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PRESENTERS
Beth Chopin
[email protected]
Gary Schmidt
[email protected]
AUTHOR
David J. Hess
B.A. Economics – Harvard University
Ph.D. Anthropology – Cornell University
Professor & Chair Science and Tech. Studies Dept. – Rensselaer Institute
Research focus: the anthropology, history, and sociology of science,
technology, and social movements.
Other work: science and medicine in religious movements; science,
technology, and health movements; and science, technology, and
environmental movements.
(source: http://home.earthlink.net/~davidhesshomepage/)
INTRODUCTION
STS = Science & Technology Studies (a.k.a. Science,
Technology & Society Studies).
An evolving fixture on the academic landscape since the
1970’s.
STS implies a social constructivist view of the technoscientific world (i.e., technology and science are socially
created).
Science and technology are not only socially but also
culturally constructed.
Hess presents the perspective of “cultural relativism” to
social constructivist theory under the rubric of culture and
power.
CENTRAL CONCEPTS
Culture and Power
(or Cultural Politics)
Culture: “The total knowledge and way of life of a group of
people: both conscious and unconscious…” (p. 10).
Power: “More than a question of who controls an
organization or who has the ability to make successful
orders, power involves social practices that have differential
effects on individuals and groups” (p. 13).
THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING
(all maps from the CIA Atlas of Eastern Europe 1990—Czechoslovakia)
TECHNOTOTEMISM
Technototemism: The coproduction of technical and social
difference or coherence. The formation of identity and/or
group affiliation is established according to our adherence
to natural and technological phenomena.
“…consumer culture operates according to totemic
relationships. Clothing, food, cars, and so on are all
categorized into a myriad of divisions that allow people to
make distinctions among themselves through their
objects” (p. 21).
What is your technototem? What factors helped create it?
TECHNOTOTEISM & NATIONAL IDENTITY
Example: how scientific style is predicated on a general cultural
style using the founding fathers of modern science.
Rene Descartes (France)
Sir Francis Bacon (England)
Religious political authority
Parliamentary political authority
Catholic
Protestant (more progressive)
Hierarchical
More democratic (common law)
Deductive logic (top-down)
Inductive logic (bottom-up)
First principles
Observation
Rational/logical tendencies
Empirical tendencies
Holistic
Individualistic
TECHNOTOTEISM & NATIONAL IDENTITY
“A failure to investigate more carefully such
differences in the national sciences and social
theories amounts to buying into the ideology
of science as a supranational phenomenon
that is everywhere the same” (p. 39).
TECHNOTOTISM
Evolution and Social Darwinism
“It is remarkable that Darwin recognizes among brutes
and plants his English society with its division of labor,
competition, opening up of new markets, ‘inventions,’ and
Malthusian ‘struggle for existence.’…with Darwin the
animal kingdom figures as bourgeois society.”
-Marx, 1862
The “boomerang” of
Technototemism
BRICOLAGE
“The bricoleur is a jack-of-all-trades who takes whatever is
at hand—pieces of wood, metal, spare parts, junk—and
reassembles them to build new objects or to fix old ones” (p.
39).
Hess borrows the term “bricolage” from French
anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss to refer to the practice of
adopting ideas from other communities and reconstructing
them according to one’s own social identity.
The concept of the bricoleur is relevant with regard to how
scientific knowledge is formed within social, cultural, racial,
and gender groups (p. 52).
TEMPORAL CULTURES among the SCIENCES
FIELD OF
KNOWLEDGE
PHYSICS
CLASSICAL
Classification,
Structure
Static world—
immutable laws:
(Newton, Boyle, etc.)
PROGRESSIVE
Evolutionary,
temporal dynamics
MODERNIST
Closed Systems,
equilibrium
POSTMODERN
Open networks, selforganization
Cosmology,
thermodynamics,
electromagnetism
Early quantum
mechanics
Gauge theories,
nonlinear dynamics
Physiology of
homeostasis,
population
equilibrium theory,
genetics
Psychoneuroimmuno
logy, molecular
biology, nonlinear
evolutionary models
BIOLOGY
Taxonomies,
anatomy
Evolution,
bacteriology,
embryology
ECONOMICS
Analysis of wealth
Political economy
Market and general
equilibrium theory
Increasing returns
theory
General grammars
Philology
Syntax and
semantics,
structuralism
Pragmatics,
deconstruction
PSYCHOLOGY
Associational
psychologies
Comparative/folk
psychologies,
psychologies of the
unconscious
Dynamic psychiatry,
learning theory
Consciousness
studies, cognitive
science
SOCIAL
SCIENCES
Social contract
theory
Social Darwinism,
cultural evolution
Functionalism,
culturalism,
structuralism
Constructivism,
reflexivity,
postculturalism
LINGUISTICS/
LANGUAGE
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
The Mythology
of the
Scientific Revolution
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
The Mythology of the Scientific Revolution
Popular Heroes:
Copernicus (1473-1543) – the earth is not fixed and stationary in the center of the
cosmos; it rotates on its axis each day and revolves around the sun each year
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) - new theoretical modifications concerning planetary
orbits and their motions
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) - new theories of motion that would accommodate a
moving earth
Bacon, Boyle & Descartes (1561~1691) – codification of western science
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) - unites terrestrial and celestial bodies under one set of
universal laws of motion
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
Western and Non-Western
What—and who—is left out? Three examples:
Prior to the 14th century, many Arabic works on optics, astronomy, mathematics
and medicine were translated into Latin.
