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The Turn to Things: Arguments for a Sociological Theory of Things
Author(s): Alex Preda
Source: The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Spring, 1999), pp. 347-366
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Midwest Sociological Society
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THETURNTOTHINGS:
Argumentsfor a Sociological
Theoryof Things
Alex Preda
Universityof Bielefeld
possible. But they certainlyare not partof the "social world",that is seen as the sphereof
"legitimatelyregulatedinterpersonalrelations"(pp. 88, 100).
In contrastto such views, in the past decade the sociology of knowledge and science3
has shown a sustainedinterest in the reconceptualizationof things and artifactsas social
entitiesthatplay an activepartin the generation,stabilization,andreproductionof social order
and sociality. These approacheshave a more general theoreticalcharacter,aimed at de-
fining a sociologically encompassing conceptual frame that accounts for things as active
social entities. Such argumentsaboutthe sociality of things are of interestwith respectto a
series of general theoreticalissues: the constitutionof social order,its reproducibility,the
emergence and characterof social institutions,4and the interweavingof power and cogni-
tive processes in the generationof order.
The present article outlines the conceptualpremises on which the sociology of knowl-
edge and science groundsthe analysis of "things-centered"forms of sociality. It examines
three of the points critical to the social role of things: (1) the constitutionof social order,
(2) the emergence of artefact-boundtemporalitystructures,allowing for stabilizing and
reproducingsocial order,and (3) the forms of social power engenderedby things. A cen-
tral argument,developed in the second part of the article, is that the notion of socially
active things is anchoredin a practice-theoreticalperspectivein which the social produc-
tion of knowledge plays a key role. In this sense, knowledge processes are seen as a bridg-
ing element that allows us to follow the social role of things in the three above points.
Another central argumentis that the knowledge-sociological analysis of things shifts the
focus of attention from separate, distinct entities to the processes out of which order
emerges. In the perspectiveof the continuous processes of stabilizing, reproducing,and
accountingfor social order,the sharpdistinctionsamong separateentities are effaced. The
next partdiscusses the emergence of temporalstructuresout of the cognitive interactions
between human actors and artifactsand the role of such structuresin the reproductionof
social order.With respect to the forms of social power engenderedby things, three con-
cepts are key: networks, hybrids, and translations.In the fourth part, I discuss these
concepts,theirrelationshipto the notionof temporalstructures,and the contentionthatthey
can account for an emerging form of social organizationcentered on technical-economic
entities. In this light, the conclusion outlines the directionsof inquirythat should be pur-
sued by a general sociological theory of things.
AND THINGS
SOCIALPRACTICES
Since the mid-eighties,sociologists of knowledge and science have directedtheirattention
towardshedding new light on the partplayed by engines, measuringinstruments,labora-
tory probes, detectors, and engineeringdevices in nesting and structuringsocial relation-
ships (e.g., Latour 1987; 1988; 1990; 1994; Latouras Johnson 1988; Callon 1986; Law
1993; Callon and Latour 1992; Star 1991; Pickering 1995; Rheinberger 1992; Knorr-
Cetina 1997). Graspingthe things in a scientific laboratoryis not a simple task. Sometimes
they are huge assemblagesof engines, measuringinstruments,and machinesbuilt in order
to conduct complex experiments, as in nuclear physics (Law 1993; KnorrCetina 1999;
forthcoming).They can also be large technical systems, with some mobile and some fixed
parts,implantedin and overlappingwith certainsocial sites as in the case of the ARAMIS
transportationsystem discussed by Bruno Latour(1996). But they can also be something
very small such as laboratoryprobes or paper-supportedvisualizationsof DNA structures
350 THESOCIOLOGICAL Vol. 40/No. 2/1999
QUARTERLY
instrument,although this was not their usual way for performingmeasurements.In this
case, the measurementhad to be redefinedaccordingto the skills and abilities requiredby
operatingthe centrifuge and according to the kind of knowledge (e.g., about separating
substancesand densities) incorporatedin a centrifuge.Tinkeringaccordingto the available
materialknowledge led in this case to an ingenious redefinitionof the scientists'problem.
