Re‐writing the ‘book of blots’: Critical reflections on histories of technological ‘failure’

Abstract

Although an interest in technological ‘failure’ has become prominent in recent history of technology, historians have not always clearly articulated the presuppositions of attributing ‘failure’ to technology. This paper undertakes a critical examination of two main historiographies of ‘failure’: ‘failure’ as categorization of ‘pathological’ technologies that clearly demarcates them from ‘successes’, and ‘failure’ as a mundane and inevitable prerequisite of subsequent ‘success’. To reconcile these divergent analyses, this paper argues that historians should not treat ‘failure’ as residing in the technology itself. It is rather a matter of imputation according to socially‐embedded criteria of what constitutes success and failure. Accordingly judgements of ‘failure’ are prone to interpretive flexibility in a manner that is not necessarily settled by any process of ‘closure.’ I will argue that any ‘failure’ of technologies should be located in the socio‐technical relations of usage, especially in the expectations, skills and resources of human users. The moral irony of attributing responsibility for ‘failure’ to technologies themselves rather than to humans users will thereby be highlighted.     

Conflict and Complement: An Exploration of the Discourses Informing the Concept of the Socially Inclusive Museum in Contemporary Britain

This paper argues that there are a number of competing discourses informing debates about the idea of the ‘socially inclusive museum’ in Britain today. It identifies three major discourses present from the 19th century to the present day—the governmental, the representational, and the economic—and explores the relationships between them. It is proposed that recognition of the respective ideological and historical contexts of these different discourses will help us to understand some of the recent confusion and disagreement over the nature and merits of the ‘socially inclusive museum’. The article concludes by proposing some issues for future research.     

Mining,morality and the obligations of fossil fuel exporting countries

In this article I argue that countries exporting fossil fuels, such as Australia, have an obligation to bear some of the costs of the harms caused by the use of those fuels. I argue that there is an analogy between other harmful exports – medical waste, tobacco, unsafe jobs, uranium – and fossil fuels. If this is the case, then current methods for allocating emissions and responsibilities for their harms are inadequate and more complex than they appear. I consider several counter-arguments to this claim, such as that it does not recognise the benefits of coal and that exporters are not really responsible. Finally, I consider some of the consequences of this argument and claim that Australia and other fossil fuel exporters ought to have a higher ‘carbon budget’ if this argument is true and that exporters ought to bear a higher share of the costs of climate harms.     

Legal Geographies of Intellectual Property, ‘Traditional’ Knowledge and Biodiversity: Experiencing Conventions,Laws, Customary Law,and Karma in Thailand

This article explores the existence of customary laws relating to ‘traditional’ knowledge of plants in Thailand through micro‐ethnographic case studies. This is juxtaposed against global and national frameworks of intellectual property laws that have a privatising effect on knowledge under the rubric of discovery or ‘invention’, as well as liability rights approaches of compensation and benefit‐sharing for research access. By understanding scale and legal jurisdiction as socially and politically constructed phenomena, we explore how laws at different scales and in different jurisdictions may override each other, discriminate against foreign laws and practices, and ignore customary laws. In doing so, the paper presents complex legal geographies of plants and associated knowledge, which suggest that the customary laws and norms of Indigenous groups and traditional healers are often ignored by ‘outsiders’. The paper notes that the possibility of ‘injury’ to traditional healers remains considerable without appropriate consent and given the discriminations surrounding knowledge made by patent laws. However, the ethnographies also point to the possibility of local remedies to these injuries through ritual processes, and we note resistant co‐constitutions of law and scale through the Nagoya Protocol.     

