Techno-optimism, or the enduring belief that technology use and production are promising for humanity, is bound up in past and ongoing ideals of modernity, progress, and “development.” As a particular form of hope and aspiration, techno-optimism is harnessed for nation-building and economic development projects that invest in the promise of scaling. This article demonstrates that this enduring techno-optimism requires various forms of entrepreneurial labor, and that the promise of scaling and technological progress together form a contemporary technique of governance.
{"title":"Scaling Techno-Optimistic Visions","authors":"Seyram Avle, C. Lin, Jean Hardy, S. Lindtner","doi":"10.17351/ests2020.283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.283","url":null,"abstract":"Techno-optimism, or the enduring belief that technology use and production are promising for humanity, is bound up in past and ongoing ideals of modernity, progress, and “development.” As a particular form of hope and aspiration, techno-optimism is harnessed for nation-building and economic development projects that invest in the promise of scaling. This article demonstrates that this enduring techno-optimism requires various forms of entrepreneurial labor, and that the promise of scaling and technological progress together form a contemporary technique of governance.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41879505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The diffusion of major new technologies in society is often accompanied by a set of myths that tell us how these technologies will change, clearly for the better, the social and economic fabric of a community. Digital technologies are associated with myths such as the death of distance and of mediators, the end of history and of politics (Brown and Duguid 2000; Mosco 2004). We build on Mosco’s idea of myth as a force shaping discourses around the introduction of new technologies in the context of the deployment of digital artifacts such as digital ID systems and mobile money platforms in the Global South (Mosco 2004). Using the examples of the Unique Identification system (Aadhaar) in India and mobile money in Myanmar, we show how these myths persist long after technologies are in common use. We also examine how, in practice, the use of these technologies seldom aligns with the mythology surrounding them, and it is, instead the moral economy of the communities where they are deployed that mediates their use (Thompson 1971). We argue that local histories of state-making and the larger political economy of technology design can help explain the persistence of the mythology around digital technologies despite the disconnect between myths and reality.
{"title":"The Myths and Moral Economies of Digital ID and Mobile Money in India and Myanmar","authors":"Janaki Srinivasan, Elisa Oreglia","doi":"10.17351/ests2020.276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.276","url":null,"abstract":"The diffusion of major new technologies in society is often accompanied by a set of myths that tell us how these technologies will change, clearly for the better, the social and economic fabric of a community. Digital technologies are associated with myths such as the death of distance and of mediators, the end of history and of politics (Brown and Duguid 2000; Mosco 2004). We build on Mosco’s idea of myth as a force shaping discourses around the introduction of new technologies in the context of the deployment of digital artifacts such as digital ID systems and mobile money platforms in the Global South (Mosco 2004). Using the examples of the Unique Identification system (Aadhaar) in India and mobile money in Myanmar, we show how these myths persist long after technologies are in common use. We also examine how, in practice, the use of these technologies seldom aligns with the mythology surrounding them, and it is, instead the moral economy of the communities where they are deployed that mediates their use (Thompson 1971). We argue that local histories of state-making and the larger political economy of technology design can help explain the persistence of the mythology around digital technologies despite the disconnect between myths and reality.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48102286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Standardization as spaces of diversity was introduced by Loconto and Demortain (2017) to advance the sociology of standards. Their analytical framework for studying standardization processes in interactive spaces is mobilized and expanded upon in this article in order to address the problematic relationship between standards and diversity. Studying industrialized animals highlights the existing tensions between these opposing forces and the socio-technical attempts to reconcile them. Using a socio-historical approach, we analyze cattle breeding standards as they pass through three interactive spaces of standards: “standards in the making,” “standards in action,” and “standards in circulation.” Drawing from the notion of ecology, we highlight the need for contextualization in order to better understand processes of standardization in a fourth space of “standards in interaction.” The contours of this space are demonstrated through an analysis of the International Bull Evaluation Service (Interbull), which is a space of commensuration for cattle breeding values. Linear interpretations of standardization processes are thus challenged with an empirical demonstration of how standardization can be harnessed to preserve and even enhance diversity.