The practicalachievementof things, indistinguishablefrom the process of knowledgepro-
duction and from the productionof an accountablesocial order,means thatobjects are not
only "'technically' manufacturedin laboratoriesbut are also inextricablysymbolically or
politically construed,for example throughliterarytechniques of persuasionsuch as one
finds embodied in scientific papers,throughthe political stratagemsof scientists in form-
ing alliances and mobilizing resources,or throughthe selection and decision translations
which 'build' scientific findingsfrom within"(Knorr-Cetina1992, p. 115).
This entails shifting the analyticalfocus from two distinct and separateentities-active
humanactors and things opposing a passive resistanceto epistemic inquiries-to the pro-
cessuality at work in generatingand reproducingthe social orderof scientific laboratories
as "collective units which encapsulatewithin themselves a trafficof substances,materials
and equipment,and observations"(Knorr-Cetina1992, p. 128). Such a shift in focus, from
"final productsto production,from 'cold' stable objects to 'warmer'and unstable ones"
(Latour 1987, p. 21), reveals how things are integratedinto the social orderof the labora-
tory as knots of socially sanctioned and active knowledge and how they help shape and
stabilize the social orderof knowledge production.In his study of Louis Pasteur'slabora-
tory, Latour(1988, p. 81) shows how small things and instruments,such as the pipetteand
the culturemedium, played a decisive role in defining the specific orderof the lab "outof
the movement and displacement of other places and skills," thus enabling the unfolding
of medical knowledge. For example, building up an adequateculturemedium meant first
learninghow to make a brothresemblingcooking stock and then a good gelatin that was
essential for growing the anthraxmicrobe in vitro. These were cooking skills, which had
to be translatedand reembeddedin the context of the laboratory,and that afterwardalso
enabledthe translation(and transformation)of the microbesthemselves-with these latter
becoming a scientific fact, visible evidence of the disease, and so on. The culturemedium
representednew practical skills integratedinto the social order of the lab, skills that in
theirturnreshapedthe skills of laboratoryworkersand researchers.
In some cases, this practical codependency between knowledge embodied by the
researchersand knowledge incorporatedin the instrumentsof researchbecomes so great
that it is difficultto distinguishwhere one ends and the otherbegins, as in the case of sys-
tems of distributedartificalintelligence or of complex engineeringsystems, "monstruous
group(s)which regulateinteractionbetween graphiterods, turbines,atoms,operators,con-
trol boards, flashing lights, concrete slabs and engineers" (Callon 1991, p. 141). Latour
(1993, p. 11) calls this practicalcodependency a "work of hybridization,"that is by no
means limited to complex technical systems but is rathera general characteristicof the
social order.
STRUCTURES
THINGS, KNOWLEDGE,AND TEMPORALITY
This view of things as concrete forms of social knowledge, as processes enmeshed with
other processes embodied by human actors, raises the question of the way they relate to
the temporalstructuresof scientific knowledge production.By definition,a key featureof
The Turnto Things 353
such processes must be their temporal dimension, their ability to unfold over time, to
develop their own rhythms.At the same time, they structureand stabilize the social order
(of the laboratory),which means thatthey have to play a role in the temporalitystructures
intrinsicto social order.
One argumentabout how things generatetemporalstructureshas been formulatedby
J6rg Rheinberger(1992) and KarinKnorr-Cetina(1997). They arguethat, while constitut-
ing a basic epistemic resource of the lab, instruments,experimentalprobes, and engines
are also continuously modified, adapted, or expanded, according to the constraintsand
demands of the knowledge constellation in which they are embedded.The things of the
laboratoryincorporatea knowledge that is already there; at the same time, they are
achieved as new knowledge in the process of scientific inquiry.A pipette, for example,
incorporatesan alreadyavailableknowledge about the relationshipbetween pressureand
volume of liquids. Concurrently,when being used in new ways in new experiments,a
pipette can unfold new knowledge. Therefore, things should be seen simultaneously as
given knowledge and as knowledge-in-the-making.Being knowledge-in-the-making,they
are active in the sense that they are part of the continuous processes that reshuffle the
knowledge bases of a specific form of sociality. One example of such open-ended,always-
in-the-makingknowledge is providedby software codes that are never actually finished;
we have only temporaryvarieties and versions of such codes, certain to be replaced or
upgraded.
