Resto de medios: compra, cesión e intercambio de imágenes

While Schattschneider’s theory of politics provides valuable insight into political contests, it does not completely account for the dynamic relations inherent in networks. For this I turn to concepts developed in actor-network theory, a critical social theory pioneered in the 1980s (Callon and Latour 1981; Callon 1986; Latour 1987; Law 1987). The theory is based in social constructivism, and its proponents argue that its primary analytic benefit is as a critical

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For example Susskind (2006), advocates long term negotiating which begins by avoiding issues centred on deeply held beliefs, but rather on seeking mutual gains (cf. Salmon 2000; Rein 2006). Where the negotiation or contest includes only a few dominant actors, these mutual gains may subvert the broader symbolic intent of the policy being implemented.

theory (Latour 2005; cf. Whittle and Spicer 2008 for a dissenting view). By rejecting a priori

socially constructed dichotomies, such as the distinction between society and nature, or between human and non-human actors, they believe that assumptions embedded in social interactions can be exposed more effectively. Analysing these dichotomies frees the researcher from explaining or defending them, returning the researcher’s focus to networks and their effects (Latour 1983). Concepts arsing from within actor-network theory have been applied to a range of social science research, including public administration and public policy research (see, for example Feldman, et al. 2006; Hunter 2008)

I use two concepts from actor-network theory, translation and durability, in this research. Translation is the process through which actor-networks arise, stabilise, and dissolve or are absorbed into larger networks. Translation augments Schattschneider’s theory of politics by describing the politics of representation in dynamic terms. Actor-network theory views all social conditions as networks within which actors are defined through their interactions with other actors (Callon 1991; Law 1999). Being defined through interactions also means that all actors are themselves actor-networks (Callon 1991). This leads to the understanding that all structured social relations are to some degree unstable and may be decomposed into the components and strategies that led to their formation. Durability is the process by which actor-networks become stabilised and the social relations in which they are based are rendered invisible (Latour 1991). As actor-networks may draw together a variety of social and

technological entities in their production, these durable networks may be human or non- human. While at first blush the notion of non-human actors seems absurd, the position is based in the underlying connections that are represented in technological objects or habits of practice are essentially social. In the present research, the benefit of this perspective is important in the analysis of policy documents, and of the role that policy documents fulfil in complex implementation networks. These roles include obscuring unproven assumptions, directing practice, and representing central agency actors in local negotiations.

In translation, actor-network theory posits that social interaction among individuals is based in the ongoing creation of networks which define both the actors and the relationships among them. Networks are created when one actor, referred here as the focal actor enrols others in support of proposals to address some social condition which is viewed as problematic. The focal actor proposes a solution to the social condition, assigns specific roles to the enrolled actors, and present themselves as essential to resolving the problematic condition (Callon 1986). Building these networks is a two-step process in which the focal actor first combines existing social material, such as texts, normative assumptions and modes of practice and uses

this to interest local actors in the network. Then, the focal actor combines the enrolled actors by defining their roles within the network and acting as their representative in the resulting actor-network.25

Callon recognises that enrolling others to a particular view of the social condition is not always based in complete candour, with a range of strategies from “seduction” to “force” being employed (Callon 1986, 208). The primary strategy, however, is for an actor to present their view of the social condition as the truth, obscuring the underlying social construction in the hope that others may be willing to accept this construction without further proof (Callon 1986). Upon enrolment, the focal actor is under no obligation to respect the self-definition of the enrolled actors (Murdoch 1997), and may represent in any way the focal actor wishes as long as the outcome is, for them, successful (Callon 1986). This process of enrolling, and then displacing others in representation is known in political science literature as well. For example, Stone:

Representation thus has a dual quality: representatives give expression to an interest by portraying an issue, showing how it affects people and persuading them that the portrait is accurate; and representatives speak for people in the sense of standing for them and articulating their wishes in policy debates. The paradox is that what

representatives say when they speak for their constituents is not the constituent’s own words, but words the representative composed and used to persuade their constituents in the first place (Stone 2002, 215).