Living in commodified history: constructing class identities in neotraditional neighbourhoods

This paper examines how residents of neotraditional neighbourhoods in the Netherlands socially construct a ‘classed’ place identity and what role the historicised architecture plays within that process. Given that place identity is constructed through social and cultural practices, the paper argues that residents' consumption of historicised environment is bound up with drawing symbolic boundaries that have been explored here by analysing residents' narratives. Three prominent types of narratives were found: (1) residents' locational choice, (2) their aesthetic judgement of the residential environment and (3) the way they use it. Through these layered narratives, all interviewees appear to use historicised aesthetics to classify themselves as part of a valued social category. However, the way of boundary drawing took several forms, based either on fostering moral judgements of social behaviour accompanied by sophisticated efforts to keep neighbourhoods' historicised image unchanged, or by conducting cultural practices shared with fellow residents by which ‘the other’ living outside the neighbourhood is ‘bracketed out’ symbolically and socially.     

Development and the environment: Perception and opinion in St Andrews,Scotland

In 2003, three proposals were being mediated through the planning system in the peri‐urban environment of St Andrews, Fife: a large housing development, a rail link, and a Green Belt. Using questionnaires and semi‐structured interviews with key stakeholders, we investigate the ways in which diverse conceptions of ‘the environment’ shaped public reactions to these proposals, and evaluate the fit between these and the respondents’ stated environmental perceptions. 98% of local residents surveyed describe themselves as ‘concerned about the environment’. However, large majorities conceive of the environment as a local rather than a global phenomenon, and regard it primarily in terms of personal benefits (such as landscape aesthetics or traffic considerations). By exploring the environmental perceptions in the light of the planning proposals, the study supports the contention that the ‘local environment’ is a socially constructed phenomenon which can be fashioned and re‐fashioned according to local perceptions of threats and opportunities.     

Caregiving as mobility constraint and opportunity: married daughters providing end of life care in northern Ghana

In the global south where care services are sparse and familial care remains practically and socially important, end of life care often occurs within families. Furthermore, in health care related policy development, care is often assumed to be ensured by ‘traditional’ norms of extended family relationships. In this context, the demands of providing care may require care providers to relocate, as well as reorganize their everyday responsibilities. This article contributes to geographies of care by offering an examination of the mobility constraints experienced by married and externally-resident daughters seeking to provide end of life care to a parent in northern Ghana. Drawing on ethnographic research, I examine how particular familial relationships are embedded with socially constructed labour obligations, leading to conflicting responsibilities at a parent’s end of life. I then consider how a woman as a daughter works to overcome these constraints to provide end of life care. I conclude that understanding the mobility of care providers can contribute to avoiding potentially damaging assumptions of ‘traditional’ norms of care and is an important consideration towards understanding the geographies of care in the rural global south.     

Confabulations: A Conceptual History

Confabulations are inaccurate or false narratives purporting to convey information about world or self. It is the received view that they are uttered by subjects intent on ‘covering up’ for a putative memory deficit. The epidemiology of confabulations is unknown. Speculated causes include amnesia, embarrassment, ‘frontal lobe’ damage, a subtype of ‘personality’, a dream-like event, and a disturbance of the self. Historical analysis shows that ‘confabulation’ was constructed at the turn of the century as part of a network of concepts (e.g. delusion, fixed idea, etc.) Meant to capture narratives with dubious content. This paper deals with the history of the construction of the word and concept of confabulation and with earlier recognitions of the behaviours that serve as their referent and puts forward a model based on historical data. Two phenomena are included under ‘confabulation’: ‘untrue’ utterances by subjects with memory impairment and ‘fantastic’ utterances marshalled with conviction by subjects suffering from psychoses and no memory deficit. Under different disguises, the ‘covering up’ or ‘gap filling’ hypothesis is still going strong. Although superficially plausible, it poses problems in regards to the issue of ‘awareness of purpose’: if full awareness is presumed, then it is difficult to differentiate confabulations from lying; if no awareness is presumed then the semantics of the concept of ‘purpose’ is severely stretched and confabulations cannot be differentiated from delusions. The received view of confabulations also neglects the clinical observation that confabulations (particularly provoked ones!) Do occur in dialogical situations: i.e., the manner of the asking may increase their probability. It is suggested here that confabulations are a disorder of a putative narrative function which is also found in ‘normal’ subjects. It is also hypothesized that this trait is normally distributed in the population. In the absence of adequate epidemiological information, research efforts should be directed at mapping the distribution of this narrative (or confabulatory) capacity in the community at large. Only then it will be possible to understand the significance of its disorders. In the long term, this approach will prove more heuristic than unwarranted speculation based on few anecdotal cases.     

