Md. Dalim #661345 11/02/02 Blue Black Modernity and Technology 6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page i 6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page ii This Page Intentionally Left Blank Modernity and Technology edited by Thomas J. Misa, Philip Brey, and Andrew Feenberg The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page iii ©2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Sabon by UG / GGS Information Services. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Modernity and technology / edited by Thomas J. Misa, Philip Brey, and Andrew Feenberg. p. cm ISBN 0-262-13421-7 (hc. : alk. paper) 1. Technology—Social aspects. I. Misa, Thomas J. II. Brey, Philip. III. Feenberg, Andrew. T14.5 .M63 2003 303.48Ј3—dc21 2002071754 10987654321 6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page iv Contents Acknowledgments vii Workshop Participants ix 1 The Compelling Tangle of Modernity and Technology 1 Thomas J. Misa I Modernity Theory and Technology Studies 2 Theorizing Modernity and Technology 33 Philip Brey 3 Modernity Theory and Technology Studies: Reflections on Bridging the Gap 73 Andrew Feenberg 4 Critical Theory, Feminist Theory, and Technology Studies 105 Barbara L. Marshall II Technologies of Modernity 5 Modernity under Construction: Building the Internet in Trinidad 139 Don Slater 6 Surveillance Technology and Surveillance Society 161 David Lyon 7 Infrastructure and Modernity: Force, Time, and Social Organization in the History of Sociotechnical Systems 185 Paul N. Edwards 6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page v vi Contents 8 Creativity of Technology: An Origin of Modernity? 227 Junichi Murata III Changing Modernist Regimes 9 The Contested Rise of a Modernist Technology Politics 257 Johan Schot 10 Technology, Medicine, and Modernity: The Problem of Alternatives 279 David Hess 11 The Environmental Transformation of the Modern Order 303 Arthur P. J. Mol 12 Technology, Modernity, and Development: Creating Social Capabilities in a POLIS 327 Haider A. Khan 13 Modernity and Technology—An Afterword 359 Arie Rip References 373 About the Authors 409 Index 413 6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page vi Acknowledgments The volume draws on an international workshop held at the University of Twente in the Netherlands in November 1999, which brought to- gether a diverse group of scholars from the communities of modernity studies (philosophy, cultural studies, and social theory) and technology studies (history, sociology, anthropology); see Ͻwww.iit.edu/~misa/ twente/Ͼ. This workshop was made possible by financial support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (grant SES-9900894), the Univer- sity of Twente, and the Dutch Graduate School for Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC). Our collective efforts to understand technology and modernity go back to a seminar series that Pieter Tijmes, Johan Schot, and Tom Misa organized at Twente in the spring of 1997. At Twente we would especially like to thank Gerdien Linde-de Ruiter for a thousand small acts of kindness and assistance in planning and preparing the workshop, as well as the friendly and expert assistance of Femke Merkx in conducting the workshop. Many workshop partici- pants freely shared their own ongoing research and reflections, giving our authors invaluable insights. 6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page vii 6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page viii6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page ii This Page Intentionally Left Blank Workshop Participants Hans Achterhuis (University of Twente, Netherlands) Michael Allen (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) Anne Balsamo (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, USA) Anne-Jorun Berg (SINTEF Institute for Social Research in Industry, Norway) Regina Lee Blaszczyk (Boston University, USA) Philip Brey (University of Twente, Netherlands) Nil Disco (University of Twente, Netherlands) Paul Edwards (University of Michigan, USA) Andrew Feenberg (San Diego State University, USA) Hans Harbers (University of Groningen and University of Twente, Netherlands) Mikael Hård (Technical University Darmstadt, Germany) Gabrielle Hecht (University of Michigan, USA) David Hess (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA) Thomas Hughes (University of Pennsylvania, USA) Haider Khan (University of Denver USA) Michiel Korthals (Wageningen University, Netherlands) Andrew Light (New York University, USA) David Lyon (Queen’s University, Canada) Barbara Marshall (Trent University, Canada) Thomas Misa (Illinois Institute of Technology, USA) Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University, USA) Arthur Mol (Wageningen University, Netherlands) Junichi Murata (University of Tokyo, Japan) David Nye (Odense University, Denmark) Johan Schot (University of Twente, Netherlands) Don Slater (London School of Economics, United Kingdom) Pieter Tijmes (University of Twente, Netherlands) Ulrich Wengenroth (München University of Technology, Germany ) 6641 FM UG 9/12/02 5:38 PM Page ix [...]