Politics of Nature by Bruno Latour - short summary

Politics of Nature by French sociologist Bruno Latour continues the reflection started in We Have Never Been Modern (1991), Latour proposes a new way of doing political ecology which would abandon the idea of ​​nature which, according to him, only cuts off debates. and overshadows the real issues that politically engaged actors need to discuss.

Chapter Summary

Chapter 1: Why political ecology cannot conserve nature? 

Latour begins Politics of Nature by defeating modern ecologism, which ultimately does not relate to nature! Political ecology (which he intends to define in this work) cannot therefore "conserve nature." Indeed, this separates the objective from the subjective, facts from values. Modern bicameralism, which opposes nature to society, the researcher to the politician, must be replaced.

Chapter 2: How to bring together the collective? 

How to bring together what the old constitution opposed (nature vs society)? Politics, seeking the composition of the "good common world", must convene a collective that Latour defines in terms of humans and non-humans. Of course, it will be necessary to carry out a “sharing of capacities”, concerning their ability to speak in particular.

Chapter 3: A new separation of powers 

The collective thus formed must have its own separation of powers, but not in terms of facts and values. Latour defines four requirements, grouped two by two into two powers:

The power to take into account: the need for perplexity and the need for consultation;

The power of ordering: requirement of hierarchy and requirement of institution.

These new powers will define the new dynamic of the collective.

Perplexity 

By this first requirement, we are concerned not to limit the number of candidate propositions for existence in the collective. Latour does not aim for convenience, but rather for completeness.

Consultation 

Just as there is no limit to the number of candidates for existence, it must also be ensured that all votes can be cast, and that none are forced to remain silent or not listened to in the subsequent phases of the debate. of the collective.

Hierarchy 

The hierarchy requirement requires checking that each candidate for existence in the collective is compatible with the entities already existing within the collective. If and only if it is compatible, then it is given a legitimate place in the collective. Otherwise, this entity should be rejected.

Institution 

Once the entity has acquired its legitimate place, the power of an institution closes the discussion. The aim is thus to ensure the coherence and sustainability of the collective over time.

Chapter 4: Skills Collective 

Latour draws attention to the fact that political economy should not be confused with political ecology. Political economy is only one of the collective's competences, as are morals, politics, and of course, science. We thus define a "common house [...] which makes the sciences compatible with democracy."

Chapter 5: Exploring common worlds 

Here, Latour criticizes the moderns who thought only in terms of progress. To the two powers defined in Chapter 3, a third power must be added: the power of follow-up. This new power "raises the question of the state." Finally, the author insists on the fact that ecologism cannot do without diplomacy.

Short Summary: We Have Never Been Modern by Bruno Latour

We Have Never Been Modern by Bruno Latour is a reflection on the scientific and philosophical method of modernity based in particular on concepts developed within the framework of the actor-network theory .

For Latour, (European) modernity is finished and, with it, the idea of ​​progress which constituted its matrix. The world is made up of hybrid objects constantly proliferating and no longer belonging exclusively to the scientific or technical world . On the contrary, they present themselves as participating in politics , culture or economics at the same time . The same is true of power, which is no longer played only by politicians, but also by industrialists , scientists, technicians, etc.

However, the critical discourse on modernity does not allow us to take into account the hybrid nature of modern objects. Instead of associating these objects with each other, of respecting their complexity and their proliferation by considering them in networks (according to the multiple connections that they establish with other entities), this discourse separates and opposes technique and nature , inhumanity of science and humanity of societies, scholar and politician (this was Max Weber's classic distinction ), human and non-human. This “Great Sharing” which, according to Latour, is at work in this critical discourse is not modern since it does not manage to account for its objects. This is why he must"symmetric" anthropology (concept resulting from the work of David Bloor and the Sociology of scientific knowledge ), capable of treating symmetrically - ie on an equal footing - objects in their constitutive hybridity.

According to Latour, an anthropological discourse is essential since it has above all been reserved for “pre-modern” societies , characterized by the consubstantiality of the natural and the cultural, the technical and the political, or even the mythical and the social. Admittedly, the differences between traditional societies and current societies are considerable and to ignore this would be to confine oneself to the relativist position of postmodernism , a position also rejected by Latour in favor of the concept of "non-modernity".

But as we have never really applied the program of modernity which postulated an independence of knowledge in relation to the social and the political, we can therefore imagine that we have never been modern : the world in which we live is a compound of men and hybrids, of complex socio-technical networks that it is no longer possible to separate or isolate.

According to Latour, innovations offer an ideal field of analysis to apply this new anthropological posture since they produce hybrids and make human and non-human actors coexist, etc. The analyst can no longer afford to cut this object into parts or ignore its process of formation. It is also necessary to take into account the operations of translations (transformations) of the actors who build the innovation, to follow them, to see how they enroll other actors. Networking (actor-network) must be at the center of the analysis; innovation must be understood as it is donethrough its constant transformations as much by the actors who constitute it as by the users or customers. By formulating their expectations, by translating them, the latter in return co-produce innovation and participate in its hybridity.

