Actant Framework (CCA)

• Actant is a new word that forces people to think differently instead of sliding into habituated patterns of agent or actor who has autonomy or power
• Actants can include anything: from a person, to a schedule, to a building, to a narrative
• If it acts within the system, it’s an actant
  • Think of humans as actants

• Actant framework is useful in the broader field of complex adaptive systems
  • If it acts within the CAS, it’s an actant
  • 3 types of actants
    • Constraints can connect or contain and be resilient or robust
      • 3 resilient constraint types are permeable, phase shift, and dark
      • 3 robust types are rigid, elastic, and tether
    • Constructors transport
      • by passage (such as a ritual or a process)
      • by contagion
      • by their presence (this includes a Panopticon Effect)
    • Actors can be
      • roles (which can include experts as well as organisational roles)
      • a collective such as a team
      • an individual (rarely)

• We typically associate Agency with human beings, i.e, Actors
• Actants indirectly let us map Agency at a much subtler level

Examples

• Social network (e.g. Facebook)
  • According to actor-network theory, the technological activities — computers, and phones — have the same amount of agency, and are as important to the network, as the people and the communication they support

• Epistemic Disruption
  • An actant can be a new system, tool, or concept that
    • Alters the criteria for truth or validity
    • Redefines what counts as evidence or expertise
    • Changes who gets to participate in knowledge creation
• Scaffolds are stabilized actants