Field notes: “Web’s blood flow”

Over the last month I have been studying Bruno Latour’s (1999) chapter “Science’s Blood Flow” in Pandora’s Hope. (This is *the* reading I have been raving about to unfortunate souls I have cornered.)

“Science’s Blood Flow” is a chapter about reconnecting science with society by, in Latour’s words, “following the ways in which facts circulate” (1999, p. 80). While his chapter focuses on science and explores how scientists make something believable, I think it offers developers valuable insights into how to make something that is used.

In “Science’s Blood Flow”, Latour describes how Frederic Joliot built an atomic reactor to research the principal of fission in France in the 1930s and 40s. In order for this to occur a number of things had to happen. Joliot had to secure the help of CNRS (France’s National Centre for Scientific Research) who saw the potential to produce energy in unlimited quantities, and the Ministry of War who saw the potential to build a nuclear bomb. Joliot also had to source uranium in large quantities from the Union Miniere and deuterium from Norsk Hydro Elektrisk. He had to mobilize the military and industry, while at the same time work on his experiments and calculations in the lab:

Halban’s calculations on the slowing of neutron’s, Joliot’s hypothesis of the feasibility of the chain reaction, and Dautry’s conviction about the necessity of developing new armaments became even more closely entwined when it came to obtaining the heavy water from Norway (Latour, 1999, p. 83).

It really is a thrilling read!

Latour uses the concept of translation to describe how different goals impact on each other. Joliot the scientist and Dautry the politician had different goals. Joliot wished to be the first to master a chain reaction. Dautry sought national independence for France. Joliot and Dautry pursued these different goals through their joint interest of building an atomic reactor. Latour suggests that Joliot’s goal was translated by Dautry’s and vice versa and what they ended up with was a laboratory for chain reaction and future national independence.

One should be careful not to fix interests a priori; interests are “translated”. That is, when their goals are frustrated, actors take detours through the goals of others, resulting in a general drift, the language of one actor being substituted for the language of another (Latour, 1999, p. 89)

In “Science’s Blood Flow”, Latour uses five loops to describe the network around building an atomic reactor in France. The five loops are – mobilization of the world, autonomization, alliances, public representation, and links and knots. If one loop is removed the network falls.

So how is this valuable for developers? I thought I would use Latour’s five loops as lenses to view and study The Case of the Midnight Note and Torokiki. More later…

References

Latour, B (1999). Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Universtity Press.