Some Criticism

Actor-network theory insists on the agency of nonhumans. Critics maintain that such properties as intentionality fundamentally distinguish humans from animals or from "things". ANT scholars respond that (a) they do not attribute intentionality and similar properties to nonhumans; (b) their conception of agency does not presuppose intentionality; (c) they locate agency neither in human "subjects" nor in non-human "objects," but in heterogeneous associations of humans and nonhumans.
ANT has been criticized as amoral. Wiebe Bijker has responded to this criticism by stating that the amorality of ANT is not a necessity. Moral and political positions are possible, but one must first describe the network before taking up such positions.
Another criticism is that it suggests that all actors are equal within the network. It does not account for pre-existing structures, such as power, but instead sees these structures as emerging from the actions of actors within the network. Power emerges with the ability of an actor to align other actors to its interests. For this reason, ANT is sometimes seen as an attempt to re-introduce Whig history into science and technology studies; like the myth of the heroic inventor, ANT can be seen as an attempt to explain successful innovators by saying they were successful. In a similar vein ANT has been criticised as overly managerial in focus.
ANT case studies are often highly descriptive and, not providing explanations, can seem pointless to some critics. ANT - like all comparable methods of study - requires judgement calls from the researcher as to what actors are important within a network and which are not. But in the absence of 'out-of-network' criteria for judging the relevance of actors these problems can appear theoretically unmanageable for the ANT researcher. ANT work is at risk, in theory at least, of degenerating into endless chains of association (six degrees of separation - we are all networked to one another) which many non-ANT researchers would consider irrelevant. Other relevant perspectives such as social constructionism, social network theory, Normalization Process Theory, Diffusion of Innovations theory, focus on elements of social life that are known to be relevant and do not insist on the case study method or the agency of objects. This makes them straightforward alternatives to ANT.
In a workshop called "Actor Network and After", Bruno Latour was noted to say that there are four things wrong with actor-network theory: "actor", "network", "theory" and the hyphen. In a later book however (Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory), Latour reversed himself, accepting the wide use of the term, "including the hyphen" (Latour 2005:9). He also remarked how he had been helpfully reminded that the ANT acronym "was perfectly fit for a blind, myopic, workaholic, trail-sniffing, and collective traveler" (the ant, Latour 2005:9) – qualitative hallmarks of actor-network epistemology.A