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Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power

by Ron Eglash, Jennifer Croissant, Giovanna Di Chiro, and Rayvon Fouché, Eds.
Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis, 2004
376 pp., illus. 29 b/w. Trade, $77.95; paper, $25.95
ISBN: 0-8166-3426-2; ISBN: 0-8166-3427-0.


Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent

stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be

As a new technology becomes available to a wider segment——because of higher stability, lower prices or spreading know-how——there is a chance that some communities or even individuals find new and unexpected usages for the toolboxes that come with it. The obvious example is the World Wide Web that started as a system for sharing scientific papers and knowledge and has developed into a semi-universal vehicle for commercial, cultural, political, religious and artistic messages and interaction. Less obvious but no less telling examples are the thermos flask and the bicycle, respectively turned into a device to keep drinks hot and a recreational instrument. In all cases, the original intention has been all but overrun by unintended and, from the point of view of the inventors, inappropriate usage. Apparently, tools are not unambiguous and technologies are social conventions about their use rather than naked and value-free technical means.

In this book, Ron Eglash, Jennifer L. Croissant, Giovanna Di Chiro and Rayvon Fouché have collected 20 essays on (mal)appropropriations of very diverse technologies. In each instance minorities and communities have adapted or reinterpreted the tools——as technical expressions of the underlying technological or scientific knowledge——for their own goals. In focusing on groups with low-to-middle social power, the authors question the potential of these appropriations to make contributions to a stronger democracy. Basically, they ask whether alternative usages of existing technologies can be viewed as processes of critique, resistance or empowerment. And the answer is certainly not always unequivocally positive. We know what happened with the punk movement. In the blink of an eye, mainstream record and fashion companies re-appropriated the symbols and slogans of the movement, stripped them of their sharpest edges and most venomous content and turned them into more commodities, thus reinforcing the bastions of complacent consumerism. In a similar but not always equally cynical way, reappropriated technologies and vernacular expert knowledge can be sucked up by powerful groups or reintegrated into social structures, turning critique into entertainment and resistance into a parody of democracy. Of course, this is not always the case. At the micro level and at the onset, individuals or small groups do benefit from their newly acquired power and develop some sense of independence if nothing else. In the long run however, and at a larger scale, ‘old’ social structures show a remarkable degree of flexibility and tolerance and the new interpretations of emerging technologies often strengthen existing roles.

The first part of the book is on ‘Body Tech’, with essays about bodybuilders’ pharmaceutical knowledge, transgendering technologies and the usages of condoms. The second part is about information technology, with among others an interesting look into the kitchen of scratching deejays. Next is a section on environmental activism and environmental science and the book concludes with essays on the phonograph and the bicycle, on the mythical ‘black inventor’ Lewis Latimer and on the technological reinvention of the self by young gay men. The chapters are very different in style and methodology but the whole book breathes a sense of critical enthusiasm and careful optimism. Most essays are well written and have excellent bibliographies, making the collection a most welcome starting point for any research into this relatively new field of study.

 

 




Updated 1st August 2005


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