The Aakash tablet and technological imaginaries of mass education in contemporary India

Abstract

We explore here public and private initiatives in technological solutions for educating the poor and the disadvantaged in India since the second half of the twentieth century. Specifically, we document Ministry of Human Resource Development’s project to develop an affordable tablet computer, named ‘Aakash,’ as a personal access device for digital courses and online learning materials. We approach this case study in relation to several educational technologies that preceded it, and with a wider interest in mapping a contemporary transition from satellite-based mass education to Internet-based mass education. We argue that this process cannot be easily seen as a transition from unilateral broadcasting to more democratic multi-casting model of communication and learning. Specifically, we study the manufacturing process of Aakash and the public debates around it, to comment on the nature of state power in India, as revealed in its attempts to imagine and develop a digital personal device to deliver mass education.     

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.     

The Chinese developmental state during the Cold War: the making of the 1956 twelve-year science and technology plan

Abstract

In 1956, the government of the People’s Republic of China made a 12-year plan for scientific and technological developments (‘The Long-term Plan for the Development of Science and Technology for 1956–1967’), often credited as a visionary blueprint for its nuclear weapons programs and industrialization. Yet, this study suggests that the plan was not the logical manifestation of a unified national leadership, but rather the result of political contestations and compromises among the Communist party-state leaders, especially between Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and between the state and the scientific–technological elite. It further indicates that the making of Chinese science and technology policy was shaped by the cold war geopolitics, national developmental aspirations and transnational influences, especially from the Soviet Union and the USA.     

Atomic structures: the architecture of nuclear nationalism in India and Pakistan

Abstract

A half-century after their completion, India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) stand out as unchallenged architectural advertisements for ‘nuclear nationalism’. Elsewhere, Atoms for Peace reactors made no pretence to architectural refinement. In the right hands, however, ‘Cold War Modern’ could express the hard power of the nuclear age. For India and Pakistan, these nuclear laboratory complexes became the public faces of the peaceful atom that held out the promise, and masked the peril, of the atomic age at home and abroad, and deliberately deflected attention away from clandestine nuclear weapons programmes. BARC and PINSTECH, envisioned as cornerstones for self-confident and self-reliant programmes of nuclear physics, embodied the paradox of postcolonial science, necessarily borrowing from the West but determined to break the cycle of dependency, in defiance of Western expectations.     

‘We Can Always Go Back Home’: critical lessons in helping to safeguard and promote the Singing and Praying Bands living tradition

Abstract

The article examines the process of promoting, with a view to safeguarding, the centuries-old Singing and Praying Bands living tradition, an African American musical and spiritual expression that is distinctive to the Chesapeake Bay region of the US. Discussed within the context of US public folklore, the process is understood as a co-intervention, representing an active partnership between the Bands’ community and public folklorists (including the authors) in attempting to reach new members as a means of keeping it alive. The article underscores the need for ‘bottom-up’ approaches in safeguarding living cultural traditions, bringing to light the potential strengths of public folklore work and the benefits its theories and methodologies can bring to the intangible cultural heritage discourse. Moreover, it analyses how community agency has been exercised, and community needs accommodated, through the dialogue-driven, collaborative intervention process. It also investigates how a nuanced view of ‘authenticity’ has been shaped, with regard to changes the living tradition has undergone, and is currently understood by those who embody it.     

The future could be too much fun

Abstract

More than ever before, the twenty-first century is likely to throw into focus the age old question: ‘what am I doing with my life?’ Recent developments in neuroscience mean that a scientific understanding of consciousness is no longer out of the question. The rapidly expanding field of genetic medicine will soon allow single gene disorders such as cystic fibrosis to be treated routinely by gene ‘therapy’ and has already thrown up complex ethical questions surrounding the idea of genetic screening for insurance purposes. And the latest directions in computer science have the potential to challenge our ideas of reality, as well as confusing our understanding of the distinction between information and knowledge. In this paper I revisit the notions of human nature and personal identity in the light of these advances.     

The disciplining of scientific communities

Abstract

Amidst ongoing concern with training students in the skills and knowledge necessary to contribute towards a knowledge-intensive economy, we explore how particular ‘epistemic subjects’ are produced within specific epistemic communities. We examine how social studies of science have probed the ‘disciplining’ practices that constitute scientific knowledge production, but have tended to overlook how students participate in, and become members of, epistemic communities. We propose that training contexts provide a window onto the disciplining processes through which scientific fields and their practitioners are co-produced. We offer an empirical example of an emerging scientific field that is working to establish community boundaries through the recruitment and training of university students. We explore how newcomers’ practices, values and identities are disciplined through participation in this nascent community whilst remaining open to negotiation and resistance. The conclusion calls for more scholarly attention to educational trajectories as processes through which disciplines and their disciples are produced.     

