ABSTRACT
This chapter goes back to some ANT’s forgotten roots in anthropology of writing, by recalling its initial interest in traces and written objects produced in workplaces (scientific laboratories, city administration offices, firms or state departments). Stepping aside from the usual approach in terms of “immutable mobiles,” this chapter draws on studies in anthropology of writing in order to explore the multiplicity of inscriptions. The role of writing is discussed in relation to two main aspects: Forms of reasoning and modes of governing. On the one side, anthropology of writing invites, with early ANT, to examine the crucial part that the materials involved in writing practices – from staplers and post-it notes to inscription devices and intellectual technologies – play in cognitive processes. On the other side, it highlights the importance of both order and disorder in the ways inscriptions participate in various modes of organising and governing. Insisting on stabilisation and formalisation alone obscures the dynamic, uncertain and messy character of many writing practices, and the fragmentation of information infrastructures. Finally, the chapter reminds that anthropology of writing helps to overcome an overly mechanical vision of written accounts’ agency by investigating the role of neglected practices in producing knowledge and performing politics.