This reshuffling aspect of epistemic things is perhapseven more evident in domains
such as softwaredesign or computer-aidedengineeringthat rely on boundaryobjects (Star
1989; Henderson 1991; Fujimura1992). Engineeringblueprints,blackboarddrafts,maps,
and sofware codes are continuously reshuffled-they never really get done once and for
all. This allows them to create and combine differenttime horizons (Star 1989, p. 47) and
to keep togetherscientists that may have differentgoals, differentunits of analysis, or dif-
ferentaudiences.An example of boundaryobjects is atlases of the brain(Star 1989, p. 49),
which are visual representationsor maps of the brain'ssections and regions, used in both
basic researchand brainsurgery.These maps combine the differenttime horizonsof brain
surgeons and neurophysiologists, while connecting these user groups with their own
specific goals and practices.What keeps the human actors of a scientific lab together is
exactly the fact that they are embeddedin an ever-changingflow of knowledge: the tasks
they set to their common work never really get to an end. Scientific groups and communi-
ties, althoughtask bound,do not fall apartwhen these tasks are achieved.The achievement
is not final, and the scientific activity is open-ended, thus strengtheningthe cohesion of
such communities.In the common, practicalacquisitionof skills and abilities in interact-
ing with open-endedthings, these latterappearas a self-expandingepistemic resourcethat
imposes its own rhythmon human actors and generates two tightly interwovenkinds of
knowledge: (1) knowledge as an end result and (2) reflexive, processual knowledge.
Andrew Pickering(1995, p. 21) has designatedthis as "thedance of agency,"by which he
means that laboratoryinstrumentsand objects of inquiryplay an active partin the unfold-
ing of this process of knowledge. With the reactions of lab instrumentsbeing not very
foreseeable most of the time, humanactors have to "retreat"while machines process and
produce some material results--dots of light, patches of color, patternsof lines. With
these, machines force human agency to come into play, in that lab actors have to revise
their interpretationsand actions, as well as devise furtheractions accordingto the material
results produced by machines (Pickering 1995, pp. 22-27). In having to wait for mate-
354 THESOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLYVol. 40/No. 2/1999
cal skills they incorporateor embody, respectively, it follows that they have to wait for
each other and to adaptto each otherthrougha "danceof agency."The continuousprocess
of reciprocaladaptationstabilizes social orderand providesit with continuity.(4) This sta-
bilization of social orderdoes not imply its identical reproduction,which would be prob-
lematic anyway. Rather, the open-endedness of temporal sequences together with the
temporization implied by reciprocal adaptationallow for rupturesand epistemic rear-
rangements,as in the cases of scientific discoveries and controversies.
tures that allow for (relative) stability. Since these temporal structuresare open-ended,
they allow for an increasein the networks'complexity and for furtheraccumulation.Also,
hybridalignmentsof humansand nonhumansgrow more complex by includingever more
heterogeneouscomponents,which means that the knowledge they achieve (and requirein
their interactions) grows more complex and heterogeneous. This growing complexity
enables them to absorbeven more knowledge.
