Heterogeneous Networks Underfoot: the Agency of Colorful Socks

Abstract

This article examines the role of objects as active agents in the production of social relations and group formation, using the case of colored socks in the Ukrainian context. Drawing on actor-network theory (ANT) and supplementing it with concepts from material culture studies and social distinction theory, the author demonstrates how unexamined, mundane, and seemingly ordinary objects participate in creating social reality. The research methodology combines theoretical analysis with autoethnographic observations, informal interviews, and document analysis. Findings demonstrate that colored socks function as mediators of social interactions rather than passive intermediaries. The agency of colored socks manifests through mechanisms including: material affordances (creating material preconditions for social interaction), script activation (enacting patterns of introduction, connection, and group solidarity maintenance), network expansion (creating connections among producers, consumers, and cultural contexts), and serving as boundary objects (bridging different social worlds). The study also emphasizes that in the Ukrainian context, colored socks have acquired additional political and identity-related dimensions, especially since 2022, functioning as markers of civic position, national resistance, and social solidarity. The wartime relocation of sock production facilities from eastern to western regions of Ukraine has both accompanied and accelerated their transformation from purely industrial goods into vehicles for narratives of resilience and symbols of cultural-historical heritage. These findings have applications in the sociology of material culture, consumption studies, and research on group formation processes in post-conflict societies. The conclusions confirm the heuristic value of a symmetrical approach to analyzing social reality and demonstrate that agency should be understood not as an intrinsic property of objects or people, but as an effect of heterogeneous networks in which material objects, together with human actors, play a constitutive role in producing social order.