{"title":"Keep Diversity––Make Standards! Spaces of Standardization for Diversity Analyzed through Cattle Breeding Industry","authors":"Lidia Chavinskaia, A. Loconto","doi":"10.17351/ests2020.287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.287","url":null,"abstract":"Standardization as spaces of diversity was introduced by Loconto and Demortain (2017) to advance the sociology of standards. Their analytical framework for studying standardization processes in interactive spaces is mobilized and expanded upon in this article in order to address the problematic relationship between standards and diversity. Studying industrialized animals highlights the existing tensions between these opposing forces and the socio-technical attempts to reconcile them. Using a socio-historical approach, we analyze cattle breeding standards as they pass through three interactive spaces of standards: “standards in the making,” “standards in action,” and “standards in circulation.” Drawing from the notion of ecology, we highlight the need for contextualization in order to better understand processes of standardization in a fourth space of “standards in interaction.” The contours of this space are demonstrated through an analysis of the International Bull Evaluation Service (Interbull), which is a space of commensuration for cattle breeding values. Linear interpretations of standardization processes are thus challenged with an empirical demonstration of how standardization can be harnessed to preserve and even enhance diversity.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45287665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we develop the concept regimes of patienthood . Regimes of patienthood highlights the micro and macro dimensions of illness, paying close attention to how the interplay between the two creates expectations and points of intervention for people when they are ill. Such expectations may vary across time, place, and social position (e.g., age, class, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality). Regimes of patienthood are always regimes of power and resistance, where the forms of resistance may vary based on individuals’ intersectional positions. We draw on two cases—a study of 45 mostly white, middle class adults living with autoimmune illnesses and a study of 20 Black women living with advanced cancer—to examine one dimension of regimes of patienthood—control. Although a number of social positions, such as age and race, co-produce illness experiences, we focus on three—class, insurance status, and gender—that are particularly salient in our data in relation to control. Such a move illustrates the theoretical power of regimes of patienthood for science and technology studies (STS).
{"title":"Regimes of Patienthood: Developing an Intersectional Concept to Theorize Illness Experiences","authors":"Kelly Joyce, J. James, M. Jeske","doi":"10.17351/ests2020.389","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.389","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we develop the concept regimes of patienthood . Regimes of patienthood highlights the micro and macro dimensions of illness, paying close attention to how the interplay between the two creates expectations and points of intervention for people when they are ill. Such expectations may vary across time, place, and social position (e.g., age, class, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality). Regimes of patienthood are always regimes of power and resistance, where the forms of resistance may vary based on individuals’ intersectional positions. We draw on two cases—a study of 45 mostly white, middle class adults living with autoimmune illnesses and a study of 20 Black women living with advanced cancer—to examine one dimension of regimes of patienthood—control. Although a number of social positions, such as age and race, co-produce illness experiences, we focus on three—class, insurance status, and gender—that are particularly salient in our data in relation to control. Such a move illustrates the theoretical power of regimes of patienthood for science and technology studies (STS).","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45479045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article looks at how the discourse of an emerging information society in 1990s Estonia both rejected and depended on expertise from the Soviet Period. It traces the influence 1960s-trained cyberneticians and sociologists had on expanding the concept of an information society in the 1990s, to encompass issues such as regional inequality, national culture, and poverty, instead of focusing solely on hardware purchasing and telecomms liberalization. This process was both enabled and occluded through "rupture-talk,” a rhetorical strategy emphasizing the novelty of digital infrastructure development compared to the Soviet past. The article argues that a shared belief in the power of information processing for both empowering and containing civil society enabled ideologically divergent actors to work together. The resulting vision diverged from neoliberal visions of information societies in hitherto unacknowledged ways.
