S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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Universality is explained as follows: Loci, contingencies or clusters are more like archipelagos on a sea … whereas universalists have to fill in the whole surface either with order or with contingencies, [actor-network theory] that do not attempt to fill in what is in between local pocket of orders or in between the filaments relating these contingencies. (Latour, 1999, p. 4)

(A)

(B)

Figure 8.1. Network universality.

For remote nurses, there is nothing but networks, and accordingly, this study adopts a reductionist and relativist approach to this chapter’s argument. Hence Figure 8.1.A is not a true illustration of the remote nurse’s network(s). Any collective of individuals, nodes or groups in a network is not supported or connected to everyone and every other group by strong, permanent ties of equal strength. They are not ‘surrounded or immersed in total connectedness’ (see Figure 8.1.A). The reality is that, between actors and groups (human and non-human), there exist ‘black-holes’ or transient gaps and momentary unconnected spaces within the networks. If the mental health nurse does not answer the phone or the psychiatrist does not have mobile phone coverage as they are mid-flight, then there exists a