Mikael Hård

Beyond Harmony and Consensus: A Social Conflict Approach to Technology

This article presents a sociological perspective that suggests that technology should be seen as a means for groups to retain or rearrange social relations. Claiming, first, that the sociotechnical systems approach in technology-and-society studies often tend to bring out harmony and cooperation as an ideal and, second, that central social construc tivists tend to interpret closure and stabilization processes in terms of consensus, this article, instead, argues that technology should be regarded as the outcome of conflicting interests and ideas. To make the perspective plausible, a number of analytic concepts are put forth and illustrated, some case studies are reinterpreted in conflict language, and a few tentative research hypotheses are formulated.

Cultural Politics in Action: Developing User Scripts in Relation to the Electric Vehicle

This article addresses two interrelated questions: Why is it often difficult to create better environmental conditions in the world using traditional political processes and new technological fixes? May science and technology studies analyses of user strategies and micropolitics contribute to societies’ treatment of these difficulties? Focusing on the problems that the electric car has confronted in establishing itself as a viable alternative to the internal combustion car, the authors argue that its failure illustrates the poverty of organized politics, on one hand, and the shortcomings of engineering design practices, on the other. The authors suggest that a thoroughgoing change in the automobility system will take place only if more attention is paid to the actual use of alternative vehicles. By driving differently and viewing automobility differently, electric vehicle owners develop “user scripts” that challenge established political and engineering scripts while contributing to what the authors call a “cultural politics of automobility.”

The Story-lines of Technological Change: Innovation, Construction and Appropriation

The paper contrasts three story-lines of technological change, which represent three different ways to think about technology as a social process. Each story-line, or discourse, or narrative strategy, has its own special terminology and is derived from particular academic fields and intellectual traditions. And each has different ways of considering the forms of social agency that are relevant in relation to technological change. For the story-line of innovation, the relevant agents are the producers of commercial products, often referred to as systems of innovation; for the story-line of construction, agency is conceptualized as those particular actors that have an interest in a particular artifact and its promulgation. For the story-line of appropriation, the social agency is differentiated into various user communities. When we analyze the relations between technology and society, it is important to know which kind of story we are telling and which story-line, or narrative strategy we are following.

Alternative cars: The contrasting stories of steam and diesel automotive engines

Abstract This paper discusses why some technologies become so entrenched in our society that it becomes virtually impossible to alter them, and why some challengers nevertheless succeed. It compares two alternatives to the automobile gasoline engine: steam and diesel. The central thesis is that established technologies remain because they have gained symbolic power, are carried by deeply embedded organizational structures, and have fostered strong behavioral patterns. The diesel engine managed to rid itself of the negative symbolism that had for a long time put it at a disadvantage compared to the gasoline engine. It was taken up by the same actors and organizations that supported the gasoline engine, and its engineers saw to it that users did not have to change their patterns of behavior. The steam engine, by contrast, did not succeed in any of these respects: it came to be associated (negatively) with high fuel consumption, its organizational affiliations were weak, and users were never given the opportunity to test their willingness to modify their behavior

Common Cause: Public Health and Bacteriology in Germany, 1870–1895

The concept of appropriation has been applied in various contexts to investigate how different groups in society approach new scientific facts and technical artifacts in an active and creative manner. In this article we introduce the concept of “mutual appropriation” to describe the circulation of knowledge between scientific communities, in this case public health doctors and bacteriologists. In much the same way as Bruno Latour has shown for the French Pasteuriens, the German bacteriologists around Robert Koch adapted their research agenda to the interests of the Hygieniker. Conversely, most members of the public health movement appropriated bacteriological arguments and integrated them in multifactorial etiologies, thus modifying existing theories. Despite cognitive differences, the collaboration was guided by a sense of a common cause that was reinforced by a feeling of urgency due to the 1892 cholera epidemic in Hamburg.

Innovation – the endless frontier: historical modes of engineering science

In this article we argue that knowledge production in industrial settings does not follow neat schemata, such as the linear model or the Mode 1/Mode 2 dichotomy. Rather than moving from research to market via development, innovation and production, it is an iterative process where information and knowledge move back and forth between different actors and milieus. Engineering science is a many-sided practice carried out at different institutions and is largely driven by a need for continuous novelty. By means of a detailed historical case study of industrial R&D in the area of engine design we document how theoretical knowledge encountered on-the-spot observations, how well educated engineers met ordinary bus drivers and how engineering test procedures clashed with economic interests. Our story line is about ‘crossover’ processes, trial-and-error ‘research’, recursive development loops, and flexibly acting innovation networks.

