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ANT advocates a perspective of power and agency in which power is not an inherent property of humans but is portrayed as a relational achievement, i.e., power is “a (concealed or misrepresented) effect, rather than power as a set of causes” (Law 1992, p. 6). As Latour, cited in Fox (2000, p. 861), argues:

When you simply have power- in potential- nothing happens and you are powerless; when you exert power-in actu- others are performing the action and not you...Power is not something you may possess and hoard... Power is, on the contrary, what has to be explained by the actions of others who obey the dictator (original emphasis).

This translation model of power differs from the diffusion model, which assumes that orders come from a central source and are transported through a “chain of command” before being implemented (Fox 2000). In contrast, a translation model suggests that those who assume they possess power, e.g., governments, may not be able to enforce change unless they can encourage other actors to accept the proposed changes (Latour 1986). In this model, power is exercised once all of the actors are enrolled in the required networks (Latour 1986). However, Cheshire and Lawrence (2005, p. 41) drawing on Woods (1997), contend that ANT is unable to account for “why some actors or entities are enrolled into an actor network at the expense of others”, suggesting that “power must be pre-existing” rather than a result of the “actions of others”. Nevertheless, this concept of power is extremely relevant for researchers exploring human-animal relations for, as Philo and Wilbert maintain, these relations are always

“filled with power, commonly the wielding of an oppressive, dominating power by humans over animals…” (Philo & Wilbert 2000b, pp. 3-4). In other words, animals have been considered the ‘passive other’ in the relationship. ANT challenges this notion by opening up debate about “how animals themselves may figure in these practices” (Philo & Wilbert 2000b, p. 5).

An alternative perspective of agency is advocated whereby agency is viewed as an effect generated within network building (Hitchings 2003; Power 2005; Whatmore 1999). From this perspective, agency is not something possessed by an individual, but is a relational effect which is performed in the enrolment of humans and non-humans in actor-networks (Cheshire & Lawrence 2005; Cloke & Jones 2004; Dolwick 2009; Philo & Wilbert 2000b; Whatmore & Thorne 2000). In the field of human-animal relations, this concept of agency suggests that animals “potentially have the power to act” (Philo & Wilbert 2000b, p. 17). This alternative perspective of agency suggests that speech or intentionality is not necessarily required (Castree 2002; Philo & Wilbert 2000b). Wilbert (2000) uses the example of an animal escaping from an enclosure to argue that it is not about animals possessing “conscious intentionality”; rather, the animal’s actions are a resistance of human ordering. This point is supported by Philo and Wilbert (2000b, p. 19) who suggest that one “need [not] to go as far as imputing conscious intention to non- humans”, but should think of animals as:

Embodied, meaty beings who evade human attempts to place them in space, physically or conceptually … [places where animals] inject their own agency into the scene, thereby transgressing, perhaps even resisting, the human placements of them (Philo & Wilbert 2000b, p. 14).

This idea of agency without intentionality has raised concern as it suggests that non- humans have, what is considered by many, to be a unique human quality thereby “de- humanising humans” (Dolwick 2009, p. 38). However, as Dolwick (2009, p. 38) argues: “The idea is not to dehumanise humans, or to reduce them to mechanistic forces, but rather to add nonhumans...” (original emphasis) to academic studies.

Cloke and Jones (2004) , who explore the issue of agency without intentionality in their analysis of trees in Arnos Vale (a Bristol cemetery), view agency as a relational effect

created through interaction between human and non-human actors. They found this perspective of relational agency to be an extremely useful framework for dissolving nature-society dualism and tracing the “combined and networked agency of a number of different actants, both human and nonhuman”. However, they stress that while this approach draws attention to the role of non-human actors it fails to account for “their precise contribution to relational agency” (Cloke & Jones 2004, p. 327). This point was raised earlier by Castree (2002, p. 135), who argued that the main problem with this perspective of agency is that it fails to consider “the possibility that some actants ‘marshal’ the power of many others and, in so doing, limit the latter’s agency and circumscribe their existence”. Castree advocates a “weaker” version of ANT which recognises “that agents, while social, natural and relational vary greatly in their powers to influence others... that power, while dispersed, can be directed by some (namely, specific ‘social actors’) more than others (Castree 2002, p. 135). Ruming (2009: 453) argues that ANT’s central premise of following actors suggests that there is “no essential characteristic of an actor; rather, in order to identify their agency, it is necessary to follow the lines of associations that bestow them agency and to explore those associations that allow it to operate”. Therefore, in this context, agency is viewed not as a possession but as an effect generated by the interaction between human and non- human actors (Cheshire & Lawrence 2005; Cloke & Jones 2004; Dolwick 2009).