S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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scale, its wholeness, its overarching character and how these features are achieved and which stuff they are made of. (Latour, 1999, p. 6) Instead of comparing the individual to the group, or the agency to the structure, the researcher follows an element that becomes strategic, through its connections and how it loses its importance, when it loses connections. Inside/outside : actor-network theory dispenses with a third spatial dimension. Surfaces have an inside and an outside separated by a boundary (see Figure 8.4.A). A network is all boundary without an inside and outside (Latour, 1990). Hence the inquiry is whether or not two elements connect. Space between networks does not exist and is of no interest (see Figure 8.4.B).

(A)

(B)

Figure 8.4. Network spatiality and boundaries.

Space is not of interest, it is the connections across and how these are made. The focus is on whether these are made by the network reforming, contracting or expanding (Latour, 1999). 8.2.6 Actor and actants Actor-network theory (Callon, 1986a; Latour, 2005) offers ‘a theoretical shift in emphasis away from the centrality and primacy of human subject’ (Somerville, 1999, p. 8).