S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

258

philosophy of technology (1988, 1991, 1992, 1994), Law’s work on the TSR 2 aircraft (1988, 1991), 17th century Portuguese expansion (1986, 1987) and its engagements with the history of technology (1987, 1991), Callon’s studies of the electric car (1986a, 1987) and scallops of St. Brieuc Bay (1986b; Law & Callon, 1989). As these examples show, case study is a demonstrably rigorous and yet malleable methodology with which actor network theory fits well. 8.2.3 Actor-network Prima facie , actor-network theory is an oxymoron, requiring something to be both an actor and a network. This superficially seems to contradict conventional notions in social thought of agency viz. structure and content viz. context. The researcher’s retort to this is that everything can be perceived as both an actor and a network; it depends on the adopted perspective. Hence, everything is an actor–network (Cressman, 2009), ‘reducible neither to an actor alone nor to a network ... [a]n actor-network is simultaneously an actor whose activity is networking heterogeneous elements and a network that is able to redefine and transform what it is made of’ (Callon, 1987, p. 93). Further, actor-network theory considers both human and non-human elements (e.g., systems, philosophies and objects) equally as actors within a network. Researchers therefore employ the same analytical and descriptive framework for each: An actor in actor network theory (sic) is a semiotic definition—an actant—that is something that acts or to which activity is granted by another...an actant can literally be anything provided it is granted to be the source of action. (Latour, 1996, p. 373)