2.1 Introduction
2.1.5 ANT’s perception of controversy
Collaborative design is characterised by uncertainties and ambiguities, which result in controversies concerning the appropriate strategies to respond to the multiple challenges and transformations which humanity is facing. In fact the design process can be viewed as a series of tasks and decisions for reducing uncertainty. In ANT terms uncertainty refers to the state of not knowing “who or what” makes us act (Latour, 2005). This means that since there are a number of unknown agents that could be acting when we act, our actions as actors are therefore not necessarily a result of consciousness (Latour, 2005). Grebici, Goh, and McMahon (2008, p. 1), note that “In a collaborative design project uncertainty is often considered as a lack of knowledge that may introduce risks to the outcome and execution of a process”. These may emanate, for example, from conflicting design requirements which may introduce ambiguity in the definition of the design problem and its solution. Guided by the sources of uncertainties, illustrated by (Latour, 2005), I illuminate the uncertainties that are relevant to the collaborative design actor network.
As we will see in Part B of the literature review, collaborative design involves resolution of various controversies and uncertainties with regard to the production of the design artefact that can solve an identified problem. Grebici et al. (2008, p. 1), note that; “In a collaborative design project uncertainty is often considered as a lack of knowledge that may introduce risks to the
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outcome and execution of a process …” The same authors further suggest that as a starting point, sociology must address all the possible controversies involved in living together, without making restrictions on the controversies to be explored in advance. Then sociology must show us how those controversies are or may be settled – or in Latour’s language, stabilised – and how those settlements are or may be maintained. Sociology's final task would be to define the procedures for reassembling the collective of interest and useful to those who have been the objects of study (Markman & Wood, 2009).
The uncertainty associated with the method and information will have impact on how design is carried out, and therefore these need to be identified so that they can be attended to during the design process. Latour (2005), identifies five sources of uncertainty which need to be resolved before the network tracing and assembling process can start begin. These are (1) the nature of group formation; (2) the nature of action; (3) the nature of objects; (4) the nature of facts; and (5) the type of study. Latour (2005), points out that failure to first consider the resolution of these uncertainties results in us rushing to tracing networks, “by turning to the social in order to explain the phenomenon under exploration” (Singh-Pillay, 2010, p. 29). It for this reason that, Latour (1999b, 2005), give ANT’s primary goal as to describe the nature of societies by tracing these sources of uncertainties.
Therefore, in every ANT study the resolution of these uncertainties is a precursor to the tracing and assemblage of networks. In this study, therefore, the five uncertainties identified by Latour had to be resolved in one way or another because they are linked to one another. Since these uncertainties are intertwined, tracing of the collaborative network required me to constantly resolve the uncertainties by relating one concept to another. This indicates that the tracing process is not conducted in a linear fashion, but rather is an ongoing process comprising uncertain, shifting and heterogeneous ties (Latour, 2005).
The first controversy pointed out by Latour (2005), is that with regard to group formation. This controversy begins with a question about which group is responsible for a particular role; for example, in the case of the collaborative design group, the question can be who is responsible for selection of the design problem which students can work on. To answer this question it was then necessary to trace the relationships among all the actors involved in the group formation.
Group formation involves enrolments, tensions, uncertainties and translations, which implies that actors within a group/s are constantly relating to one another in an ongoing manner, leading
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to ever-shifting ties or associations among the actors (Latour, 2005). These ties are said to be fragile, uncertain and controversial (Latour, 2005; Singh-Pillay, 2010).
The shifting ties point us to the fact that there are no fixed relations, and therefore the researcher cannot confine actors to them (Latour, 2005). The research’s business is to just follow the trajectory of an actor in the network. Following the trajectory in a collaborative design process would entail focusing on the tensions, uncertainties and translations among the actors when they form and dismantle associations, which provide the researcher with the resources to render the social connection traceable (Latour, 2005). By the same token of reasoning, these shifting ties or frames of reference allow the social to become visible and also lead to the formation of contradictory cartographies (Singh-Pillay, 2010). The ties would allow me as the researcher to unmask aspects of the social impact on the actors’ actions, given that action is not transparent but has to be traced (Latour, 2005, p. 43).
