Technology and Social Interests
Roughly speaking, many cultures distinguish between only two genders: male and female.
The specific characteristics that are associated with each gender vary widely across societies and historical periods.
In some cultures, men are expected to be aggressive and dominant, while in others they are expected to be gentle and nurturing.
Similarly, in some societies, women are expected to be passive and submissive, while in others they are expected to be assertive and independent.
These differences demonstrate that gender is not a fixed or natural category, but is constructed through social and cultural processes.
Typically associated with Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality (1966)
Idea 1: All human knowledge is transmitted socially - so we need to study the process by which it happens
Idea 2: Knowledge about society, on one hand, objectifies social reality, and on the other hand, produces this reality
For example, gender is real, because it is difficult not to take account of it.
Gender structures create constraints and resources with which people have to reckon.
As a result, treating people as gendered tends to create gendered people.
Genders have causal powers, which is probably the best sign of reality that we have.
At the same time, they are undoubtedly not simply given by nature, as historical research and divergences between contemporary cultures show us.
It is often difficult to pinpoint the moment of discovery
Discoveries are not events by themselves, but are rather events retrospectively recognized as origins (Brannigan 1981)
Recall Gregor Mendel. The standard account says he was an isolated monk who performed experiments on peas and learned that heredity is governed paired genes
He published his paper in 1866 in an obscure journal and no one recognized the importance of his study before until 1900.
However, Brannigan (1981) shows that Mendel’s 1866 paper was quite well-known in agricultural circles
Moreover, it’s main result the 3:1 ratio of characteristics in hybrids, was already known - Mendel just replicated the result and offered an explanation.
In 1900, a group of scientists — Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and Erich Tschermak —came upon the original Mendel’s paper and concluded that he discovered the genes
That was the “official” story
de Vries had read Mendel’s paper before 1900 but made no mention of it.
Correns read de Vries’s first publication, and quickly wrote up his own, labeling the discovery “Mendel’s Law.”
Recognizing that he had lost the race for priority, Correns assigned it to an earlier generation
De Vries’s second and third publications accept the priority of Mendel in awkward apparent afterthoughts, but grumble about the obscurity of Mendel’s paper.
At the surface level: scientific facts are agreements
When scientists take their constructs too literally they can be confronted by their own colleagues
Deeper: Laboratory reality and “Nature” are not the same; labs work with “purified” materials, laboratory conditions can never happen in “real life”
In some sense, labs construct new reality
Unlike science, technology is something that intends to construct a new reality
Technology creates new materials, new devices - we can call them artifacts
In some sense, according to naive view on science and technology: science discovers facts; technology creates artifacts
Technology is proactive by definition
At the surface level, again, technology changes the ways in which interact with each other
The invention of cars created suburbs
The invention of internet created subcultures (and memes)
Science, too, shapes the world. Research into the causes of gender differences, for example, has the effect of naturalizing those differences
Builders of technology do heterogeneous engineering (Law 1987)
They have to simultaneously build artifacts and build environments in which those artifacts can function. This environment can include both physical and social components
Technical components: hardware, software, and other physical elements of the technology.
Social components: people who will use the technology, as well as the cultural norms and practices that shape how the technology will be used.
Political components: laws and regulations that govern the use of the technology, as well as the power dynamics that shape its development.
Consider the development of a self-driving car: at the physical level, engineers must design and build a number of technical components: sensors, cameras, and algorithms for processing data from the sensors.
However, they must also design the car to operate within a complex social and political environment.
The car must be able to interact safely with other vehicles on the road, pedestrians, and cyclists. It must recognize social cues and signals, such as hand gestures from another driver.
The car also must comply with traffic laws and safety regulations.
Pap smear (мазок шейки матки) is a technique of cancer sceening developed by the Greek physician Georgios Papanikolaou in the 1920s
“A procedure in which a small brush is used to gently remove cells from the surface of the cervix and the area around it so they can be checked under a microscope for cervical cancer or cell changes that may lead to cervical cancer” (National Cancer Institute)
“His presentation of that finding, in 1928, was met with little enthusiasm: the results were not convincing, pathologists were not used to looking at free-floating cells, and gynecologists were uninterested in cancer.” (Sismondo 2010)
Some time later, a powerful American Cancer Society invested heavily into “the tinkering necessary to address its problems”
The Pap smear faced, and faces, “chronic ambiguities” regarding the nature of cancer, the classification of normal and abnormal cells, and the reading of slides.
As a result it has a false negative rate (it fails to detect cancerous and precancerous cells) of between 15 and 50 percent of cases
The test became less expensive by gendering the division of labor. Technicians, mainly women, could be paid less than the (predominantly male) pathologists.
The general idea: “scientific methods” do not exist in an abstract ideal space, they are embedded into the social and political world full of norms, practices, and hiearchies
Social Constructivism. Ideas
Reality is not pre-given, but is constructed through social and cultural processes
Knowledge is not objective or neutral, but is shaped by social and cultural factors
Language plays a crucial role in constructing and conveying knowledge and meaning
Science is a socially constructed activity that is influenced by the values, interests, and power relations of the individuals and groups involved