Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.

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March 11, 2019

Since this article essay/ article falls directly within the purview of STS, it draws on and alludes to a lot of things that have contributed to formation if STS as a discipline. It is difficult to make an exhaustive list of the particular texts that Fischer draws on from because allusions are aplenty. To give an overall gist --he draws from classical anthropological texts dealing with the political system, the philosophical and literary debates, new sociology, sociology of health and medicine, cybernetic culture, ecological health based anthropologies in local specific sites to name a few.

Fischer’s article contributes directly to the literature in STS. This article offers a grounding experience for the readers who do not have a background in STS and for the ones who are from the field, it offers an insightful retrospective account and suggests scope for its futures having collated diverse learnings from the past.

February 17, 2019

Theories of culture and structure: Langdon winner uses the conventional theories of agency, action, structure and culture to fill the gaps emerged out of the negligence from social constructivism.  The agency of technology, as a highly debated topic, is clarified through the deep understanding of western epistemological ideas of subordination and control.  Rather than opening the black box, winner tries to situate the politically loaded technology in the historical and cultural context.

 

 Theories of power: According to Winner, the Foucauldian perception of power should be used to understand the manifestation of it in the relationship between humans and technology.   Winner deconstructs the idea of ' technological determinism and conceptualising it as technological somnambulism is emerging from his account on agency and power.

 

 

 

February 16, 2019

The major literature that the author draws from are

 

1) The social construction of technology (SCOT): As a critical and response paper, most of the concepts he dissects or unpacks are coming from the writing of Pinch and Bijker.  The concepts such as relativism, knowledge system, science and technology, relevant group etc are borrowed from the above school of thought

 

2) Labour process theory: Harry Braverman's ideas of deskilling, Marxian idea of alienation, technological supremacy are used for both methodological and analytical purpose in this response paper. The author believes that the application of this theory in a different sphere of social life such as politics, policy making, economy etc in relation to technology will give a new insight which will cover the shortcomings of the social constructivist approach.

 

3) Theories of knowledge: A vague mentioning of this literature are used to show that what are the issues emerge when somebody blurs the demarcation between science and technology. It also navigates the author to problematize the use of certain theories of sociology of science in the "so-called" new sociology of technology without any caution.

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