Latour (2005), argues that the delineation of a group is done through defining its boundary, and further argues that it is the task of the actors to delineate their boundaries. To do this the group requires a spokesperson or a focal person who will represent the group in defining what the group should be and has been. When associations in a group are formed or dismantled their spokesperson tries to define them and the group’s boundary gets marked, delineated and rendered fixed and durable (Latour, 2005). This means that the boundaries created by the spokesperson hold up against the contradictory pressure of all competing associations that threaten to dissolve the group boundary. This shows that groups are not silent, but are the product of an uproar made by contradictory voices (Latour, 2005). Demarcation of boundaries results in a stabilisation period in respect of the associations, translations and group formations and the nature of action and object. Methodologically therefore, it is the uncertainties among the actors that dictate which sociological theory the researcher ought to use. Therefore it is not proper to define in advance what sort of social aggregates provide the context for mapping these associations. In other words, the actors do the sociology for the enquirer, and the enquirer learns from the actors what constitutes their sets of associations (Singh-Pillay, 2010).
The second source of uncertainty encourages us to emphasise who is acting when action occurs.
Here Latour draws attention to a problem in the social sciences where awareness that we are never alone in carrying out a course of action becomes an assumption that ‘social force’ has taken over (Latour, 2005, p. 53). Thus, we must move beyond a concern with ‘social forces’ to
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a concern with the uncertainties and controversies around who and what is acting when the group acts. This in turn brings to light the realisation that what makes us act has the potential to be assembled in new ways. ANT encourages us to appreciate the necessity of “remaining puzzled” about how the agencies that make us act actually make us act, and this must be done by making observable traces “more or less explicit” (Latour, 2005, p. 53).
The third source of uncertainty mentioned by Latour engages with the idea that the range of actors at work in any consideration of ‘the social’ has to be increased. In ANT there is a concern with the implements that “modify a state of affairs by making a difference to an actor” (Latour, 2005, p. 79). Rather than seeing objects as being in the background of human action, they are positioned not as only full-blown actors, but also as what explains the contrasted landscape we start with. The argument here is to dissolve the categorisation of ‘social’ and ‘material’ to explore the agency of all sorts of actors including, for example, designs diagrams, artefacts, tools, computers and the Internet tools that allow interactions among actors in the network.
Thus researchers need an extended range of tools that allows objects to enter into their accounts of what happened. However, researchers have to note that Latour (2005, p. 79) has observed that objects are good at being silent and “specific tricks” need to be invented to “make them talk”.
In the study of Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative design a number of solutions are offered, which include studying inscriptions which appear in design meetings, design portfolios and the Web 2.0 postings. This also includes exploring unexpected incidents such times of breakdown of Internet connectivity, since such situations render visible what objects do as the destabilised actors they are to restore stability in the design network. Furthermore, the voices of receding non-human actors can be rendered visible through the use of archives. It is important that researchers explore all these avenues, because the network can only be fully described if all the relations among the multiplicity of its actors are uncovered.
The fourth source of uncertainty leads to a suggestion that agencies are engaged with ‘matters of concern’ rather than ‘matters of fact’. Here Latour draws on the way that scientific knowledge, including social scientific knowledge, is constructed in scientific practice. For example, ANT suggests that if we consider the controversies of science studies, we can gain an understanding that matters of ‘fact’ cannot describe a ‘unified reality’. This is not to say that facts do not exist, but rather it is an invitation to researchers to challenge any premature notions
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of indisputability that might be presented a matter of fact (Latour, 2005, p. 116). Furthermore, the fifth uncertainty suggests that our explorations of initiatives such as collaborative design must recognise that our reports in themselves are mediators: they transform the meaning of the elements they carry (Latour, 2005, p. 40).
When these ideas are applied in the study of collaborative design, they imply that the inquirer should examine how during a collaborative design process the controversies are settled (stabilised) or not. The inquirer should identify the actors involved and how the controversies (design issues) are articulated, so that they can be addressed effectively. For any collaborative design process to achieve its goal, the actors involved need to find ways of addressing the controversies they encounter so that they expend their energy on solving the design problem (Bryson et al., 2009). The presumption is that if the controversies are not stabilised appropriately things will fall apart where the design project endeavour is concerned. There has to be an alignment of interests (understandings, agreements and commitments) on controversial issues pertaining to the design problem if the design process is to achieve its goals. For design researchers an ANT lens can be instrumental in illuminating how and to what extent design controversies could be stabilised (Bryson et al., 2009).