Technology, Power and Culture

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

The course will include lectures and seminars, as well as a fieldwork outing scheduled for the duration of one morning or one afternoon. Lectures will introduce fundamental concepts and approaches. Seminars wiil focus on discussion of readings, student presentations, and preparation for the final project. A fieldwork outing will be organized to help students understand the importance of fieldwork research.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand the key role played by technology in contemporary debates about globalization and climate change and develop a more global and active vision of technological citizenship

2. Describe and explain key notions and approaches in anthropology and the field of interdisciplinary studies of science, technology, society, and environment

3. Use critical approaches to technology's impact on society to rethink standard narratives of technological progress and global modernity in light of contemporary climate change challenges and other environmental uncertainties.

4. Recognize the crucial role played by technological projects in contemporary politics and all fields of social life, and apply this understanding to specific case studies in different parts of the world

5. Recognize and discuss the social, cultural, and political dimensions of specific cases of technological controversy or disaster, with attention to power relationships shaped by race, gender, class, and other factors.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Technology and societal change are closely entangled in contemporary societies driven by ideologies of technological progress, but technology is not just a source of new “goods,” it is also a source of new “bads,” and these “bads” are an important component of contemporary social and environmental uncertainties in the age of climate change. This course explores technological controversies and disasters drawn from different parts of the world, showing how the impact of technological developments on everyday lives around the world is mediated by complex social, moral, legal, and political negotiations. From flush toilets to nuclear power stations, from GMO crops to intensive animal farming and fake news technologies, the course explores a wide-ranging number of case studies that challenge conventional ideas about technology, inviting students to develop a deeper understanding of the major forces shaping the contemporary world and its most pressing social and environmental challenges.

Head Lecturer(s)

Gonçalo João Duro dos Santos

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Reading repor: 20.0%
Oral presentation (15 min) of final essay: 20.0%
Final essay on technological controversy or disaster : 60.0%

Bibliography

- Anand, N.. 2017. Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai. Duke Univ. Press.

- Chen, Jenny et al. Dying for an iPhone. Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China's Workers. Pluto.

- Hecht, G. & P. Gupta. (eds) 2017. “Toxicity, Waste, Detritus in the Global South: Africa and Beyond.” Special Issue of Somatosphere

- Jasanoff, S. 2016. The Ethics of Invention. Technology and the Human Future. Norton

- Latour, B. 2018. Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime. Polity

- Morozov, E. 2014. To Save Everything, Click Here. Public Affairs.

- Santos, G. 2021. Chinese Village Life Today. Building Families in an Age of Transition. Univ. of Washington Press.

- Scott, J. 1998. Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press.

- Sternsdorff-Cisterna, N.  2018. Food Safety After Fukushima. University of Hawaii Press.

- White, H, and L, Zhang. 2017. Complicit. Documentary Film.