Latour’s not so hard to grok, certainly much easier than the Deleuzes and Derridas of the world. Approach his work as more or less philosophical anthropology rather than, like, pure philosophy. Indeed, humans a situated in overlapping spaces and how we make meaning in those spaces is at the heart of his work, from Lab Life through Actor Network Theory. What makes him easier to grok, and set him a little bit apart, is that he steadfastly refused to deny that there was a reality other than the socially constructed ones we make/negotiate. So you have to really pay attention to particular contexts and study it very carefully in order to understand what’s happening in that space. It’s not just social constructivism all the way down.
(He was famous for Lab Life, of course, but he did the exact same sort of detailed anthropological-philosophical analysis of French courts too.)
(He was famous for Lab Life, of course, but he did the exact same sort of detailed anthropological-philosophical analysis of French courts too.)