Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature : From Society to Heterogeneity

Mike Michael


Drawing on the insights of Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway and Michel Serres, the author elaborates a methodology through which new hybrid objects of study are creatively constructed, tracing the ways the cultural, the natural and the technological interweave in the production of order and disorder.
Every day life is increasingly mediated by technology, but most of the literature on the subject talks only in terms of radical advances. In "From Society to Heterogeneity" Mike Michael uses case studies of mundane technologies such as the walking boot, the car and the TV remote control to question some of the fundamental dichotomies through which we make sense of the world. Drawing on the insights of Bruno Latour, Donna Harroway and Michel Serres, the author elaborates a methodology through which new hybrid objects of study are creatively constructed, tracing the ways in which the cultural, the natural and the technological interweave in the production of order and disorder. This book critically engages with and draws connections between a wide range of literature including those concerned with the environment, consumption and the body.

Contents List
Situating technology and technologizing situations; theorizing heterogeneity and distributedness; walking boots - distributing the environment; co(a)gents and control - purifying "Road Rage"; disciplined and disciplining co(a)gents - the remote control and the couch; narrating co(a)gents - the case of the hudogledog.

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Technology And Inequality

Technology And In/equality - Questioning The Information Society

This piece explores the diverse implications of the new information and communication technologies through case studies of their applications in three main areas - media, education and training, and work. Questions of access to, and control over, crucial resources such as information, knowledge, skills and income are addressed, drawing upon insights from science and technology studies, innovation theory, sociological and cultural studies. Some of the key issues addressed include: democracy and broadcasting technologies; gender, class and ethnicity in technological education and lifelong learning; class, gender and skills in the workplace; and the global economic inequalities associated with technological innovation. All of the chapters question the meanings of the terms 'technology' and 'inequality' and of the widespread association of technology with progress. Contributors to this book develop a critique of the information society by addressing questions of equality and inequality in ways that combine structural analysis with an analysis of individual and collective agency. Written with a non-specialist readership in mind, all complex theories and key concepts are carefully explained making the book easily accessible and relevant to a wide range of actors. (Review)

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Modernity And Technology

Modernity And Technology

Edited by Thomas J. Misa, Philip Brey and Andrew Feenberg

The goal of this ambitious book is to lay the foundations for a new interdisciplinary field by closely examining the co-construction of technology and modernity.The book is divided into three parts. Part I lays the methodological groundwork for combining studies of technology and modernity, while integrating ideas drawn from feminism, critical theory, philosophy, sociology, and socioeconomics. Part II continues the methodological discussion, focusing on specific sociotechnical systems or technologies with prominent relations to modernity. Part III introduces practical and political issues by considering alternative modes of technology development and offering critiques of modern medicine, environmental technology, international development, and technology policy. The book as a whole suggests a broad research program that is both academic and applied and that will help us understand how contemporary societies can govern technologies instead of being governed by them.
web: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=9213

http://www.snapdrive.net/files/494742/kutu1/Modernity%20And%20Technology%20%282003%29.pdf