as the focus and
only meaningful or primary units, to get them to see that who we are and how
we act depends as much on the artifacts around us as on the people around us
or on anything internalized within us."
The difference of Latour's "zoom" and the one I see in CHAT (but that is my
focus personally) is not in this overall goal but how to arrive there. It is
true that you can describe social processes as networks in which material
artifacts play roles that are as important as the roles of humans. I have no
problem with that at all. You also say that mediation is pervasive in ANT.
But I see a big difference in the notion of mediation in ANT and in CHAT.
The recognition that everything can be a mediator between any two other
actants, is only the beginning of the argument. When I say, "zoom" I mean
that I was looking in the very nature of the functional unit of a
"network"/activity/dialogue - and there I see asymmetrical relationships.
But I don't mean an asymmetry between people and material object or an
asymmetry in the sense "that only humans matter and everything else is just
an instrument for our purposes". I mean an asymmetry in the very process of
making meaning, an asymmetry between the momentary functional elements.
Let's say I am looking at a small "move" in a dialogue, which lasts a
fragment of a second - like a slice that is cut thin in order to be put
under a microscope. In the next moment (slice/frame) everything will be
changed: the relationships and the roles and the nature of the "elements".
In that particular moment - there is a fundamental functional asymmetry.
When taken all together, in is entirety; these "slices" make a dynamic
movement that becomes a part of an evolving network. We all know that. OK. I
always see us all as trying to zoom in and to zoom out, constantly changing
levels of analysis. And it is hard to bring arguments from one level of
analysis to another.
So for instance you say:
"The argument about person-person being different from person-thing harks
back for me to Martin Buber and the I-thou, I-it distinction. Buber was
talking about dehumanization, about treating people like we treat things."
Taken like that - yes. But, on another level of analysis (of mediation), I
distinguish between I-thou and I-it relations not to say that they differ in
value, but to say that they play different functions in the process of
making meaning in which I-thou is mediated by I-it. And I-it is mediated by
I-thou. But those are two different functions - one a relation to be
mediated and a mediator. And these functions can be taken by each particular
relational pair, leaving the other relational pair the other function. And
yet in the same instant of time there is another "slice" of the process in
which the functions are reversed. Maybe, instead of "slices" I should call
it perspectives, but the mere fact that there are perspectives in which each
relational pair gets to play the same role, does not make those perspectives
"symmetrical". Not in this "zoom".
And therefore when you continue with:
"Latour is headed toward saying that we ought to treat things like we wish
we treated people ... he is trying to take the best of both paradigms, the
humanization of mediated social relations (as emphasized say in Deborah
Hicks' recent readings of Bakhtin) -- extended to the realm of the
nonhuman, and the recognition in AT and situated cognition models that
people are also shaped by our encounters with things."
I also do not argue against that, and yet - it also misses the point I am
making. I would say, but, of course - people are shaped by our encounter
with things, and I would add that we are capable of shaping things. I would
also add that we ARE things too (material, I mean). But I still cannot have
a conversation and a nice chat with the desk and the chair here, nor even
with the computer I am using, but I can have this conversation with you.
More importantly, I can have a conversation with you ABOUT the desk and the
chair and about pure ideas and anything else. And the fact that you and I
can relate to each other ABOUT something else - is to me mediation. At the
same time - the thing we can have a conversation about functions as a
mediator of our relationship, yet it can itself be a living being, even one
of us: but as long as it FUNCTIONS in our conversation it is a
mediator-thing in that little slice of the process.
That's all I meant. A very close up "zoomed-in" perspective.
You also say further that:
"He (Latour) would not agree that for nonhumans the networks are
deterministic and
causal ... they can't be, for many reasons. For one, meaning effects
intervene all along the network of connections."
