Paper short abstract:

This paper will deal with the philosophy and sociology of Latour in relation to space. Acknowledging the very spatiality of Actor-Network theory, we will see how Latour helps us to bring together architecture and (political) philosophy.

Paper long abstract:

Bruno Latour has shown a longstanding interest for architecture and for the city. Devoting many articles to questions of building process and design, he also manifested, in books such as Aramis or The Love of Technology (1992) and Paris, Invisible City (1998), a vivid interest for urban organisation at large. More deeply, one can very well see how his entire theoretical framework brought space and questions of spatiality to the fore of both sociology and philosophy. Giving much importance to concepts such as network, vector, trajectory, and putting a lot of energy in the fact of relocating the social, Actor-Network theory can be seen as being profoundly topological.

Along with Peter Sloterdijk's spatial ontology, with which he shares more than only theoretical affinity, Latour thus probably gave us one of the most fruitful theoretical frameworks for understanding the very spatiality of contemporary apparatuses of power, and for deciphering the way the complex landscapes of globalisation affect and transform our lives. Bringing our attention to the very role played by the many objects or non-human entities that constitute the (social) universe, Latour seems to be one of the best philosophers to help us exploring and deciphering what happens after large sections of urban life crossed over to cyberspace - without falling in the immaterial or virtual traps.