Reimagining Healthcare Through Actor-Network Theory
This paper explores the application of Bruno Latour's Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a conceptual framework for critiquing contemporary healthcare delivery systems. By examining the complex networks of human and non-human actors that constitute medical practice, we challenge the traditional hierarchical structures that dominate modern healthcare. Through ANT's lens, medical authority emerges not from institutional positions but through dynamic associations between diverse actors—physicians, patients, technologies, protocols, and physical spaces. We argue that recognizing the distributed agency within healthcare networks reveals fundamental limitations in current biomedical models that prioritize vertical authority structures and technical interventions over holistic healing relationships. By reconceptualizing healthcare as heterogeneous networks where healing emerges through translations between actors rather than top-down impositions of medical authority, this paper proposes alternative approaches to care that respect the complex, relational nature of healing processes. These insights suggest practical reforms for healthcare education, institutional design, and policy development that could foster more effective, equitable, and humanistic healing environments.