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Social Construction of Technology

Simone Tosoni and Trevor Pinch

in Entanglements: Conversations on the Human Traces of Science, Technology, and Sound

The chapter focuses on the Social Construction of Technology approach (SCOT) by Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, introducing the reader to its initial formulation (1984), and to the subsequent ... More

The chapter focuses on the Social Construction of Technology approach (SCOT) by Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, introducing the reader to its initial formulation (1984), and to the subsequent extensions – and sometimes reformulations – elaborated in more than 30 year of empirical research. It first clarifies how the Empirical Programme of Relativism, elaborated by the Bath School to address the social construction of scientific facts, was adapted to technological artifacts. In particular the concepts of relevant social groups, interpretative flexibility, closure or stabilization are in-depth discussed. Regarding relevant social groups, the chapter dedicates a peculiar attention to users, sellers and testers, all understudied in the original formulation of SCOT. The chapter then clarifies SCOT’s take on materiality, and discusses its main differences with the idea of nonhuman agency proposed by Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Finally, it goes back to the Golem Trilogy to discuss with the author the specific take on politics implied by SCOT.Less

Technology and Society in Classical Athens: A Study of the Social Context of Mining and Metallurgy at Laurion

Kim Van Liefferinge

in Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science

Technology is a ubiquitous aspect of the everyday world. Although hard to ignore in this day and age, Classical scholars have shown little awareness of this observation in their research. Technology ... More

Technology is a ubiquitous aspect of the everyday world. Although hard to ignore in this day and age, Classical scholars have shown little awareness of this observation in their research. Technology has primarily been studied from a restricted angle, most notably a technical or economic one. The former perspective views technology as a purely technical force, concentrating principally on tools and techniques. The latter focuses on innovation, and its capability to increase production outputs and trigger economic growth. Both approaches, however, neglect the complex range of factors that actually contribute to technological change, inevitably leading to misconceptions about the role of technology in the ancient world. This chapter presents a different way of approaching Classical technology. Using the sociological theory of Social Construction of Technological Systems, it argues that technological change always occurs against the backdrop of interdependent environmental, social, economic and political factors. It applies this approach to the case study of the Athenian silver mines in the Laurion. The focus is on the practice of silver production, with special attention to social groups and their interaction in a broader environmental, political and economic context. This framework enables a more contextualized and thorough understanding of technological change in Athenian society.Less

The Question Concerning Technology and Community

Taylor Dotson

in Technically Together: Reconstructing Community in a Networked World

This chapter presents a far different approach to concerns regarding technologically driven changes to communal life than is typical. Rather than lament lost community or celebrate the present, it ... More

This chapter presents a far different approach to concerns regarding technologically driven changes to communal life than is typical. Rather than lament lost community or celebrate the present, it describes the status quo as sociotechnically constructed. Technological societies need not be characterized by the relatively thin and fragmented social practices of networked individualism; things could be otherwise. This take on community and technology is further distinguished by how it sees different arrangements for providing belonging as political: They provide some people with a satisfying experience of community but not others. Although network scholars see networked individualism as liberating, many people are as lonely as ever. Finally, this approach parts ways with traditional science and technology studies: 1) Rather than focus on sexy, esoteric technoscience, it concerns itself with the needs and experiences of average people 2) It analyses the barriers to change instead of merely providing an historical or ongoing account of it 3) It emphasizes the role of the built environment, a technology often overlooked within technology studies.Less

The chemical weapons taboo

Michelle Bentley

in Syria and the Chemical Weapons Taboo: Exploiting the Forbidden

This chapter analyses the chemical weapons taboo – the idea that chemical weapons are so abhorrent that they cannot be tolerated. In particular it engages with the work of Richard Price. It ... More

This chapter analyses the chemical weapons taboo – the idea that chemical weapons are so abhorrent that they cannot be tolerated. In particular it engages with the work of Richard Price. It reinterprets the taboo from the perspective of Quentin Skinner and his concept of the ‘innovating ideologist.’ Instead of viewing the taboo as a social construction, this analysis argues that actors can exert significant agency over the taboo and the way in which it is employed in political discourse.Less

Family troubles, methods trouble: qualitative research and the methodological divide

Ara Francis

in Family troubles?: Exploring changes and challenges in the family lives of children and young people

This chapter draws attention to the tensions and ‘divides’ concerning methodological approaches to researching family troubles, focusing on qualitative methodologies and arguing that they share a ... More

This chapter draws attention to the tensions and ‘divides’ concerning methodological approaches to researching family troubles, focusing on qualitative methodologies and arguing that they share a concern with meanings and staying close to everyday contexts, underpinned by a primarily inductive epistemology. In relation to family troubles, the author suggests that qualitative methodologies are particularly well-suited to ask two core questions: how people construct ‘family troubles’ and how these constructions are related to social systems of power and inequalities. Using the example of the emergence of child abuse as a significant publicly-defined family trouble in 20th century Western societies, the author argues that qualitative methodologies can consider the processes through which such troubles are recognized and constructed, including historical considerations of the parts played by particular professional interests and the (classed) resistance to and support for the definitions of child abuse that emerged. Close examination of the social constructions of particular family troubles can be important in helping to frame appropriate interventions.Less