I can also agree with that. Because in a sense, we don't know really who or
what else is capable of making meanings. As soon as they are - there is no
more simple determinism. Be it humans or non-humans. But for those parts of
our universe which cannot make meanings, things that can change them are
either deterministic or they are of no consequence. You can use a lot of
making meaning to build a house out of stone. But using only meaning making
to transform the stone into a building will not change anything. For the
pile of stone to be changed the only thing that matters are causal
deterministic processes by which the matter can be transformed. The stone
(as a subject of this process) is oblivious of all the meaning that went
into the final deterministic process. But of course - the meaning is a part
of this process for those that can make meaning. I understand the
connectedness of the material - ideal processes, and yet, when I search for
the dynamics of the very process of making meaning I need to look at the
each possible perspective. And it is because I give the same IMPORTANCE to
looking at the perspective of a stone as I give to looking at the
perspective of a meaning making individual, I see the difference. - Not the
difference in value, or importance, but the difference in the scope that
each of these participants in our mutual world can have about the world. In
fact, maybe even what we call "stone" can make meaning, it is just that at
this moment of history, we are not aware of this ability in the "stone" or
we cannot recognize another way to make meaning that is not "human".
Sorry for this long digression. What I really wanted to do tonight is to do
some more analyzing of Gordon's paper, because there are fascinating and
very important issues that he brings about. I am thinking of the question in
his title "the role of dialogue in the activity (theory)." But I will leave
this for tomorrow.
Ana
----------------------------------------
Ana Marjanovic-Shane
home: 1-215 - 843 - 2909
mobile:+267 -334-2905
-----Original Message-----
From: Jay Lemke [mailto:jllbc@cunyvm.cuny.edu]
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 10:43 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: mediation, symmetry, and ANT
Ana makes a number of good points, but I think that Latour has found ways
to finesse them. He is rather strategic in his use of the "symmetry"
principle, which is in some ways more of a rhetorical ploy than a master
theory. He is trying to get social analysts to look beyond persons as the
focus and only meaningful or primary units, to get them to see that who we
are and how we act depends as much on the artifacts around us as on the
people around us or on anything internalized within us.
Networks are not causal, though they are material ... although I would say
that for Latour the distinction between material and semiotic is also
"symmetrized". This is a different ONTOLOGY, not just a different
epistemology. Networks are made up not just of material connections, but of
practices of "translation" that link elements by way of meanings. More
exactly, there are processes that take place, involving the actions of
humans and nonhumans together, which transform relations and inscriptions
(or meaningful traces) so that they can be embedded in further links and
connections. Networks are made, they are dynamic. They do not persist on
their own, independently of human agency (and nonhuman agency).
So "mediation" is pervasive in ANT. But it's not just that artifacts (or
"natural" elements, also symmetrized: natural-social nonhumans) mediate
between humans, but humans also mediate between artifacts. A person or a
human community is part of the way one tool or sign gets another one made
... to paraphrase the infamous dictum about genes. WE are also mediational
means in the network ... and why not?
Latour is radically anti-Faustian ... and in his later work consequently
very "environmentalist" ... the world is not a place where humans are all
that matters and everything else is just an instrument for our purposes. We
are also among nature's "tools", and we also function as "signs", as
carriers of meaning (in our bodies and in our actions, including discourse).
The argument about person-person being different from person-thing harks
back for me to Martin Buber and the I-thou, I-it distinction. Buber was
talking about dehumanization, about treating people like we treat things.
Latour is headed toward saying that we ought to treat things like we wish
we treated people ... he is trying to take the best of both paradigms, the
humanization of mediated social relations (as emphasized say in Deborah
Hicks' recent readings of Bakhtin) -- extended to the realm of the
nonhuman, and the recognition in AT and situated cognition models that
people are also shaped by our encounters with things.
He would not agree that for nonhumans the networks are deterministic and
causal ... they can't be, for many reasons. For one, meaning effects
intervene all along the network of connections. For another, the networks
consist of loops, and causality become distributed, or in effect becomes no
longer deterministic, when it turns back on itself along multiple pathways.
Latour is also not thinking of these networks as consisting of causal
material interactions as such, but as made up of functional transformative
actions or practices (or processes ..... he does not use these terms
because some imply the agency of humans and other imply the agency of
nonhumans and he wants to speak equally of both).
I think that to really sort this out any further we would have to take a
specific example and consider how ANT might deal with the effects of
mediation and agency. ANT is a really strange worldview, but a very
productive one that avoids a lot of the dichotomies that have hampered
western thinking for a long time. It is a truly post-Cartesian worldview,
and very much misunderstood -- and also very difficult to explain!
I recommend Latour's books in English: _We Have Never Been Modern_ and
_Pandora's Hope_. You can also find a lot of his work on the website that
is maintained for him at:
http://www.ensmp.fr/~latour
JAY.
