How to move beyond the dialogism of the ‘Parliament of Things’ and the ‘Hybrid Forum’ when rethinking participatory experiments with ANT?

Cardwell, Emma and Waterton, Claire Frances Jane (2019) How to move beyond the dialogism of the ‘Parliament of Things’ and the ‘Hybrid Forum’ when rethinking participatory experiments with ANT? In: The Routledge Companion to Actor-Network Theory :. Routledge, London, pp. 378-388. ISBN 9781138084728

Abstract

This chapter outlines an Actor-Network Theory (ANT) approach to participation. We examine three key texts - Acting in an Uncertain World; Politics of Nature and From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik - to explore how scholarship deriving from ANT has constructed particular ways of addressing technoscientific controversies in public life. The chapter narrates one example of participation in the north of England where these theoretical works helped to underpin the activities of an experimental ‘knowledge collective, ' the Loweswater Care Project. We describe the attachments, weaknesses and passions of the collective as important features of this experiment: These allowed for lively interrogation of matters of fact and critical appraisal of ‘things.' These attachments also shaped and drove debate in certain directions at the expense of others, however. We then turn to the work of Maria Puig de la Bellacasa to help us think about ʼneglected things’ within the collective. In so doing, we lead readers beyond discreet ideas of participatory procedure to consider a wider politics of matters of care.