Non-Classical Canon in ANT/STS

How a Ship Turns Into a Pump?

Abstract

The article examines the canon as a principle of the formation of the actor-network writing technique and its influence on the formation of the Lancaster School, which exists at the intersection of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Science and Technology Studies (STS). The discussion of the canon is built around the idea of canonical experiments by Robert Boyle, which served as a model for modern experimental science. As an experimental technique, the canon is contrasted with the principle of distinguishing classics of Sociology and classical texts that are part of the university canon. The (un)classical forms of organizing the mobile canon are described in the case studies by John Law and Annemarie Mol of the mobile/movable technologies. Two cases are highlighted for analysis, which are described in John Law's article “Objects and Spaces”: “Portuguese vessel” as “immutable mobile”, which maintains its shape due to movement, and “Zimbabwe pump” as “fluid technology” with a stable core and fluid border of the periphery. The analysis of each of the cases, highlighting their trajectories of movement between different texts, strategies for simplifying the analyzed situations and working with the organization of a research article, allows to describe the mobile ANT/STS  canon as a result of overlapping two axes: an empirical/theoretical description and the core of control/controlled periphery. Thus, it is shown how the movable canon acquires a stable core in Law's article “Objects and Spaces” and becomes the basis for the further development of the Lancaster School.