Paper short abstract:

This paper intends to propose a descriptive methodology for touch and for the tactual relations between human bodies and artefacts bodies, by delving into the semiotics–Actor-Network Theory (ANT)’s dialogue.

Paper long abstract:

How much soft does a smooth thing need to be in order to be considered smooth? How much sliding? How can a razor affect such smoothness? How can craftsmen producing a design chair find a balance between "soft but supporting" or between "soft but tout"? And how do these different softnesses differ? How can we, as social scientists, describe all these relations?

Based on empirical cases - some already published (Parolin and Mattozzi 2013), some new - related to the domain of product design, this paper intends to propose descriptive categories for touch and for the tactual relations between human bodies and artefacts bodies, by delving into the semiotics-Actor-Network Theory (ANT)'s dialogue.

ANT is a material semiotics (Law 2007). The "actor-network approach is not a theory. […] is descriptive […] it tells stories about 'how' relations assemble or don't. As a form […] of material semiotics, it is better understood as a toolkit for telling interesting stories about, and interfering in, those relations.". In order to describe relations, ANT - especially Latour's version - did not just claim its affiliation to semiotics, but also borrowed and developed many semiotic descriptive categories - especially Greimasian ones. Lately, within the Greimasian tradition, a semiotics of the body has been developed (Fontanille 2004). Can the descriptive categories elaborated by the semiotics of the body be used to describe sensitive relation in a relevant and adequate way for STS, has it has been done before, in order to describe humans/non-humans inter-actions (Latour 1992; Akrich and Latour 1992)?