Networking Constructions of Gender and Constructing Gender Networks:Considering Definitions of Woman in the British Cervical Screening Programme

Singleton, Vicky (1995) Networking Constructions of Gender and Constructing Gender Networks:Considering Definitions of Woman in the British Cervical Screening Programme. In: The Gender-Technology Relation. Routledge, London, pp. 146-173. ISBN 9780748401611

Abstract

In this chapter, the author traces how she has used Actor Network Theory (ANT) and how she has developed the approach through its application to the Cervical Screening Programme (CSP). She demonstrates ways in which her feels ANT might be a useful tool for feminists approaching science. For feminists, the object of science has been consistently coded as ‘woman’, hence woman has received the same treatment. The author suggests that feminist approaches and ANT, as diverse as they both are in their own right, appear to have similar theoretical developmental trajectories expressing analogous ambivalences and facing the same dilemmas, at this historical moment. Using ANT terminology, the British government could be seen to have simplified and juxtaposed a series of entities into a network of associations that make up the CSP. ANT looks at science and society as co-evolving from the definition and positioning of non-human and human entities into a network of associations - an actor network.