Science & Technology Studies Elsewhere

ELSEWHERE

A Postcolonial Programme In April 2017, scientists took to the streets in a historically unprecedented Global March for Science. The event was seen as symbolic of a crisis in the relationship of science and society. This book considers the Global March for Science from a postcolonial perspective to inquire into the toolkit that the academic field of Science & Technology Studies (STS) has to offer. It argues that new concepts and analytical approaches are necessary to investigate current global dynamics in science, technology and society, so as to deliver insights that the recent expansion of STS scholars beyond Western Europe and North America alone is unlikely to provide. The book presents a Programme in Science Studies Elsewhere (SSE) to demonstrate the urgent need to carry postcolonial issues right into the centre of STS’s intellectual programme.

Hofmänner possesses a potent antidote for the field’s inability to see science and technology outside of European or North American experiences.

Rayvon Fouché, Professor and Director, American Studies, Purdue University, USA A compelling case for revisiting some of the traditional assumptions in the field of STS. Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen, Director of the Munich Center for Technology in Society

Alexandra Hofmänner is assistant professor in Science & Technology Studies ( ST S) at the University of Basel, Switzerland. She received a PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ( ETH Zürich ) and has carried out extensive research in Switzerland and South Africa.

www.schwabeverlag.de

ALEXANDRA HOFMÄNNER

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY STUDIES

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY STUDIES ELSEWHERE

ALEXANDRA HOFMÄNNER

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY STUDIES

ELSEWHERE A POSTCOLONIAL PROGRAMME

Alexandra Hofmänner

Science & Technology Studies Elsewhere A Postcolonial Programme

Schwabe Verlag

Published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft. A research grant from the Max Geldner Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

Published in 2020 by Schwabe Verlag Berlin Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Cover illustration: Photography reproduced with kind permission of the artist Izel Lutz; Karoo, South Africa.

Copy-editing: Katherine Bird, Berlin Cover design: icona basel gmbh, Basel Graphic design: icona basel gmbh, Basel Typesetting: 3w+p, Rimpar Print: CPI books GmbH, Leck Printed in Germany ISBN Print 978-3-7574-0034-7 ISBN eBook (PDF) 978-3-7574-0039-2 DOI 10.24894/978-3-7574-0039-2 The ebook has identical page numbers to the print edition (first printing) and supports full-text search.

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To Mias

Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

1. The Global March for Science, and STS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

2. Science and Technology Studies Goes Global . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19

2.1

The Paradox: STS’s Collective Blind Spot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

22

2.2

What is STS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25

2.3

Transporting the Collective Blind Spot of STS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

2.4

A Postcolonial Lens: Science and Technology as North Atlantic Universals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

3. Technological Change and the “Savage Slot” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

3.1

Thomas Hughes’ Electrification in Western Society . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Chicago, Berlin, London – Johannesburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hughes’ Model of Technological Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43 44 49

3.2

Electrification in Johannesburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 1878 to 1882: Edison the Hedgehog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 1882 to 1894: Gold and light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 1894 to 1905: Power Stations for the Gold Mines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 1905 to 1914: A Gigantic Power Scheme for the Gold Mines . . . . 95 1914 to 1930: Enter Escom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

3.3

“How Do Technological Systems Evolve?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Themes in the History of Electrification of Johannesburg . . . . . . . 139 Hughes in Johannesburg: New Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

8

Contents

3.4

Seamlessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hughes’ Seamless Web of Technology and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Seamless Web Metaphor in STS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Seamless Web of Technology and Society in Johannesburg . .

