Latour posits that early social scientists were interested in studying the society. That means the objective of social science was to study how people lived together under different factors and influences. However, Latour observes that the meaning of sociology, social science or the term social has changed over time, and even its meaning narrowed and skewed. In the past, it was a broad term that investigated how certain factors affected the society, such as politics and economics. Therefore, many factors were evaluated from the social lens. On the contrary, as Latour (2005) states, there are people who dispute the existence of the social perspective in analyzing various factors. Most prominently, the argument is that sociology is an independent subject, and should not be connected to subjects such as economics, politics or law when trying to explain some events in the society. Instead, these other disciplines have their own unique algorithms or methods of explaining why and how different things happen in the society. Consequently, there should not be a social perspective on every subject. Nevertheless, the Actor-Network theory states that everything in the social and natural worlds exists in shifting networks of relationships, hence everything is related.
To deny the social lens is to dispute that everything in the natural and social worlds are related. Obasogie (2010) tested such an argument. Obasogie’s study was motivated by the assertion that the question of race emanates from observable features, and thus, is visually obvious. Therefore, being ‘race conscious’ is an experience that is not affected by societal forces. Obasogie conducted the study on blind people (those who had been blind from childhood). It was expected that since they could not see since they were born and that ‘seeing race’ is triggered by the visual experience alone, they could not talk about race or even identify it. However, the results showed that the blind people were race-conscious and their perceptions were influenced by people around them. Therefore, there is no denial that the social and natural worlds are interconnected, hence cannot be defined as unrelated entities.
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References
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory . Oxford university press.
Obasogie, O. K. (2010). Do blind people see race? Social, legal, and theoretical considerations. Law & Society Review , 44 (3 ‐ 4), 585-616.
