ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as part of a range of material-semiotic theories assaulting the binaries that have traditionally underpinned cultural and sociological research endeavour. As feminist Science Technology and Society (STS) scholar Vicky Singleton argues, ANT highlights that 'knowing is embodied, situated, and embedded in practices, and practices are always being done somewhere. In consumer research part of the difficulty lies in the focus on journal articles as dissemination vehicles for work. one not making an argument here for any kind of fictitious completeness, but the emphasis on micro analyses of consumer behaviour has a historical foothold in consumer research and this also creates part of the conditions for publication of ANT accounts. Bajde has also argued this point in his excellent paper, following argument that cultural consumer studies are not neutral descriptions but transform the networks of market production, surveillance/power and valorisation.
