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particular technology as being black boxed is also to recognise the precariousness of this temporary situation. All black boxes are ‘leaky’ (Callon & Latour, 1981), meaning that there will always be competing ideas and initiatives that seek to open black boxes that have been punctualised within larger actor-networks. Over time, email, current portable electronic devices and mobile phones which have emerged as platforms of communication for remote nurses delivering mental healthcare, will become redundant and obsolete. The ‘leakiness’ in this case becomes tangible. The degree of a black box’s leakiness, according to actor-network theory, within the remote nurse’s social world, is contingent, local and variable. Some materials are more durable than others, and therefore maintain their relational patterns. Two geographically separated remote nurse’s thoughts are transient and disconnected. If the same nurses perform actions pursuant to a relationship, particularly when embodied within inanimate materials such as texts, Western psychiatric, medicalised understandings and philosophies, procedures and protocols and physical structures (e.g., hospitals, medications) they are less leaky, and more durable. Consequently, a relatively stable network is one embodied in, and performed pursuant to a variety of durable materials (Law, 1992). In the next section the researcher discusses three actor-network theory concepts, inscription, irreversibility and stabilisation. Each of these concepts are means to ensure coordination of action(s) across the arenas in the social world and also to ensure the

networks remain stable having been established. 8.2.10 Inscription in delivering mental healthcare

The concept of inscription (Akrich 1992; Akrich & Latour, 1992) refers to the way technological artefacts embody patterns of use. ‘Technical objects thus simultaneously