Module description:

Undergraduate

Module Content

The aim of this module is to provide students with the methodological and theoretical tools to engage critically with the notion of “technology”. “Technology” pervades public, media and academic discourses and often appears as a hazy term defining either a high-tech device, a form of knowledge, of practices, a mode of organisation of production, or even a way of being in the world. Often distinct from “society” and mainly seen as a neutral mean to an end, framed within conception of “functionality” and “efficiency”, its conceptual content too often escapes anthropological investigations. 

In this module, we first deconstruct “technology” as a modern category before proposing the Maussian concept of “technique” as a methodological starting point. We then investigate three of technology’s main empirical components: (1) “technical systems” (large-scale infrastructures, polities, religious institutions, etc.), composed of reticulated assemblages (or networks) of people which generate a social and environmental milieu; (2) “technical objects” (tools, instruments, devices and/or machines). These assemblages take forms during (3) “technical activities” (including rituals and aesthetics), recruiting, mobilising and/or instantiating, at different scales, bodies, knowledge, imaginations, personhood, politics or cosmologies. 

 

As a result, technical activities always (re)produce ontologies, logics and meta-physics and give them concrete forms. Through this module, we will engage with analyses of both ancient and modern so-called “technologies” and introduce approaches ranging from Archaeology, Art History, Science and Technology Studies to Actor- Network Theory, in order to unveil the situated (i.e. gendered, racialised, politicised and colonial) nature of narratives about the neutrality of technological progress. 

 

Through a series of examples ranging from indigenous gardening systems to modern transport technology, from carving or cooking to rituals and magical operations as well as digital technology, the module will explore the possibility to develop a theoretical frame enabling us to talk about technodiversity with the same concern as the one which is at the core of the concept of biodiversity 

 

Learning Outcomes 

 

demonstrate an understanding of the nature and extent of human technical diversity and commonality and account for this using a variety of analytical perspectives 
	demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of the potential applications of anthropological knowledge in a variety of contexts; 
	describe and analyse the ways in which human beings shape and are shaped by social, technical, 
	cultural, environmental contexts; 
	identify and question cultural assumptions about technology, technical objects and technical progress ; indicate a critical awareness of how anthropology of techniques and technology is related to other cognate subjects; 
	interpret and analyse a variety of oral, musical, visual and textual forms 
	show an appreciation and understanding of the relationship between local social, technical and cultural forms in relation to global processes and broader historical developments; 
	show understanding and facility in the use of a repertoire of concepts, theories and key research methods; understand the social and historical processes that influence the objects of anthropological study. 
	reflect about the ways in which the concept of “technology” is dealt with in the anthropological, sociological literature. 
	reflect about the cultural and social assumptions about techniques activities, technical objects and sociotechnical systems. 
 

Delivery Method 

 

One 2 hours lecture and one 1 hour seminar per week. 

 

Postgraduate 

Module Content 

 

The aim of this module is to provide students with the methodological and theoretical tools to engage critically with the notion of “technology”. “Technology” pervades public, media and academic discourses and often appears as a hazy term defining either a high-tech device, a form of knowledge, of practices, a mode of organisation of production, or even a way of being in the world. Often distinct from “society” and mainly seen as a neutral mean to an end, framed within conception of “functionality” and “efficiency”, its conceptual content too often escapes anthropological investigations. 

 

In this module, we first deconstruct “technology” as a modern category before proposing the Maussian concept of “technique” as a methodological starting point. We then investigate three of technology’s main empirical components: (1) “technical systems” (large-scale infrastructures, polities, religious institutions, etc.), composed of reticulated assemblages (or networks) of people and (2) “technical objects” (tools, instruments, devices and/or machines). These assemblages take forms during (3) “technical activities” (including rituals and aesthetics), recruiting, mobilising and/or instantiating, at different scales, bodies, knowledge, imaginations, personhood, politics or cosmologies. 

 

As a result, technical activities always (re)produce ontologies, logics and meta-physics and give them concrete forms. Through this module, we will engage with analyses of both ancient and modern so-called “technologies” and introduce approaches ranging from Archaeology, Art History, Science and Technology Studies to Actor- Network Theory, in order to unveil the situated (i.e. gendered, racialised, politicised and colonial) nature of narratives about the neutrality of technological progress. 

 

Through a series of examples ranging from indigenous gardening systems to modern transport technology, from carving or cooking to rituals and magical operations as well as digital technology, the module will explore the possibility to develop a theoretical frame enabling us to talk about technodiversity with the same concern as the one which is at the core of the concept of biodiversity.

Learning Outcomes 

 

demonstrate an understanding of the nature and extent of human technical diversity and commonality and account for this using a variety of analytical perspectives 
	demonstrate knowledge and critical understanding of the potential applications of anthropological knowledge in a variety of contexts; 
	describe and analyse the ways in which human beings shape and are shaped by social, technical, 
	cultural, environmental contexts; 
	identify and question cultural assumptions about technology, technical objects and technical progress ; indicate a critical awareness of how anthropology of techniques and technology is related to other cognate subjects; 
	interpret and analyse a variety of oral, musical, visual and textual forms 
	show an appreciation and understanding of the relationship between local social, technical and cultural forms in relation to global processes and broader historical developments; 
	show understanding and facility in the use of a repertoire of concepts, theories and key research methods; understand the social and historical processes that influence the objects of anthropological study. 
	reflect about the ways in which the concept of “technology” is dealt with in the anthropological, sociological literature. 
	reflect about the cultural and social assumptions about techniques activities, technical objects and sociotechnical systems. 
 

Delivery Method 

One 2 hour seminar per week. 