History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Luisa Oliveira
Dinâmia/ISCTE
Av. Forças Armadas
1600 Lisboa
Portugal
Telephone: 21 7938638
e-mail: luisa.oliveira@iscte.pt
The makers of technologized society
The controversy about science, technology and society is not new in the social sciences, even if the debate has not been focused on the "technolization of society".
The economists have long treated technological phenomenon as one of the main factors of economic growth. After Marx, Kuznets (1930) defended the idea that the distinctive feature of modern industrial societies was their success in applying systematized knowledge to economic sphere, knowledge derived from scientific research. Schumpeter and, nowadays, the neo-schumpeterian economic theory have an important role in shaping politics and society, underlying the power of science and technology as the main source of innovation, competitiveness and development of capitalism.
Also industrial sociology, mainly in France, with George Friedman, Alain Touraine among others, were concerned about that. The controversy in this area was centred in the problem of technological determinism and its consequences in the organization of industrial work, social structure and, more generally, in society.
More recently the Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) is the main theoretical reference concerning this subject. In this perpective technolization of society is an irreversible phenomenon, not discussed as such. The focus is how technology is made, assuming that constructing technology is constructing society. Non-humans and humans are in charge, as actants.
In this paper we will discuss, with basis in a case study, the theoretical status of humans in the making of society: are they like the homo economicus, the homo sociologicus or rather like the homo apertus as in the ANT?
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006