The Grand Assumption: Seamlessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Implications of Seamlessness for STS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

206 207 210 212 228 232

4. Scientific Heritage as Transition Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

4.1

Shapin and Schaffer’s Experimental Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 An Exercise in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . 241 The New World, ‘Inferior Creatures’ and ‘Savages’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

4.2

Hobbes’s and Boyle’s Natural Philosophical Programmes . . . . . . . 243 Elsewhere in Robert Boyle’s Natural Philosophical Programme . . 243 Elsewhere in Thomas Hobbes’s Philosophical Programme . . . . . . 246

4.3

“What is Experiment?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Experiment as Solution to Knowledge and Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Experiment as Cultural Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Experiment as a Form of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Experiment as Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

248 249 249 250 251

5. A Postcolonial Programme in STS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

5.1

Science & Technology Studies Elsewhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

5.2

Entangled Histories and Uneven Modernities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

5.3

The Programme in Science Studies Elsewhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

6. The Revolving Door of STS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

6.1

Latour’s Natureculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Latour’s Elsewhere: Playing the Stranger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Latour’s Seamlessness: More of the ‘Savage Slot’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

6.2

The Imaginary Waiting Room of STS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Contents

7. The March for Science, and STS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

7.1

Times of crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

7.2

A postcolonial perspective on the March for Science . . . . . . . . . . . 289

7.3

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

9

Preface

In the many years it has taken to complete this book, I have received help from too many people to mention in a preface.

I would like to express my special thanks and appreciation to Helga Nowotny, Aant Elzinga, and Yehuda Elkana, whose pioneering work has in many respects paved the way for this study. They have encouraged me to investigate further, rather than surrender to, the formidable weight of history on today’s worldwide knowledge and power constellations. I am also greatly indebted to the work of Edward Said, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Gurminder Bhambra, Shalini Randeria and Stuart Hall. I am privileged to have worked with many extraordinary academics in South Africa and Switzerland who continue their work undaunted by obstacles and challenges and would like to thank them for their commitment which has been an inspiration for this book.

An earlier version of this book was submitted for Habilitation at the University of Basel. I would like to thank Sabine Maasen, Rayvon Fouché, and Elisio Macamo for their comments on the original manuscript and Agnes Hess, Edwin Constable, Klaus Neumann-Braun, Eveline Peterer and Moritz Maurer for their support in this process. A version of Chapter Three was published by Taylor & Francis in Social Epistemology, A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy (2016, 30/2, pp. 186–212). I am indebted to my editors at the Schwabe Verlag for their assistance in the publication process.

I wish to thank Bruce Lewenstein and the Department of Science & Technology Studies at Cornell University for kindly hosting me and affording me the time and space to review the manuscript.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to express gratitude to my family and friends; this book would not have been possible without their support and encouragement.

Any remaining errors are entirely mine.

1. The Global March for Science, and STS

We live in an age that calls into question things that were previously taken for granted. The freedom of science is increasingly put under pressure internationally – and in Europe. And although science in the 21st century is as important as never before in view of pressing global challenges such as climate change, preservation of biodiversity, or combating infectious disease, there is a sense that fact-based knowledge is questioned more and more. This is unacceptable in the name of science as well as in the name of civil societies. We bear the responsibility. The March for Science is an opportunity to make this visible.

Prof. Martin Stratmann, President of the Max Planck Society March for Science, Munich, April 2017.1 On 22 April 2017, scientists took to the streets in Silicon Valley, a symbol for leading-edge science and technology. They joined protestors in more than five hundred cities across the world on this day to participate in the March for Science. Demonstrating scientists were photographed carrying banners with slogans that read ‘Science is not Fiction’, ‘Trust Scientific Facts Not Alternative Facts’, ‘Expert is not a dirty word’, ‘Science is Real’. These catchwords were repeated in media coverage on the event. The March for Science made it to newspaper headlines with titles like ‘Scientists to take to the streets in global march for truth’.2 The venerated scientific journals Science and Nature, and many reputable scientific institutions and associations such as

1 https://www.mpg.de/11221750/max-planck-praesident-spricht-beim-muenchnermarch-for-science (author’s translation).

2 This title is taken from an article by Mark Lynas as published in the British newspaper The Guardian on 17 April 2017.

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1. The Global March for Science, and STS

the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the German Science Council, or the Swiss Academy of Arts and Sciences, publicly endorsed the March for Science.

