Anais do XXI Seminário Internacional Nanotecnologias, Sociedade e Meio Ambiente desafios jurídicos éticos e sociais para a “grande transição sustentável” (XXI SEMINANOSOMA) 330 are put into circulation. The possibility of stabilising socio-technical networks lies in the production of unified common spaces or translations that make them intelligible. This mainly occurs through interme- diation and translation activities involving all network components, human and non-human (Latour 2005). Through translations and intermediations, it is possible to un- derstand socio-technical networks (in a more generic sense) as a core concept defining the epistemic impossibility of separating science and context. For the sociology of associations (as Callon or Latour also ini- tially choose to call the ANT approach), science and knowledge cannot be conceived outside the spaces for the circulation of statements, artefacts and humans. In general terms, translation refers to the interdefi- nition of actors, and does not allude to each actor’s intrinsic elements, rather to relational elements. Translation is evolutionary, involving agreements, compromises and negotiations that are always contin- gent and may fail. Definitions are always inscribed in intermediaries (Callon 1986). Translation processes can result in strong (predictability) or weak coordination levels when possible associations are multiplied. The levels reached define the network’s degree of convergence15. Translation networks can thus be thought of as synthetic indices re- sulting from the coordination and alignment of entities (Callon and Law 1989). A high level of coordination and alignment defines high degrees of network convergence that are likely to result in translation irreversibility (network stabilisation). Translation is therefore a rela- tional characteristic defined either by the impossibility of returning to the situation in which the translation was one option among others, or by the pre-determination of future options. Moreover, in order to explain translation dynamics, the definition of intermediaries must also be understood, as does their linking and attributing role in these processes. Actors are apprehended in in- teraction, in interdefinition, and this is materialised in the intermediaries they put into circulation (Callon 1986). In turn, intermediaries are forms of inscriptions that organise networks in an “active way”, link heterogeneous entities, and define the universe in which actors circulate and identify themselves. This occurs through attribution pro- cesses. In a double movement, intermediaries define and compose the networks, history and identities of their components. Such that, “each intermediary in itself describes a network of which it is both support 15 For Callon, what is important is the degree of convergence and not the intensity of the rela- tionship between one element or the other (Callon and Law 1989).
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