For Donna J. Haraway(1997, p. 12), the effect of such hybrid alignments is that of
"technobiopower":"distributed,heterogeneous, linked, sociotechnical circulations that
craft the world as a net called the global."Since "material,social, and semiotic technolo-
gies" bring human and nonhumanactors into alliance, and since this alliance leads to "a
condensationin space and time, a speeding up and concentratingof effects in the webs of
knowledge and power"(pp. 50-51), then technologies of knowledge (material,social, and
semiotic) constitute the lines of force along which society is organized.With respect to
that, economic processes would appearas epiphenomena,made possible by and relying
heavily on such technologies: "Acceleratedproductionof naturalknowledge pervasively
structurescommerce, industry,healing, community,war, sex, literacy,entertainment,and
worship.The world-buildingalliances of humans and nonhumansin technoscience shape
subjects and objects, subjectivityand objectivity,action and passion, inside and outside in
ways that enfeeble other modes of speaking about science and technology. In short,tech-
noscience is about worldly, materialized,signifying and significantpower. That power is
more, less, and otherthan reduction,commodification,resourcing,determinism,or any of
the other scolding words that much critical theory would force on the practitionersof sci-
ence studies, includingcyborg anthropologists"(p. 51).
Accumulationand expansionof epistemic networks,therefore,also mean an expansion
of such "hybrids",which come to dominate economic processes: "Impurity,then, is the
rule. Nowhere is this more visible than in the service sector. The product sold by Club
Med, Cap Sogeti or CISI is a mixture of humans and non-humans,texts, and financial
productsthathave been put togetherin a precisely coordinatedsequence. Considerwhat it
takes for Mr.Smith to be able (and willing) to spend his holiday on the banksof Lake Ran-
guiroa, watching the Barracudasmingle with the tanned bodies of his fellow-humans.
Computers,alloys, jet engines, researchdepartments,marketstudies, advertisements,wel-
coming hostesses, natives who have suppressedtheir desire for independenceand learned
to smile as they carry luggage, bank loans and currencyexchanges-all these and many
more have been aligned"(Callon 1991, p. 139).
Callon takes over Latour's argumenthere, namely, that the marketplace(and market
exchange) is just anothernetworkof cognitive relationshipsaboutthe exchange of equiva-
lents; he pushes this idea further,with the argumentthat economic exchanges are made
possible, dominated, and controlled by hybrid epistemic formations.The exchange and
consumptionof commodities (such as holidays and travels,but not only) is conditionedby
knowledge-basednetworksthatmake possible the constitutionof a commodity as a practi-
cal alignmentof humanactorsand things. Such alignmentsrequirea good deal of practical
knowledgeon the partof the consumer,abouthow to enterrelationshipswith the different,
humanand nonhumancomponentsof such a network.Commoditiesare dependenton net-
works and, in fact, are constitutedin and by them: we can hardlyimagine a holiday pack-
age (or, for that matter,any other complex, technically sophisticatedcommodity) outside
such a networkof computerbookings, rapidtransportationengines (airplanes,cars, etc.),
computerizedmoney transfers,advertisingbrochures,and so on. But consumers too are
360 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLYVol. 40/No. 2/1999
constitutedin and by such networks:in order to be able to access such a travel package,
one needs several kinds of practicalknowledge, from how to book flights to driving off-
road vehicles, making transferpayments, comparing travel brochures,and much more.
Such constellations of hybridrelationshipsare suffused with social power that cannot be
located at any precise point or in any precise object or engine. Whatmakes them so power-
ful is that these relationshipsregulatehumanactors' access to things. These relationships
constitutethe lines of force along which social life is organized.
This becomes more clear in Callon's (1991, p. 138) redefinitionof money in terms of a
network:"Forinstance,when venturecapital funds research,this is based on a programof
action, which acts as counterweightto the loan. In this money is textualised,translatedinto
orders, indicatorsand recommendations.These define and link a range of heterogeneous
humanand non-humanactors:cooperatewith X at ICI andY from LaboratoryZ to obtain
criticaltemperatureof 150' K and you will get a loan of $A. Here again the intermediaryis
a networkof roles."This strategyis meant (1) to redefineeconomic exchange in cognitive
terms, (2) to connect economic exchange, science, and technology on the groundof these
cognitive terms, and (3) to redefineafterwardthe connection between scientific action and
economic exchange in terms of power/knowledge.If marketexchange (and, more gener-
ally, any economic process) is made possible by an epistemic network in which human
actorsand artifactsare aligned along cognitive processes (thatare also lines of social force
or power), then it becomes possible to describe economic processes in terms of this net-
work and its alignments.Moreover,if networks5underwritingeconomic processes imply
(1) complex alignmentsof humanactorsand artifacts.(2) the stabilizationand maintaining
of technological dispositives, (3) the open-ended productionof knowledge, (4) the code-
pendency of humans and artifacts,then we can describe the processes throughwhich vari-
ous entities (or, in Latour'sterms, the entelechies of the network)are translatedinto each
other.The processes throughwhich instruments,machines, lab results, substances,natural
elements are translatedinto money (or the other way around)are such cases. Finally,these
translationprocesses have to be seen in terms of power/knowledge,since they (1) unfold
along the essential lines of such a network,(2) play a centralrole in the processes of cogni-
tive accumulation,and (3) expand the network.This would provideus with a platformfor
analyzinghow science, technology,and economic processesareclosely imbricatednot only
at the level of the macrosocialorganizationbut, much more profoundly,at the mundane
level of the cognitive processes thatshape and structuresocial order.
