Downloaded 13 times
STS 19_11_11 Вулгар
- 1. Where Did Allthe Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life Steve Woolgar Science and Technology Studies Saïd Business School University of Oxford STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
- 2. Where Did Allthe Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
- 3. Where Did Allthe Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
- 4. Laboratory Life (1979,1986) • STS in the time of Kuhn: Structure of Scientific Revolutions – The problem of retrospective history • Origin stories: a health warning • 1976 San Francisco meeting Use of Quantitative Indicators in History of Science • 1976 First 4S meeting (Cornell) • A visit to the laboratory (Salk Institute)
- 5. • Science asit happens – in situ – contemporary (pace Kuhn) • Bloor/Laudan disputes: objectivist philosophers as targets of provocation • Mertonian sociologists as targets of provocation • Access negotiations for lab studies involve philosopher stereotypes • Retrospective history again: Multiple discovery of lab studies? – Latour and Woolgar, Lynch, Knorr-Cetina, Traweek (Pasadena 4S 2006?)
- 6. Where Did Allthe Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
- 7. Shifting provocations onscience Epistemology Symmetry Character of study Scientific Social scientific knowledge knowledge Realist Realist Science as a Mertonian sociology social institution Relativist? Realist Paradigm Kuhn Relativist Realist True/false Strong programme (Edinburgh) Relativist Realist Human/non- Actor network theory human Ethnography Relativist Relativist Analyst/subject Reflexivity Technography
- 8. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction Technology as interpretive action (discourse) post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 9. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral It could be otherwise Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction Technology as interpretive action (discourse) post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 10. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral T is congealed It could be social otherwise relations Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction Technology as interpretive action (discourse) post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 11. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral T is congealed It could be social otherwise relations Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction T is action at a distance Technology as interpretive action (discourse) post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 12. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral T is congealed It could be social otherwise relations Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction T is action at a T is distance politics Technology as interpretive action (discourse) by other means post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 13. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral T is congealed It could be social otherwise relations Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction T is action at a T is distance T is society politics Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 14. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral T is congealed It could be social otherwise Reception and relations use are Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction T is action socially at a distributed T is distance T is society politics Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 15. Shifting from essentialismto post- essentialism • Constructivism usefully opens up technical phenomena, but – Restricted use of “it could be otherwise” – Assumes interpretive flexibility ends at moment of consensus – Collusion with definitive readings of technical capacity • Less dependence on standard social/political variables, motives, interests, technical capacity, context, identity etc • Greater emphasis on process, fluidity, performativity, messiness • Technology is achieved, rendered, constituted as an unavoidable feature of the constant reproduction of social order • Technologies are recursive, tentative, messy, indeterminate, contingent and multiple • Technology as situated action
- 16. Technology as situatedaction • Imagine that technology is a constitutive social phenomenon. • Treat questions about the definition and use of technology, and the deployment of terms such as „technical‟ and „technical capacity‟, as situated social actions. • Examine how technical capacity is conferred, maintained, broken down, in specific social and institutional circumstances.
- 17. Objects as situatedaction • Imagine that objects are a constitutive social phenomenon. • Treat questions about the definition and use of objects, and the deployment of terms such as the „character‟ and „nature of objects‟, as situated social actions. • Examine how the nature of an object is conferred, maintained, broken down, in specific social and institutional circumstances.
