Consumer culture theory (re)visits actor–network theory

Abstract

The vocabulary and tactics developed by actor–network theory (ANT) can shed light on several ontological and epistemological challenges faced by consumer culture theory. Rather than providing ready-made theories or methods, our translation of ANT puts forward a series of questions and propositions that, captured through the metaphor of ‘flattening’, invite a rethinking of how ontologies of consumption—its subjects, objects and devices, content and contexts, materiality and socioculturality—are enacted through precarious networks of heterogeneous relations.