Order and organisation

Abstract

In this paper we re-examine the relationship and possibilities for discourse between the academic disciplines called ‘sciences’ and those known as ‘arts’. Do they represent one culture or two? An apparent diversity of views emerges in two contemporary writers, George Steiner and Nicholas Lash, the former differentiating the two, the latter insisting that the ‘two cultures’ debate itself is misconstrued. We follow the principal threads of both arguments in the light of an intimate involvement with the practice of science and its communication in public and academic contexts. Visiting aspects of both arts and sciences that distinguish them from other disciplines, the role of theory, and the twin purposes of function and contemplation, we find that much of the pain of discourse between them arises from a failure to recognise common structures and functions. As a result, either function or contemplation may be overemphasised at the expense of the other. We suggest directions in which the tensions might be resolved in both public and academic arenas.     

A disobedient gaze: strategic interventions in the knowledge(s) of maritime borders

Abstract

This article reflects critically on how forms of militant research that produce knowledge about the border can produce effects in the politics of migration themselves. It does so by looking at Forensic Oceanography, a collaborative research project that we have been conducting since the summer of 2011. We first locate this research among a broader ‘ecology of knowledges’ that are generated at the border and that directly affect way the border regime actually operates, underlining their ‘aesthetic’ dimension. Secondly, we problematise more specifically the knowledge produced by activists who fight against the border regime and attempt to think how these need to position themselves strategically in relation to existing knowledge practices so as to avoid complicity with the same power structures they are seeking to challenge. Finally, since our knowledge production has amongst others been geared towards the legal sphere, we sketch out a critical reflection on the reliance on legal strategy to forward progressive changes within the politics of migration.     

Seeds: Contracting the Audience in a Play about Science

Abstract

In pursuing the question ‘what can scientists learn from theatre?’ Particularly, ‘what can scientists, as scientists, learn from theatre?’ this paper argues that science lacks a normative framework that theatre is capable of providing. Despite science’s well-earned epistemic reputation, there is adequate reason to question its ethical reputation, particularly at the point where cutting edge scientific technology impacts society. I consider science as operating in four categories: the scientific method; the scientific hypothesis; the scientific experiment; and the scientist’s personal character. The realms of the scientist’s hypothesis and personal character are those where social pressures are reciprocally exerted, where imaginative play mentality and epistemic values are most in evidence. Theatre can examine these realms effectively because it is able to use narratives that appeal not only to logical and social moral judgements but to emotional and visceral responses, so as to situate science in the social context in which the pressures of law, funding, experimentation, society, and personal ambition converge in ‘the game of life’.

This can be seen in the theatrical process known as ‘contracting with the audience’. I point out a spectrum of traditional narrative tropes by which science makes “contracts with” audiences. The paper draws on theories of entrainment and theatrical game-play from Peter Stromberg and Philippe Gaulier, as well as my own practice and research into the process of contracting with the audience, to propose how to reach beyond tradition and to shift normalising contracts “outside the box”. To illustrate my proposition, I examine the play Seeds by Annabel Soutar as directed by Chris Abraham for Crow’s Theatre and Theatre Porte Parole. Seeds follows the controversial court battles of Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser against agricultural-biotech corporation Monsanto, which sued him for patent infringement of its Genetically Modified Organism Roundup Ready Canola. Seeds helps its audience define a public arena for discourse even as it brings to our attention the factors that make this difficult to do, while making an excellent contribution to the genre of ‘Documentary Theatre’. It is a successful contract with the audience that creates a public forum for discussion about contemporary ethical debates in science, thereby merging artistic ambiguity and scientific theory.     

Shifts in the world science centre:space–time characteristics and disciplinary analysis

Abstract

Based on 4087 data records derived from two chronological tables relating to the history of science and technology, this paper explores geographical and chronological characteristics of shifts in the centre of world scientific activity (‘world science centre’). We then go on to compare the timing of shifts in world discipline centres with shifts in the world science centre, analyse the relationship through time between dominant disciplines in Italy, Britain, France, Germany, and the USA on the one hand and ‘excavation worthy’ disciplines on the other, and attempt to discover an internal mechanism governing shifts in the world science centre related to states of development of individual scientific disciplines.     