{"title":"The Blank Slate E-State: Estonian Information Society and the Politics of Novelty in the 1990s","authors":"Aro Velmet","doi":"10.17351/ests2020.284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.284","url":null,"abstract":"This article looks at how the discourse of an emerging information society in 1990s Estonia both rejected and depended on expertise from the Soviet Period. It traces the influence 1960s-trained cyberneticians and sociologists had on expanding the concept of an information society in the 1990s, to encompass issues such as regional inequality, national culture, and poverty, instead of focusing solely on hardware purchasing and telecomms liberalization. This process was both enabled and occluded through \"rupture-talk,” a rhetorical strategy emphasizing the novelty of digital infrastructure development compared to the Soviet past. The article argues that a shared belief in the power of information processing for both empowering and containing civil society enabled ideologically divergent actors to work together. The resulting vision diverged from neoliberal visions of information societies in hitherto unacknowledged ways.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47998063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Macias, Peter Pohorily, Jorge Morales Guerrero, D. Karwat
The fact that engineering is involved in highly political issues—from climate change caused by fossil fuel extraction to how we understand truth itself because of deepfakes—makes it imperative that we find new ways to highlight the crucial role that engineers and engineering play in shaping society, and new ways to hold engineers and engineering accountable. We have designed, built, and installed an interactive art installation called When Mental Walls Lead to Physical Walls to generate public conversation about the social responsibility of engineers and engineering, using the US-Mexico border wall as a case study. We find that the politically charged nature of the topic might make it difficult for attendees to speak directly to ideas of social responsibility. At the same time, the installation provides opportunities for attendees to question, critique, and reflect on the effectiveness and impacts of the design of the border wall and the motivations engineers might have in working on this project. With proper planning and execution, the installation can be used as a research tool to understand how diverse audiences—from engineering students to those who may not have any experience in engineering—understand the role of engineering in society.
{"title":"When Mental Walls Lead to Physical Walls: The US-Mexico Border Wall, Art, and Public Conversations about the Social Responsibility of Engineering","authors":"M. Macias, Peter Pohorily, Jorge Morales Guerrero, D. Karwat","doi":"10.17351/ests2020.379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.379","url":null,"abstract":"The fact that engineering is involved in highly political issues—from climate change caused by fossil fuel extraction to how we understand truth itself because of deepfakes—makes it imperative that we find new ways to highlight the crucial role that engineers and engineering play in shaping society, and new ways to hold engineers and engineering accountable. We have designed, built, and installed an interactive art installation called When Mental Walls Lead to Physical Walls to generate public conversation about the social responsibility of engineers and engineering, using the US-Mexico border wall as a case study. We find that the politically charged nature of the topic might make it difficult for attendees to speak directly to ideas of social responsibility. At the same time, the installation provides opportunities for attendees to question, critique, and reflect on the effectiveness and impacts of the design of the border wall and the motivations engineers might have in working on this project. With proper planning and execution, the installation can be used as a research tool to understand how diverse audiences—from engineering students to those who may not have any experience in engineering—understand the role of engineering in society.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45761976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While being inspired by the compelling social protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens in India, the authors of this critical engagement argue that now, more than ever, is time to reflect on the nature of secularism that is being invoked by nonviolent protesters. What can a focus on lathi -wielding and stone-throwing, all low technologies of governance, tell us about the practices and challenges of liberal democracy in India? This piece excavates a brief history of the lathi and stone-pelting to show what kinds of "illiberal" protests are deemed aesthetically pleasing and palatable to elites in India and abroad, which ones are not, and the dangers of this kind of exclusion with respect to new forms of Islamophobia.
{"title":"Sticks, Stones, and the Secular Bones of Indian Democracy","authors":"M. B. Haines, S. Sarkar","doi":"10.17351/ests2020.393","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.393","url":null,"abstract":"While being inspired by the compelling social protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens in India, the authors of this critical engagement argue that now, more than ever, is time to reflect on the nature of secularism that is being invoked by nonviolent protesters. What can a focus on lathi -wielding and stone-throwing, all low technologies of governance, tell us about the practices and challenges of liberal democracy in India? This piece excavates a brief history of the lathi and stone-pelting to show what kinds of \"illiberal\" protests are deemed aesthetically pleasing and palatable to elites in India and abroad, which ones are not, and the dangers of this kind of exclusion with respect to new forms of Islamophobia.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41663552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We apply the concept of invisible labor, as developed by labor scholars over the last forty years, to data-intensive science. Drawing on a fifteen-year corpus of research into multiple domains of data-intensive science, we use a series of ethnographic vignettes to offer a snapshot of the varieties and valences of labor in data-intensive science. We conceptualize data-intensive science as an evolving field and set of practices and highlight parallels between the labor literature and Science and Technology Studies. Further, we note where data-intensive science intersects and overlaps with broader trends in the 21st century economy. In closing, we argue for further research that takes scientific work and labor as its starting point.
