John Law

John Law (born 16 May 1946), is a sociologist and science and technology studies scholar, currently on the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University. He has remained one of the leading proponents of Actor-Network Theory together with Madeleine Akrich, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour.

Actor-network theory

Actor-network theory, sometimes abbreviated to ANT, is a social science approach for describing and explaining social, organisational, scientific and technological structures, processes and events. It assumes that all the components of such structures (whether these are human or otherwise) form a network of relations that can be mapped and described in the same terms or vocabulary.

Developed by STS scholars Michel Callon, Madeleine Akrich and Bruno Latour, Law himself, and others, ANT may alternatively be described as a 'material-semiotic' method. ANT strives to map relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and 'semiotic' (between concepts), for instance, the interactions in a bank involve both people and their ideas, and computers. Together these form a single network.

Professor John Law was one of the directors of the ESRC funded Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change.