- 18. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral T is congealed It could be social otherwise Reception and relations use are Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction T is action socially at a distributed T is distance T is society politics Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 19. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral T is congealed It could be social otherwise Reception and relations use are Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction T is action socially at a distributed T is distance T is society politics Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means T is situated social action post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 20. Implications of relationalontology • Need to adopt strong not weak perspective on governance – Governance in practice; not mere descriptions of reporting structures (corporate governance) – Governance of ontologies not just of people – Governance based on recursive ontological accomplishment • Is-ought connections are built into ontological constitution – Appropriate “solutions” are made preferentially available through performance of accountability relations – What- the-object-is performs appropriate responses to it • The achieved ontological status of objects is key to “behaviour”, not the “mentality” of the individuated human subject • Ontology is situated, recursive – Between representational epistemology and idealised ontology – Making the object seem what it is
- 21. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral T is congealed It could be social otherwise Reception and relations use are Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction T is action socially at a distributed T is distance T is society politics Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means T is situated social action post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral essentialism
- 22. Shifting provocations inSTS essentialism Technological determinism Technology as neutral T is congealed It could be social otherwise Reception and relations use are Constructivism: technology as social (and political) construction T is action socially at a distributed T is distance T is society politics Technology as interpretive action (discourse) made durable by other means T is situated Making T social action seem post Relational ontologies: ambivalence, multiplicity, fluidity, deferral what it is essentialism
- 23. What is thevalue of STS? • STS as a set of provocations – Perspectives and approaches which include eg actor networks, certainty trough, it could be otherwise • STS as a fund of examples, stories, case studies, research reports which can organise and/or stimulate thinking – Cf relation between management consultants/gurus and managers • STS as a set of sensibilities – A propensity to cause trouble, provoke, be awkward – A preference to work through difficult conceptual (theoretical) issues using specific detailed empirical cases – An inclination to deflate grandiose concepts and claims – An emphasis on the local, specific and contingent – Caution about the unreflexive adoption and use of standard social science lexicons (eg power, culture, meaning, value) – Reflexive attention to (frequently unexplicated) notions of audiences, value and utility • STS scepticism: It could be otherwise
- 24. It could beotherwise • Convert revered and standard ideas and concepts into objects of analysis • 1. Emphasise historical contingency: revert to a time when the concept was not established or taken for granted • 2. Emphasise the concept‟s cultural specificity: identify a different cultural context in which the concept is not the same as in our own situation • “Ethnographise” the target concept: add “-ography” – Epistemology – epistemography – Scale – scalography – Ontology - ontography • 3. Emphasise complex processes and practices • “Gerundise” the target concept: add – “ing” – Governance – governancing – Futures – futuring – Ethics – ethicising – Evidence - evidencing
- 25. Where Did Allthe Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
- 26. Mundane Governance • Steve Woolgar and Dan Neyland: Mundane Governance (OUP, forthcoming) • Increasing regulation and control in relation to everyday objects and ordinary technologies – Recycling and waste – Traffic (speed cameras, parking, traffic lights) – Passenger movement and security in airports
- 27. Current thinking ongovernance • Main focus on human, social and organisational relations – Procedures, structures, committee composition, frequency of meetings, reporting protocols, retirement age • Neo Foucauldian perspective: governance is idealised compliance through subject positions “To govern without governing society, that is to say, to govern through the regulated and accountable choices of autonomous agents – citizens, consumers, parents, employees, investors” (Rose, 1993: 298) – Little evidence of widespread internalisation – No acknowledgement that governance is uncertain, disconnected and messy – Does not explain resistance, disruption, ambivalence • Weak perspective: – Neglect of material things, objects, devices, technologies, instruments – Ontological indifference: existence and status of entities taken for granted
- 28. An alternative perspective •Governance through accountability relations • The importance of the mundane – More pervasive and consequential • Two senses of “mundane” – Routine, everyday, taken for granted – Of the world, just the way things actually are (Latin: mundus) • Accountability relations enact entities (objects, things, others/audiences) and vice versa • Accountability is performative rather than an intrinsic property of actors or objects
- 29. Disquiet/outrage about themundane • Recent marked changes in governance and accountability regimes • Accountability good and bad • Public consternation, outrage, indignation • Excessive government interference, nanny state, over zealous policing • Especially in relation to “ordinary” objects and practices • Nature and extent of governance and accountability appears to centre upon common place things
- 30. Examples • Fines forputting “inappropriate” materials in a recycling container • Newly issued wheelie bins are discovered to contain microchips • Speed cameras generate excessive income for the police • Courses for re-educating speeding drivers • Schadenfreude with failures of traffic control systems (break down of traffic lights, suspension of parking improves traffic flow) • Proposals to introduce ID cards with biometric data • Extraordinary airport security measures in response to threat of terrorists attacks; liquid rules
- 32. Mundane terror Passage through the airport of objects and their persons Passenger management and security: monitoring and assessing the object- person relation Mundane terror: ordinary objects possess potentially extraordinary properties Ordinary objects acquire an insecure ontology; they are not what they seem
- 33. August 2006: EUwide change in security rules about carry on liquids
- 34. Who is goingto read and learn these detailed instructions? Typology of liquids enacts the “responsible traveller” Compliance with the typology enacts the “person with nothing to hide” (cf ID cards)
- 35. Ontological politics • Researchprinciple: it could be otherwise • Examine social and material practices whereby entities acquire mundane status • Mundanising and de-mundanising • Not just objects but ontologies • Specify ontological politics • The processes and practices whereby entities emerge from an ontological soup • “Politics” to denote the contingency of processes and practices
- 36. Ontological politics • Ontography •Document how the existence, nature and capacity (indeed, all attributes) of these entities come into being – The nature of entities is not pre determined ie not just “labelling” of known entities – The nature of relations between them is not predetermined • Interrogate the relational basis for agency • Invert (subvert) accepted definitions, understandings and agential relations – Eg Mundane governance: objects and their persons
- 37. A. McOntology • Who/whatis accountable for obesity caused by fast foods? – McDonalds‟ products make children obese/diabetic (Pelman vs McDonalds, 2002) – Media response derides the lawsuit: of course fast foods have propensity for obesity! – Case succeeds on unreasonable danger and inadequate warning; but fails on causation • Who/what is accountable for burns caused by hot coffee? – Woman sues McDonalds for serving hot coffee, which she spilt on her lap (Liebeck vs McDonalds, 2005) – Another example of an over litigious society where individual refuses to accept responsibility? Coffee is meant to be hot!
