Good day FRIAM, I am happy to have found this group. Joining about a month ago and in the midst of defending my proposal for dissertation research I haven't yet had the energy to respond to any of the discussions here. But I feel compelled today.
As an emerging expert in the field of science and technology studies (STS) I ought to have something interesting and useful to say about the role of scientific and technical expertise our world. I'll give it a try! Since my project, broadly conceived, is about how modeling and simulation, or, more specifically, the culture of modeling and simulation, grows and develops and what possibilities expert communities within this culture have in making political and social reforms or interventions I especially ought to have something to add to Steve's question, "where's the leverage for a group like ours? Is it what we can offer in technological / ideological realm, or is it local political action?" I do, but it comes more in the form of reflection and more questions because I really hesitate to say that I know anything about the community yet. This idea of 'reflection' or 'reflexivity' is an important concept in STS, perhaps the key concept. So my response to this email thread is to give some insight into the world of STS and one person's vision of what its purpose ought to be. (This means I'm still making sense of my own discipline out loud!) Recently a colleague pointed me back to Bourdieu's last work, The Science of Science and Reflexivity, where Bourdieu stated what he believed the purpose of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), which is part of STS, ought to be: "provide cognitive tools that can be turned back on the subject of the cognition, not in order to discredit scientific knowledge, but rather to check and strengthen it" (4). In this email thread Michael Agar mentioned Bruno Latour, who is an important figure and someone who I really enjoy. Latour has, however, been associated with creating a movement--providing the cognitive tools for a particular narrative about social order--that has emboldened critics of science both on the political left and right. Personally I have lots of hope for the cultures of science in providing the tools people need to live in what I see as an ever-increasing complex and dynamic system of life people are experiencing. Oddly enough one of the pejorative labels in STS is "internalist," which is reserved for scholars who for some reason or another chronicle the successes of technology and science while ignoring the failures and negative effects of introducing new technologies or scientific paradigms (a good reference here is John Staudenmaier's book Technology's Storytellers). I don't think that this identity suits me but it is a word that has more than once associated with my work. I have, nevertheless, found it a useful one to embrace. Areas such as complexity science and computational social science and agent-based modeling are emerging fields and that means there is lots of room for creating spaces of hope however radical that hope has to be. These fields are not, in my opinion, as entrenched in systems that may be seen as reproducing the cognitive tools that legitimate and direct violence, social stratification and so on as is the interpretation made by many scholars in the field of cultural studies (see Stefan Helmreich's book 'Silicon Second Nature' or Katherine Hayles' foundational text 'How We Became Posthuman'). I think that these interpretations can be misguided and often tell us more about the culture of cultural studies than the culture of the culture they study (that's a tongue twister, whoa!). And that is not to say that these interpretations don't tell us something and aren't useful; I believe they are. What these criticisms often make me think is that they are more about fracturing and sorting social systems. If some body of knowledge and knowledge practices becomes coded as "feminist" or "post-colonial" or "quantitative" or "qualitative" or "technological" or "geeky" or "racist" or "patriarchal" and so on that code is a resource/affordance for engagement with the knowledge in a particular way. It seems to me that the mode of intervention us STS practitioners have is at creating out-groups (creating identities) by making powerful, qualitative assessments (i.e. book/discourse) about associated technologies, traditions, and communities. One move is to gain legitimacy by creating a sense of solidarity with historically disempowered social groups or exotic communities, a solidarity that can be quite dubious (a criticism that is often discussed in American Indian Studies and with scholars such as the late Vine Deloria Jr.). Such coding work has concrete developmental impacts on knowledge traditions and knowledge communities. In fact, Linton Freeman's work on the development of social network analysis (2004) makes an argument that in the sixties the field become so closely identified with J.L. Moreno's personal character (and he stepped on so many toes) that the social network of the social network analysis atrophied for a period of time. Freeman shows this atrophy using, since he's a structural sociologist, social network analysis. It is such developmental approaches that ought to be (and is) important focus for STS. So a key part of our work is to reflect on our own tools and be able to assess what sorts of impact image and identity making (or unmaking if you're into deconstruction (which, some say, we always already are)) has on ecologies of knowledge and how these ecologies develop. Another exemplary work in STS that focused on development and for some reason has been ignored in STS (probably over shadowed by several other exemplary works in laboratory studies, which are coded as 'ethnographic,' such as Latour's 1979 Laboratory Life, Sharon Traweek's 'Beamtimes and Lifetimes' probably) is David Hull's work 'Science as a Process' (1988). So what does this reflexivity have to do with applied complexity science? Sounds like a subject of a science and technology studies dissertation! The question that I am now curious about—truly a product of me thinking out loud here--is how are projects selected in the field? What social, cognitive, technological resources make the strategic selection of cases and projects possible and how are those resources managed? Matthew Francisco On 4/13/07, Gus Koehler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mike, how goes it? Thanks for your note. > > The field of science and technology studies is indeed interesting. Over the > years I've tried to track cultural studies and philosophical works that have > tried to reveal the form of what is emerging. The following authors turned > up: Taylor and Sararingen, Standage, Wertheim, Slouka, Calloway, Stone, > Heim, Brook and Boal, Ruskoff, Kroker and Weinstein, Turkle, Helmreich, > Harbers, Holtzman, De Landa, Deleuize and Guatari, Beauregard, Foucault, and > of course all the great novel by the cyberpunk writers and now the biopunk. > The thread here for me is the continuous expansion of the sensorium via > artificial means, including virtual networks and virtual space-time, the > space-time "wrinkling up of the globe" with some parts pulled much closer > together than other parts creating interesting cultural dislocations within > cities (digital divides of various kinds) and the creation of a Borges > library like approach to knowledge (that is the inability to separate > journalism from blogging or to determine what is or is not a good reliable > source). I wrote a piece based on a lecture of JT Frazer that tried to draw > the implications of what he called the techno primitive relative to decision > making. > > In any case, your review of how the introduction of technology changes work > relationships, etc, is very useful and revealing. More of the same or > different? Like the issue of design and productivity relative to the > velocity of technology innovation and fashion as its speeds around the > globe. Who will drive fashion when the China and India markets are bigger > than US and Europe combined? Japan's effects on US is a good example with > "hello Kitty" which was heavily influenced by Japan's experience with two > atom bombs (see Japan Society's exhibit catalogue: "Little Boy: The Arts of > Japan's Exploding Subculture", by Takashi Murakami.) These are the > undercurrents that interest me the most. They also reveal my interest in > the Santa Fe/cyberculture cross pollination. > > Peace, > > Gus > > > Gus Koehler, Ph.D. > President and Principal > Time Structures, Inc. > 1545 University Ave. > Sacramento, CA 95825 > 916-564-8683, Fax: 916-564-7895 > Cell: 916-716-1740 > www.timestructures.com > > > - > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > -- Matthew R. Francisco PhD Student, Science and Technology Studies Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
