No actor, no network, no theory

This chapter explores the theoretical movement known as 'actor-network theory' (ANT), which originated in science studies in the 1980s, and became influential in the social sciences more broadly in the late 1990s. ANT has been invoked approvingly or critically by anthropologists studying not only scientists at work but also a wide a range of other topics, from finance, archaeology or indigenous rights to forest fires. ANT has enthralled and infuriated commentators in equal measure, in part due to the iconoclastic style of argument and seemingly outrageous metaphysical claims of some of its main proponents, chief amongst them the French sociologist/anthropologist/philosopher Bruno Latour. The chapter follows the lead of Latour's gnomic utterance. It explains why ANT is not in fact about networks or actors in the usual sense, and why it's potentially most productive claim – and actor-network theorists' best response to their critics – is that it is not a theory at all.