CONCLUSION
The impact of the theoretical and methodological argumentsdiscussed above goes well
beyond the domain of the sociology of knowledge and science. Although supportedby
empirical examples and analyses from the domain of science, such argumentsactually
concernthe possibility of devising a sociological theory thatdoes not place artifactson the
marginsor in the environmentof the social world but accounts for them as social entities:
"We have never been interested in giving a social explanation of anything, but we want to
explain society, of which the things, facts and artifacts, are major components"(Callon
and Latour1992, p. 348). Thus, these argumentsplace themselves in a Durkheimiantradi-
tion, by treatingartifactsnot as given and inert, as simple clumps of matterlying around,
but as social facts. Two elements are essential in approachingthe sociality of things: (1)
the tacit knowledge they incorporate,seen in its codependency with the tacit knowledge
The Turnto Things 361
embodied by human actors, and (2) their processualcharacter,where we might see them
as partof achieving and stabilizing social order.Since tacit knowledge and processuality
are centralto social practices,conceived as "temporallyunfolding and spatially dispersed
nexus(es) of doings and sayings" (Schatzki 1996, p. 89) in which an accountableorderis
achieved, then artifactsare active, integralpartsof such nexuses.
power as immanentrelationshipsof force (1976, p. 121) that have their principle "not so
much in a person as in a certainconcerteddistributionof bodies, surfaces, light, gazes; in
an arrangementwhose internalmechanismsproducethe relationin which the individualsare
caughtup"(Foucault1979, p. 202). While Foucaultstressesthe regulatorydispositivesof the
body, a sociology of artifactswould stress the hybridcharacterof power dispositives and
the fact thatthese arenot only embodiedin humanactorsbutalso incorporatedin artifacts.
Starhas arguedthatstandardizationand regulationthroughtechnologies imply not only
enlisting humanactors to those technologies but also a process of exclusion, leaving out
people for whom regulationcosts (or alternatives)would be too high. Takinginto account
the fact that humanactors are usually involved in several such hybridsat a time, one can
consider the distributionof exclusion and inclusion a modality of exercising power:
"Given that we are multiply marginal,given that we may interweaveseveral selves with
our technologies, both in design and use, where and what is the meeting place between
'externalities'and 'internalities'?... A stabilizednetworkis only stable for some, and that
is for those who are membersof the communityof practicewho form/use/maintainit. And
partof the public stabilityof a standardizednetworkoften involves the privatesufferingof
those who are not standard-who must use the standardnetwork, but who are also non-
membersof the communityof practice"(Star 1991, p. 43). Therefore,a sociology of arti-
facts should inquire into the material, social, and symbolic technologies through which
accessibility is distributedthroughoutsociety as well as into the effects of this distribution.