Our history is not false: perspectives from the revitalisation culture

Two dominant themes in architectural conservation doctrine are to (1) avoid the fabrication of ‘false’ histories through the clear differentiation of ‘new’ from ‘old’ building fabric; and (2) the deprecation of subjective ways in which the perception of building fabric engenders sense of place. This study explores the cultural values of a group of citizens engaged in revitalising their historic downtown through the ‘Main Street’ program in Anderson, South Carolina, United States. This ‘revitalisation culture’ values and promotes treatments to its historic environment that emphasise the conjectural fabrication of ‘historic’ elements to existing buildings and the use of historicised design for new, infill construction. Whilst these values go against the grain of conservation doctrine, the revitalisation culture is preserving a kind of authenticity that stems from socially and culturally constructed values in an effort to maintain the ability of the historic environment to engender ‘spontaneous fantasies’, which serve to emotionally attach the revitalisation culture with its historic downtown. Ultimately, the revitalisation culture is engaging in ‘unethical’ behaviour from the perspective of conservation professionals, which begs the question of whose values deserve attention and if the field of heritage conservation is able and willing to accept pluralistic concepts of how the authenticity of historic places can and should be conserved.     

Wissenschaft — Mathematik — Technik: Ihre Wechselwirkung in der Antike

The question whether there exists an interaction between ‘science’ (foreign text ignored) and ‘technology’ (foreign text ignored, esp. foreign text ignored) in Greek and Roman antiquity is discussed controversially until today. Especially representatives of the philologies strictly deny any form of relation, whereas modern scientists tend to take for granted that the current interaction between (exact) natural sciences and technology has always existed, at least since the beginning of real natural science founded by the ancient Greeks. This paper shows that both parties are right — at least in a certain way. Following current terminology and contents of ‘science’ and ‘technology’ there had been such an interaction — particularly with mathematics as linking element in so far as in antiquity especially foreign text ignored (mechanics) was regarded as applied mathematics and not as science. The strong interaction between pure mathematics and such fields of applied mathematics (namely mechanical technology) based on the fact that technological (mechanical) artefacts were properly constructed mathematically. Some of them are mentioned in this paper (astrolabes and sundials, waterclocks, tools and machines — especially lifting gears, bucket elevators, guns, pneumatic tools —, architecture of temples); in so far the supporters of an interaction between science and technology are right. However, the post-Aristotelian Greeks and Romans did not consider mathematics to be part of ‘science (of nature)’ as the post-kantian exact scientists do. Mathematics to them was a mere ‘art’ — consequently, in the mentioned cases there had been an interaction between ‘arts’ and of course not between ‘science’ and ‘art’ (technology); and in so far those are right who deny an interaction between natural science and technology. This shows that the contrariety of the answers to the question depends on the different terminology chosen. Following the current understanding of ‘exact natural science’ the answer is: yes; following the conception of ‘science’ in the self-understanding of Greek and Roman antiquity the answer is: no — and this is right as well! The reason for this apparent contrariety are just the different meanings and contents of ‘science (of nature)’ in antiquity and modern times.     

From the ‘new localism’ to the ‘new regionalism’? The implications of regional development agencies for city–regional relations

Throughout the last three decades efforts to regenerate British cities have been based around the construction of new institutional alliances and policy networks supported by a series of urban-based initiatives. Successive Conservative governments premised their intervention on the assumption that cities (and particular parts therein) were the most appropriate geographical level around which to organise policy intervention. In pursuing this city-based agenda, the policies were themselves instrumental in constituting the city as an object of policy: a problem in need of a solution. The aim of this paper, however, is not to explore how certain spaces or scales become constructed through, for example, government policy, political practices or state restructuring. Rather the paper augments work conducted on the socially constructed nature of ‘cities’ and ‘regions’. It explores for regeneration policy and politics the implications of the tendential shift away from a model of ‘new localism’ towards an alternative model of ‘new regionalism’. The origins of the central element of New Labour's emergent regional project — the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) — are established before the paper moves on to examine the likely political relationships between the local state, drawing upon the example of Manchester, and the regional state, drawing upon North West England, under the new institutional arrangements.     