Copernicus (1473-1543) – the earth is not fixed and stationary in the center of the cosmos; it
rotates on its axis each day and revolves around the sun each year
(Copernicus’ work closely parallels prior work of Arab astronomer, Ibn al-Shatir of
Damascus)
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) - new theoretical modifications concerning planetary orbits and
their motions
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) - new theories of motion that would accommodate a moving
earth
(Galileo studied earlier works of Arab scientist Ibn al-Haytham)
Bacon, Boyle & Descartes (1561~1691) – codification of western science
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Science & technology is not only tied to culture and politics,
but also to social behavior.
The following examination social behavior across cultures
further evidences Hess’ position that science & technology
do not transcend national boundaries and are not
supracultural.
The example of social behavior discussed here pertains to
intercultural communication.
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Context
Low context: information is conveyed primarily in the verbal
message.
High context: information is embedded in the appearance,
setting and social relationship.
low context
high context
Swiss German Scandinavian American French English Italian Spanish Greek Arab Japanese
Temporal orientation
Polychronic: people-oriented who multi-task.
Monochronic: schedule-oriented who do one thing at a time.
CASE STUDIES
The French are snobs!
Americans are materialistic bores!
Germans are rude and authoritarian!
How are these perceptions created?
To shed some light on this question, look at the case studies
presented by:
Raymonde Carroll in Evidences Invisible.
Hall & Hall in Hidden Differences.
CULTURAL RECONSTRUCTION OF SCIENCE
Technocentrism: Science and technology are viewed only
from the perspective of those experts who create it.
However, Hess argues that once science and technology
are implemented en masse and used by non-experts, their
meaning is reconstructed.
Therefore, in addition to being socially and culturally
constructed, science and technology can also be understood
as being user constructed.
An example in the world of information systems…
CULTURAL RECONSTRUCTION OF SCIENCE
Why do users chose not to interact with certain information
systems?
Information system designers, “…speak of ‘end-user failure’
and think of the problem in terms of a public that suffers from
computer phobia. …systems tend to go unused because
built into their programs are the naïve assumption that their
producers have about how to acquire knowledge, what
counts as knowledge, and how it is used. As a result, the
programmers tend to build their view of knowledge into their
systems at the expense of more contextualized and socially
laden knowledge.” (p. 174).
User acceptance—or lack thereof—is forcing system
producers to re-examine their design—and culture.
STS LINKS
http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/mds/stslinks.html
QUESTIONS & DISCUSSION
A DEFINITION OF SCIENCE?
Is science “knowledge about the natural
world” (p.1) as Hess defines it, or is it
the natural world itself?
STS & MULTICULTURALISM IN THE CURRICULUM
Is STS an important part of a social sciences education?
Is STS an important part of scientific and technical education?
Should it be?
Should it be part of the required curricula?
REFERENCES
Bradley, R. (1996). [Review of the book Science & technology in a
multicultural world: The cultural politics of facts and artifacts].
Politics and the Life Sciences, 15, 2, 337-338.
Carroll, R. (1988). Cultural misunderstandings: the French-American
experience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Forsythe, D. (1990). Blaming the user in medical informatics: The
cultural nature of scientific practice. In Eds. Hess, D. & Lane, L.
Knowledge and Society Volume 9: The Anthropology of Science
and Technology. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Gusterson, H. (1997). [Review of the book Science & technology in a
multicultural world: The cultural politics of facts and artifacts].
American Ethnologist, 24, 2, 467-468.
Hall, A. R. & Hall, M. R. (1987). Hidden Differences. Garden City, NY:
Anchor.
REFERENCES
Heath, D. (1997). [Review of the book Science & technology in a
multicultural world: The cultural politics of facts and artifacts].
American Anthropologist, 99, 1, 144-146.
Hess, D. J. (1992). Introduction: The new ethnography and the
anthropology of science and technology. In Eds. Layne, L. & Rip,
A. Knowledge and Society Volume 9: The Anthropology of
Science and Technology. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Hess, D. J. (1995). Science & technology in a multicultural world: The
cultural politics of facts and artifacts. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Hess, D. J. (1995). If you're thinking of living in STS: A guide for the
perplexed. In Eds. Downes, G, Dumit, J, & Traweek, S. Cyborgs
and Citadels: Anthropological Interventions on the Borderlands
of Technoscience. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
REFERENCES
Hess, D. J. (1998). If you're thinking of living in STS: A guide for the
perplexed. In Eds. Downes, G & Dumit, J. Cyborgs and Citadels:
Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and
Technologies. Santa Fe, MN: SAR Press.
Inkster, I. (1996). [Review of the book Science & technology in a
multicultural world: The cultural politics of facts and artifacts].
ISIS.87, 3, 527-528.
Jesser, N. (2002). Blood, genes and gender in Octavia Butler's Kindred
and Dawn. Extrapolation. 43, 1, 36. Kent State University Press.
Loevinger, L. (1994). [Review of the book Science in the new age: The
paranormal, its defenders and debunkers, and American
culture]. Skeptical Inquirer. 18, 4, 413.
REFERENCES
McClenon, J. (1994). [Review of the book Science in the new age: The
paranormal, its defenders and debunkers, and American
culture]. The Journal of Parapsychology. 58, 2. 218.
Taylor, P. (1996). [Review of the book Science & technology in a
multicultural world: The cultural politics of facts and artifacts].
Science Technology and Human Values.21, 3, 358-362.
Voges, H. (1997). [Review of the book Science & technology in a
multicultural world: The cultural politics of facts and artifacts].
Anthropos, 92, 1-3, 257-259.
Wildermuth, M. (1999). The edge of chaos: structural conspiracy and
epistemology in the X-Files. Journal of Popular Film and
Television. 26, 4, 146.