Once actors are enrolled in an actor-network, they are mobilised in support of the premise on which the network has been constructed. The strength of the focal actor derives from the stability of the network they have created, and network stability relies on reducing ambiguity. Ambiguity is at its greatest when the socially constructed aspects of the network remain visible. While these are visible, the enrolled actors may question and reject the underlying assumptions of the network, and external competitors can destabilise the network by promoting a competing construction of the social condition and necessary corrective. Stability, therefore, relies on the socially constructed facts on which the network is based becoming and remaining invisible (Latour 1991).

Reducing ambiguity and stabilising networks depends in large part on replacing human actors and negotiated networks with durable representatives. As used in actor-network theory,

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Lee and Brown (1994) note that one of the roles that may be designated is the role of the excluded, either deliberately as constituting some part of the social problem to be corrected, or inadvertently, thereby reinforcing an existing social disadvantage.

durable means that the actor-network created through negotiation is reduced to a single entity whose origins and social content are obscured. This entity may be a human representative, but may equally be a non-human object, a rule, or a practice. In policy, the final form of a policy renders the underlying assumptions, negotiations, and dissent invisible, allowing the policy to be presented, not as one among many potential approaches to regulation, but as the

only approach. As networks grow in complexity many of these earlier networks become even more invisible as they are displaced in subsequent negotiations. New networks are negotiated using stable networks as support without revisiting the assumptions or conferring with the actors enrolled at the time the earlier negotiations took place. When a durable entity that has come to represent a network is mobilised in a later contests, the actors enrolled by the earlier network are deemed present (Latour 1991). But if they are misrepresented, these actors have limited opportunity to re-enter the negotiations. Policy, as a durable entity sheds the history of its formation to become “self-evident” (Callon 1991, 144). These durable entities can then be transported to other locations without distortion, to be used in negotiating new actor-

networks (Latour 1991). These new networks can be built using embedded premises that may not apply in the place or at the time they are mobilised. Thus local actors can be excluded from negotiations, displaced and denied a role in bringing local experience into a network.26 I will expand on this concept in Chapter 3, where I discuss the development of archaeology policy developed in response to one set of local conditions, which then serves as the model for policy on other jurisdictions and under other conditions.

Networks grow by reducing uncertainty and the rendering the social construction on which the network is based invisible (Callon and Latour 1981). The power gained through a

successful translation is transitory, as other actors may challenge the network on many fronts. Internal challenges may arise from questions of representation or the validity of

intermediaries (such as the form or content of rules). External challenges may see a new actor defining the social condition differently and offering a new solution. Internal challenges can break networks apart, while external challenges have the effect of drawing local actors and networks away from the larger network and into new alignments (Callon and Latour 1981; Callon 1991). Any actor, who gains a position as spokesperson for a significant body of less powerful actors, may find their role simplified, with their voice heard in the service of a network not of their own making. For this reason actor-network theory does not support the notion of enduring centres of control within society, as this suggests that elements within society have an greater capability to issue orders that will be obeyed by others. Instead actor-

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Latour (1993) does not see categories as normatively based. Instead, social categories are projected onto nature, and then reimported as support for political objectives.

network theory views power and control as something that “may, temporarily, become centred” (Lee and Brown 1994, 92).

Growth of actor-networks is based on “punctualisation” whereby entire networks are

converted into single points in newer, larger networks (Callon 1991, 153). The resilience of larger networks, manifest as policy or administrative agencies, appear resilient due to the invisibility of the actor-networks they subsume. But in actor-network theory, these networks are not fully hidden: their invisibility is itself an actor in the network which may be

discovered and re-problematised by another actor (Lee and Brown 1994; Latour 1999). The growth of a network is also the function which can signal its downfall. Actors may define themselves as allied with other actors, submerging themselves in a large network a trade-off for additional power (Callon and Latour 1981, 295). Durable intermediaries, put into wide circulation, become available for use in other networks, or in challenges to existing networks (Callon 1991). Macro-actors that absorb large pre-existing networks may be challenged by local actors, particularly when global and local rules conflict. Local actors may observe contradictions between rules, and see this as evidence of inherent ambiguity. Resolving this ambiguity may require new constructions of the social condition, drawing actors and energy away from old networks into new networks, which in turn can grow, displace local actors, and create new actor-networks. Translation, as such, is an ongoing process that creates or

contributes conditions upon which subsequent translation begins (Latour 1991; Callon 1991), with each sequence of translation defined by a researcher being a segment of a longer

historical sequence (Latour, 1991; Lee and Brown 1994).