Actor-network theory (ANT) offers a radical lens for historical analysis, moving beyond human-centric narratives to include the agency of objects, technologies, and ideas. This article provides an in-depth exploration of how to apply ANT to historical events, using the fall of the Berlin Wall as a detailed case study, and examines the methodological implications for historians. The approach demands careful attention to the ways in which non-human actants participate in the construction of historical reality, a perspective that has gained traction in material history and science and technology studies but remains controversial for its perceived flattening of human intentionality.

The Core Tenets of Actor-Network Theory

Developed by Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, and John Law in the 1980s, ANT emerged from science and technology studies (STS). Its central premise is that reality is produced through networks of heterogeneous actors — human and non-human alike. These networks are not static; they are constantly being built, maintained, or dismantled through processes of translation and enrollment. Key concepts include:

  • Actant: Any entity (person, object, concept) that acts or is acted upon within a network.
  • Network: A web of relationships among actants that defines their roles and influences.
  • Translation: The process by which actors align interests and create stable networks, often through negotiation and conflict.
  • Punctualization: The tendency to treat complex networks as single, black-boxed entities (e.g., a "government" hides a tangled web of human and non-human actants).

For historians, ANT demands a symmetrical treatment of all actants. A political decision is not solely the product of human will; it is shaped by documents, buildings, communication infrastructure, and even the weather. This approach aligns with recent trends in material history and the history of technology, but it remains controversial for its perceived flattening of human intentionality. For a thorough introduction to the theoretical foundations, see Actor-Network Theory on Wikipedia.

Methodological Steps for Historical ANT Analysis

Applying ANT to history requires a shift in research methodology. Instead of beginning with a predetermined narrative (e.g., "the Industrial Revolution was driven by capitalist interests"), the researcher must trace the network empirically. The steps are:

1. Identify the Event and Its Network Boundaries

Choose a specific historical event — ideally one where multiple actors interacted across domains. The boundaries are not fixed; they emerge as the researcher follows trails of association. For example, studying the fall of the Berlin Wall might start with the night of November 9, 1989, but quickly extend backwards to the 1975 Helsinki Accords, forward to the protests of 1989, and outward to media systems in both East and West Germany.

2. List All Actants — Human and Non-Human

Create an exhaustive inventory. For the Berlin Wall case, this includes:

  • Human: Egon Krenz, Günter Schabowski, Mikhail Gorbachev, East German border guards, West German reporters, ordinary citizens protesting in Leipzig and East Berlin.
  • Non-Human: Berlin Wall structure, barbed wire, guard towers, car traffic, television cameras, photocopiers (used to disseminate protest leaflets), radio broadcasts, passports, and the telephone system that allowed East Germans to call West German consulates.
  • Abstract: The concept of "peaceful revolution" as a model, the SED party ideology, economic sanctions, and the Cold War binary.

3. Map Translation Processes

Trace how actors were enrolled into networks. In 1989, Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost acted as powerful intermediaries that reshaped the Soviet sphere. East German leaders resisted translation — they tried to maintain a rigid network — but the flow of information via Western television and radio "betrayed" their efforts. The mass protests of Monday nights were themselves networks of people, church spaces, and printed materials that gradually punctualized into a unified opposition. Translation also occurs through non-human intermediaries: the Stasi’s filing systems, for instance, rendered citizens legible to the state, but when files were leaked or destroyed, the network of surveillance faltered.

4. Analyze Controversies and Discontinuities

ANT thrives on moments when networks break down. The iconic moment of Schabowski’s press conference — where he fumbled his notes and announced travel regulations effective "immediately" — is a classic ANT controversy. The press conference network (Schabowski, his script, the journalists, television cameras) produced a translation error: the phrase was ambiguous, leading to thousands of East Berliners gathering at the wall. Border guards, trained to follow procedures, were suddenly without clear instructions from their commander. The physical wall itself became a different actant — no longer a barrier of control but a stage for confrontation.