At 01:38 AM 10/31/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Jay,
>
>I think that "ANT, actant-network theory" looses the notion of "mediation"
>which is central in CHAT. The actants cannot be symmetrical ( Latour makes
>of this a "symmetry" between persons-as-actors and things-as-actors,
calling
>both actants-in-networks). A person-as-actant relates to a thing-as-actant
>in a very different way than the "thing-as-actant" relates back to the
>"person-as-actant". There is a shift in the "domain" or "level". And the
>mutual relationship is mediated by, let's call it, a "mediator-as-actant".
I
>think that the accent on "symmetry in action" in ANT destroys both the
>asymmetry and the mediational quality of the relationship between an actant
>and an "actee". It is true that all is connected and that what an
>individual-as-actant can do depends on what an object-as-actant can do, but
>I think that just making them symmetrical misses the point because in a way
>"what objects-as-actants can do" depends on the individuals in a different
>sense than "what individuals-as-actants" can do. The sense is different
>because for the individual this relationship is mediated on multiple
social,
>cultural, and historical levels, while for the object-as-actant the
>relationship to the other parts of the network is deterministic, direct and
>causal. It is not a fear of dehumanizing that makes me see the flaw in the
>ANT, it is my understanding of the difference between causal relationships
>in the material world and culturally, historically and semiotically
mediated
>relationships in the world of human individuals. A material object is going
>to fall to the ground every time it looses a force that keeps it "off" the
>ground regardless of the social or even material consequences, but a person
>may opt to keep their hand on a hot pot, even to get burned, if the
>consequences of removing their hand would destroy something in their social
>relationships (let's say, they see that they might hurt someone if they
drop
>a pot of hot soup). This is a crude example. What I want to say is that
>creating symmetrical relationships between all the actants in the activity
>network destroys the concept of mediation. In addition it releases all the
>energy that moves this dynamic process forward making the network rather
>flat and empty.
>Ana
>
>
>
>
>----------------------------------------
>Ana Marjanovic-Shane
>home: 1-215 - 843 - 2909
>mobile:+267 -334-2905
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jay Lemke [mailto:jllbc@cunyvm.cuny.edu]
>Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 8:55 PM
>To: XMCA LISTGROUP
>Subject: dialogue and activity, Gordon's take
>
>
>Having now had a chance to look more at Gordon's paper, as well as to
>respond a bit off-list to Steve (whose constructive response to my
>constructively intended comments is a great example of how positive
>critical dialogue can be around here ...), I wanted to add a few more
>thoughts on the basic issue that Gordon poses.
>
>He begins from the interesting perspective that subject-object relations in
>dialogic activity are more akin to subject-subject relations, that is that
>in sign-mediated processes, esp. face to face dialogue, we are acting on
>one another (or with inner speech, say, on ourselves) as a special aspect
>of the object-world. The discourse we produce then functions as a
>mediational means for this effective (cf. perlocutionary) action.
>
>But matters are not so simple, as Gordon develops the analysis of his
>episode-in-focus. Sometimes the discourse really is the object (too), eg
>when we negotiate how best to say something, or how to write it out. And
>the discourse has to be expanded semiotically beyond just the words to
>include the gestures and the actions-with-artifacts. Now those artifacts
>can be mediational means in action directed toward another subject, or they
>can be primary objects of action, when we work to "improve" them.
>
>This suggests to me that, somewhat as Gordon proposes, both words and
>things, both things-as-signs and things-as-material-interactants (cf.
>actants), usefully bridge for us between a focus on (non-subject)-oriented
>activity and subject-oriented activity. We can instrumentalize our dialogue
>with others when we construe it as contributing to getting something done
>on a non-subject object (making the land yacht go, the wheel turn). And we
>can semioticize our action-on-an-object to turn it into a topic of talk, or
>a part of "text" production (i.e. the things and actions as signs used
>communicatively), to enact some agenda of building or maintaining an
>interpersonal relationship, or communicating an idea.
