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This article explores how the infrastructure of Dutch-language literature – the material, social and organisational basis for the actions of actors in the literary field – could be studied through Actor-Network Theory (ANT). The term infrastructure has occasionally been used in field-theoretical contributions to Dutch Studies, but is usually used only to indicate the place of institutions in the literary field, and not to refer to means of communication, hardware, paperwork and other more material infrastructural phenomena. This article aims to provide a basis for a better description and analysis of that material side of the literary world. We first explore how infrastructure can be defined and investigated; then, using the sociology of critical capacity (Boltanski, Thévenot and Chiapello), we analyse what values are exchanged within the infrastructure of the literary world. We then examine three case studies: the Translation Database of the Dutch Foundation for Literature (Nederlands Letterenfonds), the grant application procedure of this Foundation, and the 28th Budapest International Book Festival (Budapesti Nemzetközi Könyvfesztivál) in which the Netherlands was the guest of honour. Our analysis shows how human and non-human ‘actants’ play several different roles in these three phenomena, and that several clashing values are at stake.
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