The idea to hold a protest March for Science is reported to have evolved from discussions on social network platforms over an initial plan to demonstrate in Washington D.C. (Ley et al., 2018). Within a very short time, the idea spread via Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter, and so-called satellite marches were organized in other cities around the world, linked through an internet website on the March for Science.

Why did the scientists take to the streets? The organizers of the March for Science expressed their concern that science and evidence-based policy were threatened by a loss of public confidence and scientific authority. The majority of the protestors defended the position that science is a public good, they believed that science informs responsible government policies and they supported government investments in science (Ross et al., 2018: 228). Proponents of the march advocated for an increase in activities in science outreach and communication, science education, and scientific literacy as means to defend science and evidence-based policy (Ross et al., 2018). The march was to mark the beginnings of a global movement to defend the important role of science in matters of health, security, economy and government.3 The March for Science was openly declared a political movement. The political activism was also criticized by other parts the scientific community.

Concerns were raised about potential losses to the status of scientists as impartial experts, and about possible accusations that scientists are self-interested opportunists advocating for a cause to get more funding and prestige (Ross et al., 2018: 228).

In interviews, historians of science pronounced the march an unprecedented event in the history of science.4 Indeed, no past event appeared to match the impressive number of scientists from across the spectrum of disciplines that took to the streets simultaneously in so many cities. Accordingly, the march was interpreted by the organizers, the media, and the

https://www.marchforscience.com/.

Chris Mooney. 2017. ‘Historians say the March for Science is “pretty unprecedented”’ Washington Post, 22 April 2017.

3 4

1. The Global March for Science, and STS

Figure 1:

Map showing the locations of the March for Science in 2017.

endorsing scientific institutions as exposing a crisis in the relationship between science and society. The crisis had to do with the decline of public trust in science and the rise of ‘post-truth’ politics. In the preceding years, scientists had been active in citizen science projects, science cafĂŠs, participatory technology assessments, or public communication initiatives in an effort to reconfigure the relationship. Still, scientists took to the streets in April 2017 to demonstrate against the momentous changes that were transforming knowledge, power and truth in society.

Two further Marches for Science have taken place since then, but with far fewer participants. The sense of anti-science attitudes among the public and policymakers, and public scepticism about scientific evidence and expertise, however, has anything but diminished. On the contrary, these attitudes have increasingly come to be linked to recent political developments in Western liberal democracies, polarized politics and the rise of populism.

There is widespread consensus that the relationship between science and society is in peril.

Against this background, the March for Science in 2017 raises a number of interesting questions. Why did these scientists take to the streets rather than use conventional channels of science advocacy? And why did the event take place in 2017? What lies behind this apparent loss of public confidence in science? Why is scientific knowledge seen to be losing authority?

15

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1. The Global March for Science, and STS

The relationship between science and society has been studied by the academic field of Science & Technology Studies (STS) since the late 1960s and early 1970s. STS draws from a variety of disciplines, theories and approaches to study the advancement of science and technology and their interaction with the many spheres of social life. In the words of the most recent Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, STS ‘investigates the institutions, practices, meanings, and outcomes of science and technology and their multiple entanglements with the worlds people inhabit, their lives, and their values’ (Felt et al., 2018: 1). Over the past fifty years, STS has gained a rightful place in academia and has assembled analytical and theoretical tools for studying science, technology and society. The March for Science falls squarely within its analytical scope.

Given the scale of participation in the March for Science in 2017, and the nature of the issues raised, STS is arguably well suited to turn to for guidance, analysis and interpretation of our questions on the March for Science.

However, the prominent STS journals issued no articles to analyse the event.