Normal problems or problem children? Parents and the micro-politics of deviance and disability

Ara Francis

in Family troubles?: Exploring changes and challenges in the family lives of children and young people

This chapter draws on a study of middle-class parents in the US who identify their children as having significant problems, such as learning and developmental disabilities, mental illnesses and ... More

This chapter draws on a study of middle-class parents in the US who identify their children as having significant problems, such as learning and developmental disabilities, mental illnesses and substance addictions, focusing on the processes of problem construction, i.e. how parents come to view their children as having significant problems of a particular kind. A social constructionist perspective is taken, addressing whose definitions of trouble prevail, in which contexts, and why, and exploring the micro-politics of this process. The formative role of wider family members, friends, school officials and medical professionals is highlighted in reinforcing perceived maternal responsibilities to monitor and cultivate development. For parents raising children with challenging behaviour, a medical frame of reference could simultaneously be the source of the problem, shaping their interpretations of their children’s conduct in ways that may sometimes problematise behaviour which would otherwise be viewed in terms of difference and nonconformity, and the solution, with parents fighting hard to gain public recognition that their children’s problems were legitimately medical, as opposed to the more ‘ordinary’ consequences of bad parenting.Less

Racial Health Disparities and Questions of Evidence: What Went Wrong with Healthy People 2010

Carolyn Moxley Rouse

in Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice: Bridging Perspectives for New Conversations

The United States Healthy People 2010 initiative, designed to focus nationally funded health research and care on achieving a set of nationwide goals, was directed toward the elimination of racial ... More

The United States Healthy People 2010 initiative, designed to focus nationally funded health research and care on achieving a set of nationwide goals, was directed toward the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities. While racial and ethnic disparities are complex (with the health of some minority groups surpassing the national average), the health of black Americans continues to fall short of the national average. By focusing on the presumptions embedded in the design of health disparities research, this chapter addresses why Healthy People 2010 largely failed to reduce racial health inequality. Importantly, in thinking about health inequalities, researchers initially failed to consider how race is socially constructed; how data collection is never value-neutral (see King, chapter 8, this volume); and, finally, the limits of randomized control trials (deductive methods) when it comes to making sense of complex behavioral and structural data. The chapter ends by describing how ethnographic insights can help complicate the assumptions and conclusions of health disparities research.Less

Male homosexual identity in Hong Kong: A social construction

in Sex and Desire in Hong Kong

This research is to explore the social and psychological forces that influence the identity of a man who has come to describe himself as a “homosexual”. An attempt is made to understand the emergence ... More

This research is to explore the social and psychological forces that influence the identity of a man who has come to describe himself as a “homosexual”. An attempt is made to understand the emergence of male homosexual identities in Hong Kong – which is predominantly a Chinese community under western influence for more than one century. The results suggest that male homosexual identity arises not so much from homosexual behaviour per se but from the stigma and heterosexist beliefs that encompassed it. The acquisition of homosexual identity is largely a response to the cultural definitions of marriage and family, gender and sex roles, as well as a way to handle a culturally induced set of difficulties of getting access to emotional and sexual fulfilment in an environment that prohibits it.Less

Fulfilling the Sacred Potential of Technology: New Edge Technophilia, Consumerism, and Spirituality in Silicon Valley

Dorien Zandbergen

in Things: Religion and the Question of Materiality

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the San Francisco Bay Area, this chapter addresses “New Edge,” a brand of “New Age” spirituality featuring the belief that the New Age can be realized through ... More

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the San Francisco Bay Area, this chapter addresses “New Edge,” a brand of “New Age” spirituality featuring the belief that the New Age can be realized through advanced technologies of the type pioneered in Silicon Valley. Rooted in corporate and academic settings, New Edge originated in the California countercultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s and continues to define itself as countercultural. It understands technology to be sacred, even though its “true potential” (i.e., extending people's senses by helping them to “see more,” “become aware,” “bring out their true selves,” etc.) may remain unfulfilled due to corporate incorporation and commodification. Much like understandings of the Internet by scholars of “cyber-religion” back in the 1990s, then, and despite its keen awareness of the socially constructed nature of things, New Edge is still informed by the technologically deterministic notion that technology has a “true essence.”Less

Kaddish

Aaron W. Hughes

in Rethinking Jewish Philosophy: Beyond Particularism and Universalism

Jewish philosophy, like any religious based philosophy, does not begin in wonder, but self-defense. The task of such a defense must, by necessity, be constructed on the wobbly ground of privilege and ... More

Jewish philosophy, like any religious based philosophy, does not begin in wonder, but self-defense. The task of such a defense must, by necessity, be constructed on the wobbly ground of privilege and denial. Upon such a shaky foundation, Jewish philosophy sets itself up as the arbiter of the good, the true, and the beautiful. That which fits and upholds this reading is emphasized, and that which embarrasses or contradicts can be neatly excised. The cost of such an enterprise is the production of a particular type of Judaism, in which we see reflected a particular set of concerns and wills to power that seek to enforce it. To explore this in greater detail, this chapter focuses on the artificiality of the terms and categories bequeathed to us by our nineteenth-century forebears, classifications that are still largely in use today.Less