Nature - autonomous learning

232 after naturePlate 5 Genetically modified mouse with ‘natural’ sibling. Is the GM mouse‘unnatural’, a social construction or neither? Is it, perhaps, an actant in a networkeach of whose constituents has a role to play so that categories like ‘natural’ and‘social’ begin to look inadequate? (© Science Photo Library)On the basis of its ‘stringy’ ontology,ANT makes no assumptions aboutwhich actants in any given actor-network are marshalling all the others. Itthus refuses the a priori choices of social constructionism and ‘naturalrealism’ recounted in the previous two chapters.ANT researchers prefer topay close empirical attention to actor-networks in their specificity, showinghow human and non-human phenomena co-constitute one another in anygiven case.As with Thrift’s work,ANT aims to respect the intimate weave oflife without talking about an asocial nature (human or non-human) or anon-natural society.ANT insists that we have never not lived in a ‘hybrid’ worldwhere what we call ‘social’ and ‘natural’ things are so closely entwined thatthese labels make little sense.New dialecticsWhere ANT makes no assumptions about what, if anything, different ‘socionatural’networks have in common, so-called ‘new dialecticians’ look foroverarching processes that structure these myriad networks. David Harvey is