Semiotics for Latour, Latour for semiotics. Tracing a network of relations across disciplinary boundaries

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 [An inquiry into the networks of meaning. Bruno Latour in the semiotic turn].

2 Regarding the multiple and interdisciplinary perspective as a distinctive feature of Latour's approach see, for example, De Vrie (2016), Harman (2009, 2014), and Schmidgen (2011).

3 As De Vrie (2016) notes, Latour's work is first and foremost characterised by a "lack of respect for disciplinary boundaries” (3) that makes any attempt to label or categorise it difficult.

4 To mention a few examples, on the reprise of the Latourian perspective in other disciplines see McGee (2015) with respect to legal studies; Arnould-Bloomfield and Lyu (2020) for the literary field; Yaneva (2022), regarding architecture.

5 Further details about the upcoming English edition of the book are available on Springer website: https://link.springer.com/book/9783031571800.

6 “rimosso” in Peverini’s original Italian.

7 “materialità e specifiche pratiche d’uso”, in Peverini’s original Italian.

8 “concetti, oggetti naturali e oggetti tecnici”; “attori-rete, cioè come attori collettivi composti di una molteplicità di componenti eterogenee il cui funzionamento si fonda su una struttura di tipo reticolare”, in Peverini’s original Italian.

9 “Una complessa logica della mediazione […] un processo di circolazione che prende forma all’interno di una concatenazione di operazioni di traduzione”, in Peverini’s original Italian.

10 The references included by Peverini in relation to studies on enunciative praxis are many. A significant example in this regard can be found in Fontanille and Zilberberg (1998).

11 “un processo decisamente più esteso, riconducibile a un’istanza collettiva e impersonale che si manifesta attraverso una serie di atti culturalmente situati”, in Peverini’s original Italian.

12 “la dimensione processuale, dinamica e traduttiva al fondamento dell’esperienza della significazione, intesa come espressione di un corpo sociale multiforme”, in Peverini’s original Italian.

13 With respect to this broad disciplinary subfield, Peverini primarily refers here to research conducted in Italy and French over the past twenty years, investigating the inherently sociosemiotic dimension of design and artefacts. In this regard, see for example Landowski and Marrone (2001), Mattozzi (2006), and Mangano and Mattozzi (2009). In this context, it is also worth mentioning the recent work, cited in the book by Peverini, of Italian semioticians Mangano and Ventura Bordenca (Latour 2021) who have edited a collection of Latour’s essays on the social (meaning) effects of technical objects.