IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-00555192.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Of clouds as global actors (and of global actors as clouds)

Author

Listed:
  • Hervé Dumez

    (CRG - Centre de recherche en gestion - X - École polytechnique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Alain Jeunemaitre

    (CRG - Centre de recherche en gestion - X - École polytechnique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Using the actor-network-theory (Callon/Latour) and Karl Popper's metaphor on clouds and clocks, the paper raises the issue : what is a global actor ? The Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which in March 2010 caused the highest level of air travel disruption since World War II, is taken as a (non human) global actor. The ash cloud crosses national boundaries but has its own boundaries. It acts by surprise. Its boundaries and its action raise the issue of knowledge boundaries (scientific knowledge is global, but has its own boundaries ; they don't coincide with the ones of the cloud). The cloud « emerges » (Callon & Law) as a global actor while it enters into a relationship with other global actors (airlines, Eurocontrol, etc.). A few points are made in the presentation. Globalization is a question of flows (people, goods, services, information). Globalization is the result of some actors developing these flows and some other curbing them (acting by surprise and threat). Interactions may be direct (« private politics » - Baron) or indirect (politics) Interactions are of special kind (between actors with clear and actors with fuzzy boundaries, between complete and incomplete organizations (Ahrne & Brunsson) They may raise a special epistemic issue regarding agency.

Suggested Citation

  • Hervé Dumez & Alain Jeunemaitre, 2010. "Of clouds as global actors (and of global actors as clouds)," Post-Print hal-00555192, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00555192
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00555192. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.