Neither has the March emerged as a key topic at the conferences of STS’s two main professional associations.5 At the same time, however, the issues raised at this event continue to occupy social and political life in Western liberal democracies. So why has STS not seized upon the March for Science as a moment to showcase its analytical competences and potential contribution to contemporary affairs? Why did the March for Science not make it onto the research agenda of STS? The answer lies in a dilemma that has come to haunt the field of STS. As an academic field, STS has developed and employed analytical tools and frameworks that have contributed to the demystification of scientific and technological expertise by disclosing their historical, political, social and other contingencies. With the advent of ‘post-truth’ politics and the rising public critique of experts, STS has been blamed ‘for the onset of the post-truth era’ (Sismondo, 2017: 587). The dilemma for STS scholars has to do with their simultaneous roles as scientific experts and as critics of scientific expertise.

The Society for the Social Study of Science (4S) and the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) are considered here as the two main professional associations for STS. 5

1. The Global March for Science, and STS

As experts on matters concerning science, technology and society, they belong to the community of academics who defend the exclusivity and validity of scientific knowledge. As experts on matters concerning science, technology and society, however, they also know that the standards and norms that attribute scientific exclusivity and validity are inherently contingent and change over time. The March for Science confronts STS with this dilemma.

The crisis in the relationship between science and society, which prompted scientists to take to the streets and protest against the decline of public trust in science and ‘post-truth’ politics, has also plunged STS into a crisis of legitimacy (Sismondo, 2017; Collins et al., 2018; Fuller, 2016; Jasanoff & Simmet, 2017).

The premise of this book is that the crisis of legitimacy affords an opportunity for STS to refurbish its analytical toolkit and conceptual frameworks. The book suggests that one of the reasons why STS has not produced analyses and interpretations of the March for Science is that this field is not conceptually equipped to carry out this task. It claims that postcolonial perspectives on science, technology and society offer new paths for interpreting the meaning of the March for Science. This can be achieved by expanding the current debate in STS on the crisis in the relationship between science and society beyond the conclusion of a universal decline of public trust in science and the rise of ‘post-truth’ politics.

The call for postcolonial perspectives in STS might easily be averted by pointing to the recent international expansion of STS and the concomitant multiplication of situated knowledges across the globe, as professed in the latest Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (2017). However, the alleged international expansion in geographic terms appears not to translate into the ‘epistemic landscape’ of STS; the Handbook itself declares that approximately ninety per cent of the Handbook’s authors are affiliated to institutions in the United States and Europe, with over two thirds in the United States and the United Kingdom (Felt et al., 2017). Therefore, references to the geographic expansion of STS tells us little about its effect on the analytical tools and conceptual frameworks in the field of STS. The argument for postcolonial perspectives in STS is not new but dates back to the early 1990s. However, postcolonial science studies, or postcolonial technoscience, has remained an addendum to mainstream STS, one of numerous approaches that might be pursued in the study of science,

17

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1. The Global March for Science, and STS

technology and society, particularly in postcolonial geographical settings.

Rather than a mere addendum, this book argues that the postcolonial perspective can contribute to tackling the momentous changes that are currently transforming knowledge, power and truth in society by revising and expanding the conceptual and analytical toolkit of STS. To put the postcolonial approach to work, the book proposes a Programme in Science Studies Elsewhere. The programme is developed on the basis of an examination of two seminal books that influenced the formation and course of STS in the mid1980s: an in-depth empirical study of the seminal book by Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power. Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930 (1983), and an analysis of the influential book by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump. Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life (1985).

The study begins with a brief report on STS’s new wave of expansion to settings beyond Western Europe and North America (Chapter Two). The chapter also introduces the paradox of the Collective Blind Spot of STS, raises the question of its implications for the recent expansion of the field of STS and describes the particular postcolonial approach to be employed in this study. The next chapter applies this approach to Hughes’ study on the history of electrification in Chicago, Berlin and London, by adding the fourth example of Johannesburg (Chapter Three). Chapter Four presents a postcolonial examination of Shapin and Schaffer’s study of experimental practice in early modern science. The findings of the postcolonial analyses are then put to work in the Programme in Science Studies Elsewhere which is formulated in Chapter Five. Chapter Six discusses the implications of the postcolonial analysis for STS, and the last chapter returns to the March for Science to draw conclusions from the study for the field of STS (Chapter Seven).