Reassembling the Social is a fundamental challenge from one of the
world's leading social theorists to how we understand society and the
"social". Bruno Latour's contention is that the word "social" as used by
Social Scientists has become laden with assumptions to the point where
it has become a misnomer. When the adjective is applied to a phenomenon,
it is used to indicate a stabilized state of affairs, a bundle of ties
that in due course may be used to account for another phenomenon. Latour
also finds the word used as if it described a type of material, in a
comparable way to an adjective such as "wooden" or "steely".
Rather than simply indicating what is already assembled together, it is
now used in a way that makes assumptions about the nature of what is
assembled. It has become a word that designates two distinct things: a
process of assembling: and a type of material, distinct from others.
Latour shows why "the social" cannot be thought of as a kind of material
or domain, and disputes attempts to provide a "social explanation" of
other states of affairs. While these attempts have been productive (and
probably necessary) in the past, the very success of the social sciences
mean that they are largely no longer so. At the present stage it is no
longer possible to inspect the precise constituents entering the social
domain. Latour returns to the original meaning of "the social" to
redefine the notion and allow it to trace connections again. It will
then be possible to resume the traditional goal of the social sciences,
but using more refined tools. Drawing on his extensive work examining
the
"assemblages" of nature, Latour finds it necessary to scrutinize
thoroughly the exact content of what is assembled under the umbrella of
Society. This approach, a "sociology of associations" has become known
as Actor-Network-Theory, and this book is an essential introduction both
for those seeking to understand Actor-Network-Theory, or the ideas of
one of its most influential proponents.