Actor-Network Theory Explained

The actor-network theory  (ANT)  is a sociological approach developed at from the 1980s by Michel Callon , Bruno Latour , Madeleine Akrich and other researchers from the Center for Sociology of Innovation at Mines ParisTech . 

This approach differs from classic sociological theories because it takes into account in its analysis, beyond humans, (“ non-human  ”) objects  and discourses. The latter are also considered as “  actors  ” or “  actants  ”, according to a concept borrowed from AJ Greimas who thus designates any entity without ontological distinction entering into a semiotic process .

Originally, Callon and Latour were interested in the conditions of production of science and, in particular, in the construction of scientific facts in the laboratory. Their epistemological position is radical: they reject externalist , rationalist positions , naturalization ( realism ), sociologization (the scientific fact understood in particular as the result of power games and social factors, a position supported by the Strong Program ( David Bloor , Barry Barnes ) or by Harry Collinsand representatives of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK)). They also distance themselves from postmodernism and deconstruction (the relativism arising from the illusion of the speaker and language games ). By moving away from these positions, they want to put an end to the compartmentalization and reconsider the scientific and human fact according to the multiplicity of the relations which constitute it (relativism known as "relationist"). This conception leads them to reject the approaches which separate the "human" from the "non-human", and consequently, those which separate politics and science (and technologies ) or more broadly nature and society.

For these theorists, the world should not be thought of in terms of social groups, but in terms of a network (in a precise sense which in no way corresponds to that of the Internet network). What makes the social is “association”, the formation of “collectives” and the set of relationships and mediations that hold them together. This conception is intended to be “symmetrical” and everything is then of equal importance for the analysis, whether it is a question of organizational, cognitive, discursive factors or, more generally, of the “non-human” entities which enter into the composition of the collectives. .

These relationships are established through an operation of "translation" or chains of translations (successive transformations) by which the actors (individual or collective) pose as spokespersons and translate the will of collectives, also attempting to enlist new ones. actors. Likewise, a scientific fact results from a series of translations (instruments necessary for its realization, scientific articles, laboratory materials, grants, etc.) which also reveal the network in which it takes on meaning and is stabilized. Knowledge circulates by successive “translations”, which does not introduce any discontinuity in the social space, but rather a progressive adaptation of knowledge, the certainty of which can always be called into question by controversies.

In this way, the social is understood as being an effect caused by the successive interactions of heterogeneous actors, that is to say of the actor-network. Every actor is a network and vice versa. The action of an entity of the network entails the modification of the latter; any action involving the entire network has an impact on the components of the network. Consequently, the action does not have a precise source, it always involves a series of entities and mobilizes the collective force that they represent. The relative stability of an actor-network can collapse at any time if certain actants are removed from the network. For example, if we remove the phone or the banks in question, the result will be a destabilization of the network. Likewise, the actor-network is both local and global, depending on its size or length; it can be both a micro and a macro-actor since its size varies over time and depends on the translation operations of its spokespersons.

Actor Network Theory reviewd

Actor-network theory, often abbreviated as ANT , or sociology of translation , is an approach within the social science that analyzes social phenomena as (social) networks where the classic opposition between active people and passive objects in doubt drawn. One of the best-known propositions is therefore that non-human elements can also possess a form of agency (action potential) within a network. That is why the term 'actant' is also used as a more neutral collective term for all these actors. Furthermore, the approach can also be described as a 'material semiotic'' method, which focuses on relations that are simultaneously material, namely between things, and semiotic, namely between concepts , in nature.

The actor network theory has its origins within Science and Technology Studies (STS) in the work of authors such as Michel Callon , Bruno Latour and John Law . Other related authors are Madeleine Akrich , Annemarie Mol , Arie Rip , Wiebe Bijker and Andrew Pickering . As an approach, it strongly opposes both classical sociology and contemporary critical sociology. The approach has an affinity with constructivism because the essentialistrejects statements. For example, within the field of science, it will say that a theory is successful not because it is "true" or has a grip on the real nature of things, but because it succeeds in a whole range of elements (people, things, concepts) mobilize in a particular formation. It is further inspired by poststructuralism (with authors such as Michel Foucault or Gilles Deleuze ), the "strong program" within the sociology of science of Barry Barnes and David Bloor , the work of Gabriel Tarde , the ethnomethodology and philosophy of Michel Serres .

Since 2000, a number of authors working in Actor-network theory, such as Callon, Law and Donald MacKenzie , have also made a link with the notion of the performativity of knowledge. This refers to the fact that knowledge does not simply establish facts, but actively co-produces these facts. For example, authors such as Callon and MacKenzie have studied this to a great extent in the field of economics : economists do not simply establish economic reality, but also produce economic reality through their theories.