Is international affairs too ‘hard’ for women? Explaining the missing women in Australia's international affairs

Women are demonstrably under-represented at senior levels in Australia's international affairs. Empirical evidence shows a continuing gender imbalance in leadership positions, including in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Defence and academia. Two explanations commonly offered are that women are less motivated or lack interest in ‘hard’ international relations. These explanations are found to be unconvincing, given studies showing similar levels of ambition and interest at recruitment. Four alternative explanations are offered to account for the scarcity of female leaders in Australia's international affairs: the legacy of direct discrimination, continued indirect discrimination, inadequate support for women who balance work and family responsibilities, and socially constructed gender norms. Instead of the subject matter of international relations being too ‘hard’, or inherently masculine, it appears that it is the combined impact of these factors that has made it ‘hard’, or difficult, for women to progress to senior levels. In order to show how these barriers can be overcome, three case studies are presented of women who have achieved senior positions: Professor Emeritus Helen Hughes, Her Excellency Ms Penny Wensley and Professor Hilary Charlesworth. These examples suggest strategies that women can use to further their careers and measures that can be implemented in workplaces to improve the representation of senior women in Australia's international affairs.     

The role of recruitment agencies in imagining and producing the ‘good’ migrant

This paper focuses on representations of labour migrants and interrogates how such imaginaries shape migrant recruitment and employment regimes. The recruitment and employment of labour migrants inevitably involves a range of knowledge practices that affect who is recruited, from where and for what purposes. In particular, this paper seeks to advance understandings of how images of ‘bodily goodness’ are represented graphically and how perceptions of migrant workers influence the recruitment of workers to the UK from Latvia. The research described in this paper is based on interviews with recruitment agencies, employers and policy makers carried out in Latvia in 2011. The analysis results in a schema of the ‘filtering’ processes that are enacted to ‘produce’ the ‘ideal’ migrant worker. An important original contribution of this paper is that it details how recruitment agencies, in not only engaging in the spatially selective recruitment of labour from certain places but also drawing socially constructed boundaries around migrant bodies, play a key part in shaping migration geographies both in sending and destination countries.     

Attitudes towards Heroin Addicts and Addiction in Inter-War Greece

Abstract

This article concentrates on the ‘drug scare’ caused by the introduction of heroin to Greece in the inter-war period. It will first retrace the story of heroin’s introduction into the Greek drug scene and assess the reasons for its speedy diffusion among drug users. Following this, it will examine some central themes in the discourse on drugs and heroin in particular, such as the actual or projected harm caused to individuals, society, or the nation as a whole. Then the focus will shift to perceptions of heroin and its users, considering broader debates which circulated in Greek inter-war society, for example, the country’s identity and its position within two parallel and interrelated conceptual frameworks: traditional vs. modern and ‘East’ vs. ‘West’. The paper will conclude by addressing drug users’ self-representations that were influenced, to a certain degree, by the prevailing approaches to drug addiction.     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 39, Number 4. August 2023

