Do non-humans make a difference?: the actor-network-theory and the social innovation paradigm

In: Challenge social innovation: potentials for business, social entrepreneurship, welfare and civil society, p. 57-72

Abstract

"Social innovation is becoming a widely used term in international debates in the context of social challenges. Neither in political nor in social scientific discussion there seems to be a consensual definition or concept of social innovation. In search of a sociological understanding of social innovation this paper turns to Latour's Actor-Network-Theory (ANT). Latour is known for his insistence on the role of non-humans (which usually refers to technological artefacts) in society and how the reference to non-humans changes our understanding of social action and structure. In his view, the 'social' is nothing but a type of relation, it is the way human and non-human actors link to each other, are translated and form actor-networks in a 'flat' world without a 'context' or 'macro-level'. As a consequence, we cannot separate technological artefacts from the 'social sphere' of humans anymore. Furthermore, Latour and Callon introduced a variety of general concepts that allow to empirically study this world of relations and translations. This article discusses the potentials in applying Latour's version of ANT to social innovation following two main questions: Does ANT provide empirical tools appropriate for analyzing innovation processes that do not have technology as their main driver and output? Does ANT help us to conceptualise social innovation in a way that avoids the exclusion of technical artefacts per se?" (author's abstract)