- 38. Accountability shifts • Lawyersargue that the coffee: – Is hotter than other restaurants – Caused “the most serious kind” of (third degree) burn – Is just one of a long series of similar burns • Award of $2.7 million for “wilful, reckless or malicious conduct” • Ontological respecification of the coffee performs a redistribution of accountability relations • The capacities, identities, expectations shift in relation to the shift from “hot” to “recklessly-knowably-in-defiance- of-warnings-ably, as just-the-latest-in-a-series-of-similar- events-ably hot”
- 39. B. The WrongBin Bag A tabloid depiction of the moral order of waste disposal (The Sun)
- 42. The wrong binbag • What are processes of political constitution of entities? • How does discursive organisation make possible the relations of governance (Smith: “relations of ruling”)? • Organisation of text provides for moral order: makes available a cast of characters, assigns attributes to each, depicts network of rights and responsibilities • Not just a story weaved around acceptable/curious behaviours in relation to a given object • The very character of the object, the ontology of the bin bag, is constituted in and through the organisation of the text • Can a mere bag disrupt political relations? How can a bag become an event? How can a bin bag be wrong?
- 43. • Moral orderis portrayed through an additive contrast structure between entities in the story Evil doers Innocent victims • The contrast is between evil doers Barmy council Lynette (barmy council bosses etc) and innocent victims (normal bosses people, unmarried mum of four) Over zealous Unmarried mum • Barmy/normal turns on wardens of four apprehension of the object ( a bin bag) and what counts as Ripped open the Kids to feed and appropriate behaviour with and bags clothe towards it • The mundaneity of the bin bag – what every reasonable person Any normal family knows about the nature and purpose of bin bags - reinforces the moral contrast between barmies Wardens for A woman fined for and normals Crewe and littering (while • What the object (bag) is, what it‟s Nantwich feeding … for, what should be in it, what is (in)appropriate behaviour towards Borough council it, are all tied to (and exemplify) ….Birds the structure of the moral order
- 44. Where Did Allthe Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
- 45. The influence ofSTS • The growing influence of STS: In the past decade and a half, STS has evolved intellectually, built institutional strength, forged links with other disciplines, new communities and policy relevant areas. STS has begun to make its mark in economic theory, anthropology, music, environmental governance, legal discourse, science education, and science policy; and a broad range of public institutions – from funding agencies to science museums to transnational NGOs are beginning to incorporate STS insights into their thinking (Cornell, 2003) • The potential utility (use, value) of STS – For a wide range of disciplines – For scientists and technologists (a distraction or a help?) – For business and management • What happens when STS is appropriated by new institutions eg business schools? • How much is the radical/critical provocation of STS attenuated? – Pollner (1991) “Radical reflexivity has settled down and moved out to the suburbs”! – Consumers “misuse” STS? eg citation of Laboratory Life in US court case – “Misuse”, or the reader writes the text? – Has STS now both settled down and got its MBA?!
- 46. Where Did Allthe Provocation Go? – reflections on the fate of Laboratory Life Laboratory Life Shifting provocations in STS Mundane governance The values of STS Conclusions STS Workshop, EU St Petersburg, 18-20th November 2011
- 47. Conclusions • What isvalue of STS? – Capacity to renew and reinvent itself – Capacity to provoke and challenge assumptions • Use STS itself to answer this question…. – What is STS‟ actor network? – How can users of STS be configured; how can they be taught what to want? – What is STS‟ certainty trough? • Is there one thing called STS? – no! it could be otherwise – no! there are multiple STSs
- 48. Conclusions • A centralenduring provocation of STS: – “It could be otherwise” • This cashed out in different dimensions – Symmetry – Essentialism • New audiences for STS • BUT tendency towards safe explanatory formulae • Ethnography – technography – ontography • Science is no longer the hardest possible case eg mundane governance