From ANT to pragmatism: A Journey with Bruno Latour at the CSI

Abstract : In order to discuss concretely the possible relations between the humanities and Latour’s work, this chapter retraces exchanges that actually occurred at the CSI, in a common effort to rebuild the disconnected links between political, scientific and artistic representations. Under the heading of a “return to the object”, Hennion relates his own work on music, amateurs, and attachments, and the Actor-Network Theory developed at the CSI. The review of exchanges then woven between science and technology on a side and culture on the other allows him to address concepts and issues such as mediation and its contrast with translation; the question of attachments; the criticism of Bourdieu’s critical sociology; and the revival of pragmatism in social inquiries.