ANT is not about traced networks but about a network-tracing activity. As I said above there is not a net and an actor laying down the net, but there is an actor whose definition of the world outlines, traces, delineates, limns, describes, shadows forth, inscrolls, files, lists, records, marks, or tags a trajectory that is called a network. No net exists independently of the very act of tracing it, and no tracing is done by an actor exterior to the net. A network is not a thing but the recorded movement of a thing. ...

We cannot say that what moves inside networks are informations, genes, cars, bytes, salutations, words, forces, opinions, claims, bodies, energy, etc. since ANT also wants to reconstruct nets before there is any distinction between what circulates inside and what keep them on track, so to speak, from the outside. Again, as I said at the beginning, the technical metaphor of networks is a latecomer for ANT and does not capture the tracing activity. No, what circulates has to be defined like the circulating object in semiotics of texts -especially scientific texts (Bastide, 1990). It is defined by the competence it is endowed with, the trials it undergoes, the performances it is allowed to display, the associations it is made to bear upon, the sanctions it receives, the background in which it is circulating, etc. Its isotopy -that is its persistence in time and space- is not a property of its essence but the result of the decisions taken through the narrative programs and the narrative paths.

If choosing words for the network-tracing activity has to be done, quasi-objects (Serres, 1987) or tokens might be the best candidate so far. It is crucial for the definition of the term that what circulates and what makes the circulation be both co-determined and transformed.

As a rule a quasi-object should be thought of as a moving actant that transforms those which do the moving because they transform the moving object. When the token remains stable or when the movers are kept intact, these are exceptional circumstances which have to be accounted for.