Detailed Case Study: The Fall of the Berlin Wall Through ANT

Using the methodology above, we can expand the original case study into a rich ANT narrative. The wall’s fall was not a single event but a cascade of network shifts. Each shift involved contingent interactions among human and non-human actors, none of which could have achieved the outcome alone.

The Network Before 1989

The East German state functioned as a punctualized network of surveillance (Stasi informants, files, telephones), repression (military, police, wall), and ideological control (party apparatus, education system, print media). The wall was the most visible non-human actant, but it depended on many others: watchtowers, searchlights, orders from the Ministry of State Security, and the tacit acceptance of Western governments. This network appeared stable, but it was built on fragile enrolments. For example, the Stasi’s massive paper archive acted as a critical infrastructure: without it, surveillance would have been unmanageable. Yet the sheer weight of documentation also meant that any discrepancy in the files could cascade into a crisis of legitimacy, as noted by historians of the archive.

Network Disruptions: Gorbachev, Migration, and Media

Three key actants disrupted the stability:

  • Gorbachev’s reform policies: His declaration that the USSR would not intervene militarily changed the rules of the game. This signal was transmitted through diplomatic channels, but also through Western media reports that East Germans could see on West German television (a non-human actant with huge impact). The television itself — a box of circuits and cathode rays — became a conduit for alternative narratives, bypassing the SED’s monopoly on information.
  • Mass emigration via Hungary: Thousands of East Germans vacationing in Hungary used the opened border with Austria in August 1989. This flow of bodies over geographical borders created a crisis — the escapees were actants that destabilized the narrative of a "closed" East Germany. The cars used to drive to Hungary, the passports stamped at checkpoints, and the telephone calls informing relatives in the West all played roles in assembling a new network of mobility.
  • Monday demonstrations in Leipzig: Starting in September 1989, these grew from a few hundred to over 70,000 by October. The demonstrators were networked with churches (physical space), candles (symbols), and slogans. The sheer number of human actants overwhelmed the regime’s ability to repress without massive violence. The church buildings themselves offered sanctuary and logistical coordination, while photocopied leaflets (themselves networks of paper, ink, and duplicating machines) spread protest calls beyond the reach of state media.

The Night of November 9: A Pivotal Translation

The press conference at 18:53 CET is a textbook ANT moment. Schabowski, handed a note just minutes before, read out a decision to allow private trips abroad with certain conditions. Journalist Riccardo Ehrman — a human actant — pressed for clarification on when it would take effect. Schabowski, unsure, said "as far as I know, it becomes effective immediately... now, immediately." This utterance, carried via television and radio, became a powerful actant itself. East Berliners interpreted it as the wall being open right now. They gathered at border crossings. The guards, without specific orders, followed the only script they had: let people through. The network collapsed because a single text (the new travel regulation) was translated incorrectly but with overwhelming force.

This analysis shows how a tiny object — a slip of paper, a verbal fumble — can reconfigure a whole political reality. For a broader academic treatment of this approach, see Latour’s "Reassembling the Social" (Chapter 12 on actor-network theory and historical sociology). For a detailed account of the media’s role, consult “Media and the Fall of the Berlin Wall” in Contemporary European History.

Benefits of ANT in Historical Research

Historians have traditionally focused on human agents — leaders, masses, intellectuals — and treated material objects as mere background. ANT forces a more ecological view. Some benefits:

  • Reveals hidden mediators: Objects like the photocopier in Poland’s Solidarity movement or the satellite dish in Romania in 1989 become key actors. This broadens the source base for historians, encouraging them to examine technical manuals, architectural plans, and even weather records.
  • Avoids teleology: Because ANT traces connections as they happen, it resists the temptation to see history as inevitable. The fall of the wall was contingent on thousands of small translations, not just the grand sweep of democracy. This is especially useful for counterfactual reasoning: tiny changes in the network could have produced radically different outcomes.
  • Integrates material culture entirely: Buildings, weapons, infrastructure, climate — all can be incorporated into the analysis without reducing them to human intentions. This is valuable for environmental history or the history of technology.
  • Encourages interdisciplinary collaboration: ANT invites methods from sociology, anthropology, geography, and STS. Historians can borrow network mapping and qualitative data analysis tools, enriching their methodological toolkit.

