Name John Law Role Sociologist | ||
Born 16 May 1946 (age 78) ( 1946-05-16 ) Books After method, Organising Modernity: Social Or, Aircraft Stories, GCSE English for AQA B, Shaping Technology/building Society: S Similar People | ||
Main interests Actor–network theory | ||
John Law (born 16 May 1946), is a sociologist currently on the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University and key proponent of Actor-network theory. Actor-network theory, sometimes abbreviated to ANT, is a social science approach for describing and explaining social, organisational, scientific and technological structures, processes and events. It assumes that all the components of such structures (whether these are human or otherwise) form a network of relations that can be mapped and described in the same terms or vocabulary.
Developed by two leading French STS scholars, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, Law himself, and others, ANT may alternatively be described as a 'material-semiotic' method. ANT strives to map relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and 'semiotic' (between concepts), for instance, the interactions in a bank involve both people and their ideas, and computers. Together these form a single network.
Professor John Law is one of the directors of the ESRC funded Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change.