Actor-Network Theory: Insights into the Study of Social-Ecological Resilience

Abstract

Actor-network theory, which emerged from science and technology studies in the 1980s, regards everything in the social and ecological systems as a continuous result of the network of relations where they are located. Social-ecological resilience, with its origins in systems ecology, focuses on the non-linear changing dynamics of social-ecological systems and their governance. Among them, social-ecological resilience study integrates different disciplines, backgrounds, and themes, which inevitably leads to the vagueness of its concept. Both actor-network theory and social-ecological resilience emphasize human-nature relationships and view social-ecological systems as dynamic and unpredictable “networks”. Therefore, this paper explored the potential conceptual or theoretical underpinnings that actor-network theory can provide in social-ecological resilience through interdisciplinary research. Specifically, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 30 fishing households from Chang-shan Archipelago in Northeastern China. The obtained interview data were analyzed through thematic analysis, and three main themes were generated, including “heterogeneous networks”, “agency”, and “translation”, which facilitated a reconceptualization of the three components of social-ecological resilience, namely, “linked social-ecological systems”, “changing dynamics” and “the ability to maintain resilience”, and also provided a new theoretical perspective on the adaptive governance of social-ecological systems.

An adaptive cycle resilience perspective to understand the regime shifts of social-ecological system interactions over the past two millennia in the Tarim River Basin

“…Furthermore, this research expands the scope of ACR theory and provides a practical case study to support model enhancements [ 54 ]. Adopting an ACR perspective to analyze long-term socio-ecological system changes opens new theoretical avenues for the sustainable development of future SESs [ 55 , 56 ].…”

Climate Change Misinformation in the United States: An Actor–Network Analysis

“…In ANT, actors represent entities that exert agency and have the capability to influence. Actors are not only humans but also ideas, organizations, and technologies that have fundamental roles in creating a social phenomenon (Latour 2005;Yao and Liu 2022). Likewise, when multiple heterogeneous actors interact together to form a network ecosystem, it becomes an assemblage (Deleuze and Parnet 2007).…”