A furtheraspect we may examine is the technical-economic characterof many net-
works and hybrids.In them, processes of economic exchange are embeddedin a network
of cognitive relationships that enlist heterogeneous sets of elements: human actors,
machines, inscriptions,informationtechnologies, and many more. They have a regulatory
character,in the sense thatthey establishthe possibilities for economic action, distributing
and attributingthe requiredskills and knowledge. It is hardnowadaysto imagine forms of
economic action and activities that are not dependenton informationtechnologies, sys-
tems and assemblages of information-processingmachines, systems of inscription, the
interminglingof personalrelationshipswith materialtechnologies, systems of rapidtrans-
portation,production,and distributionmachinery,sales dispositives, and so on. If eco-
nomic processes are embeddedin cognitive networks,if they unfold within the framework
providedby hybridconcatenationsof humanactors and artifacts,then it should be possi-
ble (and definitely necessary) to analyze and describe the distributionof such networks
throughoutsociety and to show the cognitive lines along which they are constitutedand
along which they enlist participants.In the case of the Eurotunnel,we are confrontedwith
a complex technical-financialnetwork, some parts of which are distributedthroughthe
financialmarkets,some throughpolitical institutions,and some throughtransportationand
information systems. Because this network requires continuous social, technical, and
financial maintenance, surveillance, and repairs, it implies continuous translationsand
(re)distributionof propertiesamong its parts,as well as betweenhumanactorsand artifacts:
for example, when its technical characteristicsor technical events (accidents) affect the
refinancingof its debt or when financialinstrumentsavailableaffect its technicalpossibili-
ties. A sociological analysis of such a networkwould imply showing the cognitive lines
along which translationsand redistributionof propertiesfrom the financialto the technical
nodes are effected, how these propertiesare importedand reimportedon differentsides of
the network(Latour1994, p. 798), and how they come to constitutestructuresof power.
The argumentsformulatedin the past decade by the sociology of knowledge and sci-
364 THESOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLYVol. 40/No. 2/1999
ence make it hard for sociological theory to treat artifacts and things as on the margins of
the social, unproblematic, or easy to ignore. This article argues that not only phenomena
confined to a special branch of sociology or concerning only a particular social formation are
at stake. The very way in which social order is achieved and reproduced, as well as core ques-
tions about society's organization modes, may well be reconsidered. Whether we call them
just "things" or "artifacts", whether we deal with them directly or integrate them in complex
hybrids, reconceptualizing our relationshsip to them will help us see the social world anew
and move us toward a better understanding of how our relationship to things changes us.
NOTES
1. One can of course ask aboutthe social mechanismsthroughwhich the agency of things is rele-
gatedto the realmof aestheticalformsor to niches of popularculture,such as fantasyfiction,andwhat
kindsof sociality evolve aroundthese literaryforms. But thatis not the aim of the presentpaper.
2. This does not mean that all contemporarytheories ignore these problems or that they were
ignored in all classical sociological theories.Actually, the discussion about things has a long socio-
logical tradition, from Marx, Durkheim, and Mauss through Mead (see McCarthy 1984; Cohen
1989; 1993) up to contemporary social theorists of commodification and consumption (e.g.,
McCracken1990; Appadurai1988). For reasons of space and focus, this sociological traditioncan-
not be discussed here extensively.
3. The sociology of knowledge and science is not alone in its interest in the "social life of
things."Sociological analyses of consumptionand commodificationhave also shed light on the pro-
cesses throughwhich artifactsand commodities acquirean active social existence (e.g., Slater 1997;
Appadurai1988; Gottdiener 1995; Douglas and Isherwood 1979; Baudrillard1972). However,the
sociology of knowledge and science formulatesa series of general theoreticaland methodological
claims about the necessity of accounting for social order and sociality without leaving artifactson
the margins.The presentarticle focuses on these claims.
4. I take here institutions,not in the sense of organizationalstructures,but as sets of rules and
dispositives enacted in everyday(materialand discursive)practices,acknowledgedas such, that ori-
ent and constrainthe doings of humanactors.
5. It should be noted thatthe concept of networkappliedby Callon in the analysisof the connec-
tions among science, technology, and market processes differs from that of organizationstudies.
While the latterdefines networksas structuralrelationshipsbetween institutionalactors, Callon and
Latouremphasize a constellationof epistemic relationshipsthatconstitutethe network'sactants.
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