... (Banham 19 86; Smith 19 93; Trommler 19 95) Modernism in literature and poetry also drew on the technological dynamism of the age, especially the urban experience and the cinema, although its theorists were less likely to admit explicitly technical inspiration (Berman 19 82; Tichi 19 87; Charney and Schwartz 19 95; Charney 19 98; Harootunian 2000b) .12 Another expression of these mythic ideas was modernization theory... proposing the co-construction of technology and modernity as our methodological point of departure, we emphatically reject the idea that either technology or modernity alone can be used as a template to “explain” the other In different ways, the chapters in this volume problematize both modernity and “technology.” The Compelling Tangle of Modernity and Technology 11 Proposal Three: Modernization theory... comprehending technology and modernity is a compelling theoretical, practical, and political problem In moving from the international workshop we held The Compelling Tangle of Modernity and Technology 15 at the University of Twente, the Netherlands, in November 19 99, to this volume, the editors have selected eight essays, commissioned four new ones, and asked each author to develop three levels of analysis The. .. surmounting these obstacles Feenberg aims similarly at “bridging the gap” by diagnosing the philosophical and methodological gaps and overlaps between technology studies and modernity theory Using Thomas Kuhn and Karl Marx as exemplars of these two traditions, and gathering together complementary strands in their respective bodies of work, he then develops a synthetic “instrumentalization” theory, introduced... Beck, Latour, Castells) and technology studies (sociology and history of technology), including a perspective on postmodern theory (including Harvey, Jameson, Baudrillard, Lyotard) He develops the co-construction theme, which jointly problematizes modernity and technology, first by discussing disciplinary and philosophical obstacles to analyzing technology and modernity together, and then by developing methodological... Reviewing the SAGE early-warning military system in the 19 50s and the ARPANET/Internet system beginning in the 19 70s, and retelling the The Compelling Tangle of Modernity and Technology 19 narratives from several perspectives, he shows how these infrastructures link varied scales of force, time, and social organization Edwards, like Slater, finds that the “same” technology can seemingly possess contradictory... how modernity is understood and deployed by actors in the realm of politics and policy making In the environmental field, the understandings of modernity and the actions based on them are changing, he reports For decades, environmentalism was antimodern; to be an environmentalist was to be against capitalism, industrialism, modern science and technology, and the bureaucratic nation-state In the past 15 ... wrestle with the cultural formations and technological systems that together constitute modern society “Our fate is worked out here as surely as on Heidegger’s forest paths,” as Andrew Feenberg phrases our contemporary dilemma (Feenberg 19 99a: p 19 7) Our volume takes up this pressing task The Compelling Tangle of Modernity and Technology 5 Proposal One: The concepts “technology” and modernity have... Perhaps the most compelling use of postmodernist and modernist themes in technology studies is Sherry Turkle’s exposition of rival computer aesthetics.32 In the mid -19 90s she found that users of IBM-DOS personal computers (PCs) tended to use modernist images in their effort to understand and relate to their machines (Turkle 19 95) These users wanted detailed understanding and absolute control over their... cyber-prosthetics, and interior designs “As expressions of The New, these products have inherited the myth of progress, modernity s defining legend. 11 The legend of progress through a parade of technologies, which has especially deep roots in American culture, forms a stock-intrade for contemporary advertising The tie between modern technology and social progress was much in the minds of “modernists” in the . and Technology 1 Thomas J. Misa I Modernity Theory and Technology Studies 2 Theorizing Modernity and Technology 33 Philip Brey 3 Modernity Theory and Technology Studies: Reflections on Bridging the. Md. Dalim #6 613 45 11 /02/02 Blue Black Modernity and Technology 66 41 FM UG 9 /12 /02 5:38 PM Page i 66 41 FM UG 9 /12 /02 5:38 PM Page ii This Page Intentionally Left Blank Modernity and Technology edited. Feenberg, Andrew. T14.5 .M63 2003 303.48Ј3—dc 21 20020 717 54 10 9876543 21 66 41 FM UG 9 /12 /02 5:38 PM Page iv Contents Acknowledgments vii Workshop Participants ix 1 The Compelling Tangle of Modernity and