{"title":"Labor Out of Place: On the Varieties and Valences of (In)visible Labor in Data-Intensive Science","authors":"Michael Scroggins, Irene V. Pasquetto","doi":"10.17351/ESTS2020.341","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ESTS2020.341","url":null,"abstract":"We apply the concept of invisible labor, as developed by labor scholars over the last forty years, to data-intensive science. Drawing on a fifteen-year corpus of research into multiple domains of data-intensive science, we use a series of ethnographic vignettes to offer a snapshot of the varieties and valences of labor in data-intensive science. We conceptualize data-intensive science as an evolving field and set of practices and highlight parallels between the labor literature and Science and Technology Studies. Further, we note where data-intensive science intersects and overlaps with broader trends in the 21st century economy. In closing, we argue for further research that takes scientific work and labor as its starting point.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47084049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay considers some possible relationships that STS scholars can have with activists who are resisting attacks on environmental science. STS scholars can document the counter-currents to the “anti-science” moment, work in partnership with activists outside of academia, use access to institutional resources to give environmental movements strength, use STS research to help activists better understand the policy process and the history of science funding, and help people to develop a sociological imagination about science and the environment.
{"title":"STS Currents against the “Anti-Science” Tide","authors":"Abby Kinchy","doi":"10.17351/ests2020.305","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.305","url":null,"abstract":"This essay considers some possible relationships that STS scholars can have with activists who are resisting attacks on environmental science. STS scholars can document the counter-currents to the “anti-science” moment, work in partnership with activists outside of academia, use access to institutional resources to give environmental movements strength, use STS research to help activists better understand the policy process and the history of science funding, and help people to develop a sociological imagination about science and the environment.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44025819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay explores the relationships between the “new” anti-science formation under Trump and the kinds of anti-Black racisms we are experiencing at present. What appears at first glance to be a new anti-science formation, isn’t new at all, but old wine in new cloth, all dressed up to confound and distract our gaze from power. The vast majority of Black and Brown people are not surprised nor fooled by Donald Trump and the danger he represents to truth, to our lives, to our precious Earth. For that matter, how are STS scholars working to produce anti-racist knowledge that directly benefits Black people? In this commentary, I briefly respond to these questions by exploring how wildly contrasting accounts of propaganda, truth, and science by W.E.B. Du Bois and Michel Foucault might help STS scholars make sense of the relationship between anti-Black racism and the current anti-science moment in American society.
{"title":"Du Boisian Propaganda, Foucauldian Genealogy, and Antiracism in STS Research","authors":"Anthony Ryan Hatch","doi":"10.17351/ests2020.311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2020.311","url":null,"abstract":"This essay explores the relationships between the “new” anti-science formation under Trump and the kinds of anti-Black racisms we are experiencing at present. What appears at first glance to be a new anti-science formation, isn’t new at all, but old wine in new cloth, all dressed up to confound and distract our gaze from power. The vast majority of Black and Brown people are not surprised nor fooled by Donald Trump and the danger he represents to truth, to our lives, to our precious Earth. For that matter, how are STS scholars working to produce anti-racist knowledge that directly benefits Black people? In this commentary, I briefly respond to these questions by exploring how wildly contrasting accounts of propaganda, truth, and science by W.E.B. Du Bois and Michel Foucault might help STS scholars make sense of the relationship between anti-Black racism and the current anti-science moment in American society.","PeriodicalId":44976,"journal":{"name":"Engaging Science Technology and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2020-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47268894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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