The Berlin Key or How To Do Words With Things

Text Exploration

In this text, Latour argues that objects and people are inextricably linked, and that to study one is to study the other. He shows how social relationships are highlighted by examining something as simple as a key and lock. He concludes that objects are technology, and to be a sociologist is to “do technology” (and vice versa.)

He begins by showing that chains of associations between humans and non-humans exists, but questions our ability to consider and discuss these. The delineation of two things is limiting and presents the “stupefying idea that there exist humans and non-humans.” Instead of thing/people, he argues that a characterization of associations and substitutions “give us the precision that could never be given us by the distinction between social and technological.” Studying a thing forces a study of associations in a network: the ecology of what is connected to that thing.

Studying a thing leads to an examination of the relationship a person has with the thing, which is often unexpected or “unplanned.” A key may be used as provided, but a key can also be modified by its user; a key offers a “program of action,” which is what the key communicates into the network. This can be both an intermediary or a mediator, and speaks for the actions of the mediator. Ultimately, words are the translation medium for exploring and understand the program of relationships between artifacts and people.

Latour concludes by emphasizing the associated nature of sociological study. “Consider things,” he writes, “and you will have humans. Consider humans, and you are by that very act interested in things.”