Criticisms and Limitations

ANT is not without controversy in historical scholarship. Critics argue:

The Problem of Agency

Giving equal agency to a gun and a person raises ethical and analytical issues. Does a photocopier truly act in the same way as a protester? Some historians feel ANT flattens the moral dimensions of history — the difference between oppression and liberation, for instance. Others counter that non-human actants have effect but not intention; ANT never claimed they have consciousness, only that they make a difference in the network. This debate is well summarized in “Actor-Network Theory and Historical Research” in Rethinking History.

Scale and Time

ANT works best for microhistorical events or short timeframes. Applying it to centuries-long processes like the Industrial Revolution becomes unwieldy because networks multiply exponentially. The original article’s example of the Industrial Revolution might be too broad; a better ANT study would focus on a specific factory, a particular invention (like the Watt steam engine), or a single policy decision. For instance, an ANT analysis of the factory system could trace how the steam engine, the factory clock, the child labor laws, and the division of labor co-evolved, revealing why certain arrangements became stable while others did not.

Empirical Demands

Tracing every association is laborious and risks infinite regress. Historians must make pragmatic choices about which actants to follow. This introduces subjectivity that ANT purports to reduce. Additionally, historical sources are often incomplete — we may not have records of the "ordinary" non-human actants in a past event. The material turn in historiography has partially addressed this by encouraging historians to read objects as texts, but the challenge remains significant.

ANT and the Material Turn in Historiography

The rise of ANT has paralleled broader movements in historical writing: the "material turn," the "spatial turn," and the "infrastructural turn." Historians now routinely examine how things — from ships to vaccination campaigns to search engine algorithms — shape human action. ANT provides a coherent vocabulary for these inquiries. For example, Alain Pottage and Martha Mundy’s work on law and materiality uses ANT to show how legal documents (deeds, contracts, court transcripts) do not merely represent reality but actively produce it. Similarly, environmental historians like Richard White have used network thinking to study rivers, dams, and irrigation systems as actants that co-construct political economies. A good overview of this trend is offered in “The Material Turn in Historiography” in The Historical Journal.

Practical Tips for Historians Using ANT

  • Focus on controversies: Look for moments of breakdown (patent disputes, military defeats, natural disasters) where the network becomes visible. In those moments, actants that normally remain punctualized reveal their internal complexity.
  • Pay attention to texts: Historical documents are not just evidence of human thought; they are actants that circulate and translate. Treat them as such. Consider how a single memorandum, forwarded through a bureaucracy, can enroll or alienate actors.
  • Use network visualization: Simple diagrams of actants and their linkages can help manage complexity. Tools like Gephi or even hand-drawn maps can illuminate hidden structures. Digital humanities approaches, such as topic modeling of diplomatic correspondence, can complement ANT by revealing which actors were most strongly associated in textual networks.
  • Combine with other theories: ANT does not replace social history or political history; it complements them. Use it as a tool to challenge assumptions, not as a dogma. For instance, pairing ANT with Marxist approaches can highlight how material objects become commodities and fetishes in specific historical networks.

Conclusion: Rethinking History as Network

Actor-network theory offers historians a powerful corrective to oversimplified narratives. By insisting on symmetry between human and non-human actors, it opens up new questions: How did the telegraph change diplomacy? Why did a particular bridge collapse? What role did a specific pesticide ban play in the environmental movement? The fall of the Berlin Wall, when analyzed through ANT, reveals a complex interplay of speeches, television signals, border guards, and crowds — none of which can be understood in isolation. As historians increasingly grapple with global, material, and technological contexts, ANT provides a flexible vocabulary to describe the webs that connect our past. For further reading, the seminal text Reassembling the Social by Bruno Latour remains the best introduction.

Ultimately, applying ANT to history is not about dehumanizing the past. It is about recognizing that humanity has always been entangled with the non-human — and that these entanglements are the very fabric of historical change. The task for historians is not to choose between human-centered and object-centered narratives, but to trace how both kinds of actors together produce the events we seek to understand.