>
>Putting both signs and tools inside the activity triangles of
>subject-object-means shows us that no phenomenon is inherently either a
>sign or a tool; it depends on how we are using it at the moment. Likewise
>no actant is inherently a subject or an object; it depends on how it is
>construed within the activity at some juncture. All these vertices of the
>triangles are ROLES (in the formal sense, i.e. "arguments" of a system of
>relations, which is what Arne I think was well aware of). Something
>occupies that role because we put it there, not because its nature compels
>it to be in one role or another.
>
>This perspective makes a good link to ANT, actant-network theory, an issue
>we have often discussed here in the past. An actant is a participant in
>discourse that functions semiotically (in Greimas' sense) because of its
>role in some (for Greimas, narrated) activity. Roles can be filled by
>persons, by things, by signs, by texts, by quoted speech, by reified
>processes, etc. Latour makes of this a "symmetry" between persons-as-actors
>and things-as-actors, calling both actants-in-networks. This causes a lot
>of confusion if we insist on reading it within the traditional modernist
>distinction between humanistic stances towards persons-as-subjects or
>agents and the disparaged scientific stances towards persons as objects of
>study. Some people recoil from equating people and other things because
>they fear dehumanization, others because they can't take seriously the
>apparent implication that things have human-like agency.
>
>But a sophisticated reading of ANT shows that what Latour is doing is
>redefining the notion of agency, moving it away from the sovereign
>individual-as-actor, and re-integrating it into a larger social-technical
>network: what we can do is a function of what everything else around us is
>doing and how we are connected to the rest. This is no different for
>nonhuman actants. Once we insert everything into a network, once we shift
>ontology so that we don't believe it makes sense to talk about either
>people or things in isolation, not part of any network; once some part of a
>network becomes out minimal unit of analysis ... then the symmetry of
>subjects and objects does not seem so strange.
>
>I think this is exactly parallel to what Gordon, and Arne, are doing in
>looking at how signs and tools, subjects and objects, are roles within
>activity systems (call them activity networks ...) and the occupants of
>these roles can shift role as activity unfolds. In fact, I think the most
>interesting implication of Gordon's analysis is that activity-with-dialogue
>unfolds precisely BECAUSE of such shifts. This in turns makes it credible
>that we could classify the different ways in which dialogue can function as
>activity and within activity by the configuration of roles and especially
>by the sequence of transformation of roles. This gives us in fact a new
>descriptive framework that is more dynamic than the static triangles of
>yore.
>
>It's not quite phenomenologically dynamic. It's a sequence of snapshots and
>a recipe of transformations of roles (a transition network model, states
>and rules for going from state to state), but this is a rather common first
>approximation to dynamical modelling in many fields. Keep your eye on the
>land-yacht: now it's an improvable object, now its a symbolic token, now
>it's a tool for transport, now it's the topic of a discourse, now it's a
>gift, now it's a missile, now it's commodifiable property, now it's
>evidence in an argument. Now it's an agent that makes us do something, now
>its an agent that leads us to say something, now it's a model of something
>else. The engine of dynamics is running here. Making the world now
>enables/affords making the world a bit differently next. We can't ever
>quite know in advance what we might decide to do once we see how our last
>turn has turned out. It always means and does more than we intended in
>doing it. To us as well as to others.
>
>I've ended here with a rather individualistic language to make the point.
>It should be corrected back to the less familiar language of the network
>.... interactions, events, role-shifts, world-effect happen in the
>changing, dynamical network. We can take up a stance within the network,
>and we can try to imagine a chunk of the network larger than ourselves
>(though always needing some viewpoint from which to see).
>
>Suppose we now add one more feature: how it feels to participate in these
>dynamic activity networks. We still don't have a handle on all the relevant
>factors that co-determine (over- and under-determine) which transformations
>of role happen at each stage. I don't believe there is any complete set of
>determiners, from which all futures are predictable. But certainly we can
>trace out the contributions of various co-determiners, and one of those has
>got to be how we feel in some state of the network-now, and how we've been
>feeling across some dynamics of the network recently (and longer term).
>This affective aspect should also be symmetrizable within a network
>ontology ... but that's a tall order.
>
>JAY.
>
>---------------------------
>JAY L. LEMKE
>Educational Studies
>University of Michigan
>610 East University
>Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
>http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>---------------------------
---------------------------
JAY L. LEMKE
Educational Studies
University of Michigan
610 East University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke
---------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 01 2002 - 01:00:06 PST