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8.2.13 Establishing and maintaining networks In the proceeding section the discussion concerned the various elements in the non human arena and how they regulate and coordinate action in the social world. The forthcoming section outlines and discusses, through the prism of actor-network theory, the four stage process of how remote general nurses establish and then maintain networks within the healthcare system arena, thereby enabling them to deliver mental healthcare. Further discussed is that in this process, nurses become ‘obligatory passage points’. 8.2.14 Moments in translation Translation is a process before it is a result (Callon, 1986a). According to actor network theory, networks (within the remote nurse’s social world) are continuously evolving and transforming through processes of translation whereby entities within a network evolve into controlling others (Callon, 1986a, 1996b; Law, 1986, 1999). The process of translation (Callon, 1980, 1986a; Singleton & Michael, 1993) is a consensus seeking process whereby heterogeneous engineers (Law, 1987, 1999) seek, mould and enrol allies for an argument or position. It is a process of re-interpretation and re presentation as it ‘generates ordering effects such as devices, agents, institutions, or organisations’ (Law, 1992, p. 366). If the process of translation is successful, a network of aligned interests is formed. The groups are not separate, but intertwined: ‘networking heterogeneous elements and a network [are] able to redefine and transform what it is made of’ (Callon, 1987, p. 93). Hence, translation is the mechanism of progressive temporary social orders, or the transformation from one order to another through changes in the alignment of interests in a heterogeneous network (Sarker, Sarker & Sidorova, 2006). For example, a paramedic responds to a call for assistance, and on arrival the person is violent