The Victorian Eye and its blind spot: toward a cultural assessment of technology

Taylor and Francis Ltd GHAT_A_475532.sgm 10.1080/07341 11003750105 Hist ry and Technology 0734-1512 (pri t)/147 -2620 (online) Original Article 2 10 & Francis 60 00June 2010 Professor M kaelHard h rd@ifs.tu-d rm ta t.de The Victorian Eye is an impressive and informative book. It has a clear thesis and is based on a multitude of – mostly printed – sources, many of which have seldom been used by previous historians. Just as the champions of artificial light did in the nineteenth century, Chris Otter opens our eyes to new phenomena and helps us see the world differently. Even a person who is well-read in the history of technology will find an array of new information and material in this well-written and instructive book. The author does not only discuss gaslit streets, electricity meters, and co-evolving socio-technical systems. He also tells stories about the diagnostic use of ophthalmoscopes, the spatial arrangement and illumination of libraries, and the application of electricity to the preservation of foodstuffs. Better than most card-carrying historians of technology, Otter makes a convincing case for the importance of technology for the development of – generally speaking – modern society. Also, he nicely demonstrates the intimate ties between the history of technology, urban history, the history of medicine, and the history of science. The Victorian Eye is also a challenging and disturbing book. In course of the 263 pages of main text the author develops a powerful argument in a forceful manner. Otter’s main targets are those scholars who interpret the spread of artificial light and the development of a modern gaze in terms of increasing social control, discipline, and distance. In sharp opposition to Michel Foucault, Wolfgang Schivelbusch, and Dana Brand the author argues ‘that the history of light and vision is best analyzed as part of the history of freedom, in its peculiarly and specifically British form’ (p. 1). Although they had to accept the functional logic of large technical systems, British citizens eagerly adopted gas and electric light to free themselves from the limitations imposed by nature and the inconveniences of traditional techniques of illumination. Instead of being concerned with potential problems like more efficient surveillance and decreasing personal integrity, the British population at large welcomed the new techniques of inspection and control. In accordance with the subtitle, the author tries to develop a Political History of Light and Vision in Britain, 1800– 1910 in which the spread of modern lighting technologies is treated as part and parcel of the formation of a liberal society. If Otter’s book best be regarded as a contribution to political history might be an academic question. I am, in any case, not convinced of this classification. To my mind, The Victorian Eye represents cultural history of technology at its best. As such, it is a welcome contribution to a field that is still developing and thriving. The turn to cultural analysis in the social sciences and humanities began to affect the history of technology in the 1980s. David E. Nye’s Electrifying America was paradigmatic for the topic here being discussed. With the introduction of cultural perspectives previously dominant approaches were

The Good Apartment: The Social (Democratic) Construction of Swedish Homes

ABSTRACT In Swedish history, the decades of social democratic rule (1932–76) are a subject of controversial debate. Despite impressive quantitative results in the area of housing, the social democratic policy has been interpreted in terms like “the oppression of benevolence.” The author objects to such a one-sided view of this policy. He acknowledges that there developed in Sweden a fairly unique kind of “consumption regime”—not least in the area of building construction—but argues that this was a complex regime in which not only the government and its ministries had a say. A number of other mediators contributed to the social construction of about one million apartments: cooperatives, engineering and architecture associations, and private companies. The outcome of this collaboration was a high degree of standardization and uniformity—for better or worse.

Inventing traditions: interests, parables and nostalgia in the history of nuclear energy

Abstract From the late 1960s on, light-water designs dominated the market for nuclear reactors in most Western countries. Up to that point in time, many national governments, scientists and industrialists had favoured the rival concepts of heavy-water and graphite-moderated plants. The article focuses on Sweden and West Germany, where central actors only reluctantly gave up their support for domestically developed heavy-water solutions. Studying new archival material and adopting Hobsbawm and Ranger’s concept of the ‘invention of tradition’, the authors analyze how contemporary actors mobilized both the nation and the past when arguing for plants using natural uranium and heavy water. The paper documents how autarkic arguments were superseded by nostalgic sentiments, and how-subsequently-historians have come to perpetuate apologetic parables like ‘Swedish line’ and ‘tradition’, respectively.

Erfolgreiche und erfolglose Alternativen im Automobilbereich - eine historische Bilanz

Wer sich die Muhe macht, einmal im Jahr zu einer der fuhrenden Automobilausstellungen der Welt zu fahren, sei es nach Frankfurt, nach Genf oder nach Paris, wird unmittelbar feststellen konnen, dass das Automobil immer noch ein zentrales Objekt unserer Gesellschaft ist – mehr als ein Jahrhundert nachdem die ersten Automobile anfingen, sich auf unseren Strasen breit zu machen. Begleitet von allerlei multimedialen Demonstrationen und umgeben von mehr oder weniger verhullten Frauen werden an diesen Messen die letzten Neuigkeiten und Trends der anscheinend immer bluhenden Automobilindustrie enthullt. In diesem Tanz um das goldene Kalb unserer Zeit nehmen nicht nur Motorjournalisten oder Vertreter der Industrie teil, sondern auch ganz normale Burger (sogar die eine oder andere Burgerin), Politiker der meisten Parteien und allerlei Vertreter der Medien. Innerhalb des Messegelandes werden fur ein paar Tage alle Probleme, die sonst im offentlichen Diskurs mit dem Automobil und dem Strasenverkehr verbunden sind – Umweltbelastung, todliche Unfalle, Raumbedarf und Ressourcenverschwendung — vollig ausgeklammert. Werden solche Themen uberhaupt angesprochen, denn nur in Zusammenhang mit der Vorstellung neuer technischer Losungen.