Extract from Actor-Network Theory and Information Infrastructure by Eric Monteiro.
Two concepts from actor network theory are of particular relevance: inscription (Akrich 1992; Akrich and Latour 1992) and translation (Callon 1991, 1994; Latour 1987). The notion of inscription refers to the way technical artefacts embody patterns of use: “Technical objects thus simultaneously embody and measure a set of relations between heterogeneous elements” (Akrich 1992, p. 205). The term inscription might sound somewhat deterministic by suggesting that action is inscribed, grafted or hard-wired into an artefact. This, however, is a misinterpretation. Balancing the tight-rope between, on the one hand, an objectivistic stance where artefacts determine the use and, on the other hand, a subjectivistic stance holding that an artefact is always interpreted and appropriated flexibly, the notion of an inscription may be used to describe how concrete anticipations and restrictions of future patterns of use are involved in the development and use of a technology. Akrich (1992, p. 208, emphasis added) explains the notion of inscription in the following way:
Designers thus define actors with specific tastes, competencies, motives, aspirations, political prejudices, and the rest, and they assume that morality, technology, science, and economy will evolve in particular ways. A large part of the work of innovators is that of “inscribing” this vision of (or prediction about) the world in the technical content of the new object. (…) The technical realization of the innovator’s beliefs about the relationship between an object and its surrounding actors is thus an attempt to predetermine the settings that users are asked to imagine (…).
Stability and social order, according to actor-network theory, are continually negotiated as a social process of aligning interests. This takes place in “the process that is called translation which generates ordering effects such as devices, agents, institutions, or organizations” (Law 1992, p. 366). As actors from the outset have a diverse set of interests, stability rests crucially on the ability to translate, that is, re-interpret, re-present or appropriate, others’ interests to one’s own. In other words, with a translation one and the same interest or anticipation may be presented in different ways thereby mobilising broader support. A translation presupposes a medium or a “material into which it is inscribed”, that is, translations are “embodied in texts, machines, bodily skills [which] become their support, their more or less faithful executive” (Callon 1991, p. 143).
In ANT terms, design is translation: “users’” and others’ interests may, according to typical ideal models, be translated into specific “needs,” the specific needs are further translated into more general and unified needs so that these needs might translated into one and the same solution. When the solution (system) is running, it will be adopted by the users by translating the system into the context of their specific work tasks and situations.
In such a translation, or design, process, the designer works out a scenario for how the system will be used. This scenario is inscribed into the system. The inscription includes programs of action for the users, and it defines roles to be played by users and the system. In doing this she is also making implicit or explicit assumptions about what competencies are required by the users as well as the system. In ANT terminology, she delegates roles and competencies to the components of the socio-technical network, including users as well as the components of the system (Latour 1991). By inscribing programs of actions into a piece of technology, the technology becomes an actor imposing its inscribed program of action on its users.
The inscribed patterns of use may not succeed because the actual use deviates from it. Rather than following its assigned program of action, a user may use the system in an unanticipated way; she may follow an anti-program (Latour 1991). When studying the use of technical artefacts one necessarily shifts back and forth “between the designer’s projected user and the real user” in order to describe this dynamic negotiation process of design (Akrich 1992, p. 209).
Some technologies inscribe weak/flexible programs of action while others inscribe strong/inflexible programs. Examples of the former are tools, the hammer being a classic example and the assembly line of Chaplin’s “Modern times” a standard illustration of the latter.
Inscriptions are given a concrete content because they represent interests inscribed into a material. As Law (1992, p. 387) points out:
“Thus a good ordering strategy is to embody a set of relations in durable materials. Consequently, a relatively stable network is one embodied in and performed by a range of durable materials”.
The flexibility of inscriptions vary, some structure the pattern of use strongly, others weakly. The strength of inscriptions, whether they must be followed or can be avoided, depends on the irreversibility of the actor-network they are inscribed into. It is never possible to know before hand, but by studying the sequence of attempted inscriptions we learn more about exactly how and which inscriptions were needed to achieve a given aim. To exemplify, consider what it takes to establish a specific work routine. One could, for instance, try to inscribe the routine into required skills through training. Or, if this inscription was too weak, one could inscribe the routine into a textual description in the form of manuals. Or, if this still is too weak, one could inscribe the work routines by supporting them by an information system. Hence, through a process of translation, one and the same work routine may be attempted inscribed into components of different materials, components being linked together into a socio-technical network. By adding and superimposing these inscriptions they accumulate strength.
