Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power

Part II, "Information Technologies" (edited by [Ron Eglash]), tackles the "turbulent mix" that results from the "confluence of science, technology, and social power" (p. 102). From accounts of technologically savvy hip-hop 'scratch' techniques, learning experi...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:	Canadian journal of communication Jg. 31; H. 3; S. 773 - 774
1. Verfasser:	Bendor, Roy
Format:	Journal Article Book Review
Sprache:	Englisch
Veröffentlicht:	Toronto University of Toronto Press 23.10.2006
Schlagworte:	Activism Activists Adoption of innovations African Americans Appropriate technology Appropriation Black women Case studies Colloquial language Computational fluid dynamics Croissant, Jennifer L Culture Di Chiro, Giovanna Diffusion Discourse Economics Eglash, Ron S Electronic media Environmental policy Epistemology Equality Expropriation Fluid flow Fouche, Rayvon Grass roots movement Hip hop culture Impact analysis Information dissemination Information technology Inner city Innovations Internet Journalism Learning Legitimacy Mapping Nonfiction North and South Pointing Political economy Politics Power Professionals Ruling class Science Science and technology Scientific knowledge Seams Social justice Social power Sustainable development Technological change Technology Turbulent flow Vernacular Women North America
ISSN:	0705-3657, 1499-6642
Online-Zugang:	Volltext
Tags:	Tag hinzufügen Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!

Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:	Part II, "Information Technologies" (edited by [Ron Eglash]), tackles the "turbulent mix" that results from the "confluence of science, technology, and social power" (p. 102). From accounts of technologically savvy hip-hop 'scratch' techniques, learning experiences of inner-city African American women enrolled in a computer course for the very first time, the impact changes in the economy of the Internet have on African online journalism, to discussions of "hybrid combinations of native art and electronic media" (p. 104), chapters in this section examine appropriated technologies' potential to inject justice and equality into a global information economy. Part III, 'Environments' (edited by Giovanna Di Chiro), explores the "social significance and roles of science and technology in supporting sound environmental policy and in providing the tools to promote actions for genuinely sustainable development" (p. 193). Examinations of the use of technologies by grassroots environmental activists in North America are complemented by comparative analyses of strategies employed by environmental activists in the North and South, to present a well informed and comprehensive image of appropriated technologies' potential to "democratize science" in this "Century of the Environment." Perhaps the book's most important contribution to a growing, politically conscious scholarship that is highly critical towards conventional models of linear innovation and diffusion of technoscience, is its pointing at a multitude of means to exploit the fissures and cleavages in the ostensibly impenetrable wall of western technoscientific knowledge, underscoring the permeability and fluidity of "scientific" and "non-scientific" categories. The expropriation of the power to define "scientific knowledge" from the hands of the professional establishment that dominates the political economy of technoscience operates to destabilize the legitimacy and dominant epistemology of the discourse of technoscience, revealing the hidden seams of the "seamless web" of technology, economics, politics, and culture. In that, the book delivers on its promise to provide a framework for "the move beyond the continual reference to existing structures of power to mapping the transformative effects of ideas and practices that move from periphery to center may have on the terms of discourse and practice" (p. 3).
Bibliographie:	content type line 1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Review-1
ISSN:	0705-3657 1499-6642
DOI:	10.22230/cjc.2006v31n3a1652