Front and back cover caption, volume 39 issue 4 CBDC'S BOTANICAL IMAGERY In the ever-evolving landscape of global finance, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has cultivated a botanical metaphor to illustrate the concept of central bank digital currency (CBDC). In this issue, Swartz & Westermeier explore this metaphor (illustrated here by Matthew Kurina), presenting a fascinating anthropological perspective on the intersection of technology, economy and imagination. The BIS's metaphorical ‘money tree’ positions the central bank as the sturdy trunk, providing stability and support to the financial ecosystem. The branches, representing various financial institutions, extend from this trunk, while the leaves, symbolizing the diverse forms of money, flourish at the periphery. This metaphor not only encapsulates the hierarchical structure of the financial system but also naturalizes the concept of CBDC, subtly implying its inevitability and organic integration into the existing monetary ecosystem. The BIS uses the ‘money flower’, another botanical metaphor, to classify the past, present and future forms of money. The petals of this flower represent different characteristics of money, such as whether it is digital or physical, centralized or decentralized. This metaphorical taxonomy provides a framework for understanding the evolution of money and the potential role of CBDCs in the future financial landscape. However, while visually appealing and conceptually insightful, these botanical metaphors also raise anthropological questions. They mask the sociopolitical implications of CBDCs, presenting them as natural phenomena rather than human-made constructs. This portrayal glosses over the potential power dynamics, control mechanisms and geopolitical tensions inherent in adopting CBDCs. As we stand at the precipice of a new era in digital currency, these metaphors serve as a reminder of the need for critical engagement with the narratives that shape our understanding of complex financial technologies. The ‘money tree’ and ‘money flower’ are not just symbols of financial evolution, but also tools of persuasion, framing our perception of the future of money. CULTURAL EVOLUTION IN THE AGE OF NFTs The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), an intriguing collection of algorithmically generated cartoon ape NFTs etched into the Ethereum blockchain, has not only sparked a cultural phenomenon but also inspired the first ever NFT-themed restaurant, Bored & Hungry, in Long Beach, California, USA. Why apes? A BAYC founder suggests it is a response to the existential ennui that follows the attainment of vast wealth through crypto investments. ‘Once you've achieved unimaginable wealth, what's next? You join a swamp club with a bunch of apes and embrace the unusual’. Or, you could always enjoy a burger. Yet, these seemingly whimsical endeavours are more than just a pastime for the crypto rich. NFTs signify a profound shift in the political discourse surrounding blockchain technology. They challenge the financialization of blockchain, aligning with a contemporary wave of anti-finance far-right populism and potentially offering an alternative to the prevailing capitalist democratic order. In this issue, Bill Maurer delves into the uneasy relationship between the concept of non-fungibility and anthropological theories of embedded or social economies. This tension, he suggests, could pave the way for a post-neoliberal future, one that is not rooted in finance but in regenerative models for future social worlds. From an anthropological perspective, the rise of NFTs and blockchain technology represents a fascinating evolution of societal norms and values. It challenges our traditional understanding of ownership, value and community, creating a new form of ‘digital tribalism’ where belonging is tied to shared digital assets. Furthermore, the boredom expressed by the crypto wealthy and their subsequent retreat into a virtual ‘swamp club’ can be seen as a form of digital ‘potlatch’, a ceremonial feast of the Kwakiutl, where status is asserted not through wealth accumulation, but through its ostentatious disposal. As blockchain technology continues infiltrating all aspects of life, anthropology grapples to understand its impact. The cultural shift it brings is as significant as it is complex, and its full implications are yet to be unravelled.     

Indonesian domestic workers and the (un)making of transnational livelihoods and provisional futures

Doreen Massey (2005. For Space. London: Sage.) argued that space and time should not be reduced to a bounded locality of the ‘here and now’ and instead proposed re-imagining ‘space as simultaneity of stories-so-far’. We build on her argument to suggest that an appreciation of migrant aspirations and future trajectories require us to go beyond simultaneous ‘stories-so-far’ but also consider ‘stories-to-come’ which may build upon, divert from, or even unmake the ‘stories-so-far’. We apply these ideas to our study (based on a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews) of the transnational journeys traced by Indonesian domestic workers employed in Singaporean middle-class homes. We argue that socially and culturally specific notions of risk can work to propel and sustain migration into retrogressive occupations like domestic work, as well as disrupt dominant narratives around migrants as strategic actors, necessarily in control of their trajectories and driven by their migration plans. The calculus of risk-taking and aspiration on which transnational livelihoods are predicated is one that takes into account both situatedness in and connectedness across different places (in short simultaneous ‘stories-so-far’). At the same time, future ‘stories-to-come’ may entail both subtle shifts and constant (re)negotiations that propel individual life stories unto different pathways.     

