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Superficially, Actor Network Theory (ANT) and critical realism (CR) are radically opposed research traditions. Written from a realist perspective, this paper asks whether there might be a basis for finding common ground between these two traditions. It looks in turn at the questions of realism, structure, and agency, analysing the differences between the two perspectives and seeking to identify what each might learn from the other. Overall, the paper argues that there is a great deal that realists can learn from actor network theory; yet ANT remains stunted by its lack of a depth ontology. It fails to recognize the significance of mechanisms, and of their dependence on emergence, and thus lacks both dimensions of the depth that is characteristic of critical realism's ontology. This prevents ANT from recognizing the role and powers of social structure; but on the other hand, realists would do well to heed ANT's call for us to trace the connections through which structures are constantly made and remade. A lack of ontological depth also underpins ANT's practice of treating human and non-human actors symmetrically, yet this remains a valuable provocation to sociologists who neglect non-human entities entirely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper opens with a review of recent developments in the sociology of spatial organization and after an examination of the ontological and epistemological assumptions which are embedded within current theorizations of space a number of arguments are advanced concerning the inter-relationships which hold between forms of knowledge, social practice and physical design. Using architectural plans, these arguments are then developed with reference to the study of the spatial organization of hospital wards in three contexts; the care and treatment of children, the containment of madness in the pre-1845 period and the management of psychiatric patients 1973-1982. The paper concludes that schemes of spatial organization are best understood in relation to the discursive practices of which they form a part rather than as decontextualised and reified social facts which exhibit their own 'logic'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The state is one of series of concepts (capitalism, patriarchy and class being others) which pose a particular kind of ontological difficulty and provoke a particular kind of ontological controversy - for it is far from self-evident that the object or entity to which they refer is in any obvious sense 'real'. In this paper I make the case for developing a distinct political ontology of the state which builds from such a reflection. In the process, I argue that the state is neither real nor fictitious, but 'as if real' - a conceptual abstraction whose value is best seen as an open analytical question. Thus understood, the state possesses no agency per se though it serves to define and construct a series of contexts within which political agency is both authorized (in the name of the state) and enacted (by those thereby authorized). The state is thus revealed as a dynamic institutional complex whose unity is at best partial, the constantly evolving outcome of unifying tendencies and dis-unifying counter-tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the application of Foucauldian perspectives within sociology. While Foucault's epistemology has generated novel historical and philosophical interpretations, when transposed to sociology, problems arise. The first of these concerns the association of knowledge and power, and the concept of 'discourse'. Foucault suggested that there are 'rules' of discursive formation which are extraneous to the 'non-discursive' realm of 'reality'. This formulation is consequently both deterministic and incapable of supplying explanations of why some practices become discursive which others do not. This determinism is reflected in some sociological analyses of embodiment, offering a model of the 'body' which is passive, and incapable of resisting power/knowledge. Secondly, Foucault's notion of the 'self' moves to the other extreme, inadequately addressing the constraints which affect the fabrication of subjectivity. Sociological accounts do not always recognize the ambiguities which consequently result from efforts to use Foucauldian positions. It is argued that post-structuralists other than Foucault may offer more to sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]