The word `network' is so fashionable that its use can some-times be seen as more incantative than descriptive. Instead of discussing the concept, we focus here on the word and the way it is used. Our hypothesis is that it can be seen as a kind of totem, in Levi-Strauss' sense, providing a `method of thinking'. To grasp its efficiency, we have to look at it as a part of a homological-rather than causal-way of thinking. Through analysis of the use of the word in two different contexts, we shall try to shed light on this `homological way of thinking', which proceeds via the whole, rather than via the part; by hand rather than by mind; by the concrete rather than by abstraction.
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