When nature nurtures children: nature as a containing and holding space

Contemporary theories of childhood recognize children as experts in their own lives, individuals whose perspectives are worthy of study. Immigrant and refugee children riding waves of historical, geographical, political, cultural and familial changes are likewise recognized as ‘socially competent actors’, anchored in part by their capacity to express personal interests and to form opinions. In a Montreal-based 2012 phenomenological study, 19 of these socially competent actors representing 5 continents were invited to share their perspectives concerning the role of the natural world in their socio-cultural adaptation process. Data provided information concerning children's lived experiences of nature. Research findings provided strong evidence that children entered into relationship with nature. Within this relationship, nature nurtured children by providing a space not unlike that of Winnicott's ‘holding’ or Bion's ‘containment’.     

Global cultural flows and the routes of identity: the imagined worlds of Celtic FC

In the study of sports and society, there has often been an excessive focus placed on the roots (i.e. origins) of collective identity. Drawing on Appadurai's [Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press] concept of ‘imagined worlds,’ this paper explores five global cultural flows and their influences on the diverse identities of Celtic Football Club supporters. While the historical ‘roots’ of these socially constructed identity attachments are important to understand, this article suggests that the ‘routes,’ or where these identities are being performed, maintained, and renegotiated on an everyday bases, provide a more complete understanding of collective identities in today's globalized world. Ultimately, this article highlights the reasons why people from around the world support a football team from Glasgow, Scotland by clearly demonstrating that the motivations that go into their decision are not as simple as one might initially imagine and are relentlessly renegotiated across both time and space.     

Small and slow is beautiful: well-being, ‘socially connective retail’ and the independent bookshop

Despite the loss of much-loved bricks and mortar retailers, little has been said about how shopping contributes to well-being. Yet notions of social connectivity and cultural participation figure increasingly in attempts to define social well-being. Using ethnography at a cooperative, independent bookshop, observations at bookshop events and 30 bookseller interviews, and analysis of the diversity and geographies of UK-wide independent bookshops, this paper finds that independent booksellers must now be ‘skilled capitalists’, requiring an increasing array of skills and resources and a commercial disposition in order to survive in a highly competitive market that favours fast, high volume selling. Analysis of bookshop locations shows that high-street book shopping choice is restricting as numbers and variety of bookshops decrease, with a troubling rise in ‘independent bookshop deserts’. The paper argues that compared to other book retailers, independent bookshops are unparalleled in their ability to produce well-being: providing a socially valuable ‘socially connective retail’ that is present, participatory and particular.     

Ecological Functions and Functionings: Towards a Senian Analysis of Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services are part of a growing trend within environment and development to analyse environmental change within the context of socially valued outcomes. Yet, ecosystem services‐based policies and analyses are increasingly criticized for failing to connect with, or even for restricting, development outcomes. This article seeks to connect environmental analysis with development outcomes better by applying the capability approach of Amartya Sen and others. It demonstrates how scientific analysis of ecosystem services sometimes conflates pathways of ecosystem management with development outcomes, but that it can be reconfigured to include more diverse values and objectives. The article argues that ecosystem services should be identified more as ‘functionings’ (in the Senian sense of valued development outcomes) rather than ‘functions’ (in the sense of biophysical, apolitical ecosystem properties) in order to indicate that ‘services’ always reflect social values, and that values and scientific explanations of underlying biophysical properties evolve together. Environmental science for socially valued outcomes such as ecosystem services is therefore an important site of political inclusion and exclusion. The article illustrates this analysis with examples of ecosystem‐based adaptation to climate change from the World Bank and government of Bangladesh, and in contrast to differing approaches from the field of sustainability science.