Confronting Incel: exploring possible policy responses to misogynistic violent extremism

ABSTRACT

Sexually and socially frustrated ‘Incels’ have committed acts of violent extremism in North America and pose increasing threat to Australia and other industrialised settings. We consider policy responses to a form of misogynist violence that targets men and women indiscriminately. Provocatively, we advocate securitising Incel. We consider how securitisation need not only emerge from supportive framings in the media and public discourse, but can also be an active agent in creating them. We then engage with the appropriate responses. Reviewing the likely successful policy responses indicates the problematic nature of previous securitisation efforts. We argue that the best response is to try to understand and engage the antagonised other prior to radicalisation, and that this can be successfully enacted through ‘routine’ rather than ‘exceptional’ types of governance. However, securitisation remains a necessary first step in unlocking the resources and political will for tackling the threat that Incel poses.     

Authority,Gender and Knowledge: Theoretical Reflections on the Practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal

Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods are increasingly taken up by public sector organizations as well as NGOs among whom they have been pioneered. While PRA methods are successfully employed in a variety of project planning situations, and with increasing sophistication, in some contexts the practice of PRA faces constraints. This article examines the constraints as experienced in the early stages of one project, and suggests some more general issues to which these point. In particular, it is suggested that, as participatory exercises, PRAs involve ‘public’ social events which construct ‘local knowledge’ in ways that are strongly influenced by existing social relationships. It suggests that information for planning is shaped by relations of power and gender, and by the investigators themselves; and that certain kinds of knowledge are often excluded. Finally, the paper suggests that as a method for articulating existing local knowledge, PRA needs to be complemented by other methods of ‘participation’ which generate the changed awareness and new ways of knowing, which are necessary to locally-controlled innovation and change.     

Technology-nonhuman-child assemblages: reconceptualising rural childhood roaming

This paper argues for reconceptualising how children use technology ‘outdoors’ as a technology-nonhuman-child assemblage, or roaming pathway. Founded in contemporary fears about children’s reduced opportunities to access nature and roam in rural environments, in part due to the ubiquitous presence of technology in their lives, we instead illustrate how the agencies of technologies and plants are folded into children’s outdoor roaming. Combining visual methods, video analysis and qualitative geovisualisation, and in collaboration with the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, this paper exposes how assemblages are contingently brought into being through the actions of what technologies, plants and children do together. We demonstrate how the agentic capacities of non-humans and technologies are assembled through children’s imaginative interaction with them, and how these imaginative interactions make such agencies visible.     

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 Batticaloa via Basel to Berlin. Transimperial Science in Ceylon and Beyond around 1900

ABSTRACT

Recent historiographies of ‘Science and Empire’ have successfully critiqued older euro-centric narratives. They highlighted how science was ‘co-produced’ through interactions between knowledgeable European and non-European actors in colonial ‘contact zones’, and how this ‘pidginised knowledge’ circulated through networks across various sites within the British Empire. This article shares and expands this approach. By focussing on continental European scholars in Ceylon around 1900, it argues that scientific networks were never confined to a particular empire. Science among Europeans was, rather, multi-lingual, mostly cross-disciplinary and always transimperial. Applying such an approach to the history of science in late colonial Ceylon allows us to uncover entanglements between historical processes that have for too long remained subject matters of disconnected historiographies: the emergence of Buddhist revivalism, evolutionary theories about human origins, the transformation from ‘liberal race science’ to Nazi eugenics in Germany, and the surfacing of British cultural anthropology.     

‘Nature makes people happy,that’s what it sort of means:’ children’s definitions and perceptions of nature in rural Northwestern Ontario

ABSTRACT

Nature exposure positively impacts children’s physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive health and development. We know less about how children perceive their connection with nature and what nature means to them. This study uses focus groups to understand how rural Canadian children define, experience, and perceive benefits of nature. Using thematic analysis, we identified three primary themes. First, while children associate nature with specific activities, natural elements, and locations, they also conceptualize nature as ‘a whole community.’ Second, children experienced nature through doing, highlighting how activities connected them with nature while recognizing constraints on those engagements. Finally, children demonstrated agency in accessing nature to improve their emotional states. These findings indicate that from children’s views, nature is more than just space with natural elements. Children are also knowledgeable about the health benefits of nature, and capitalize on this knowledge. These findings can inform interventions to increase children’s interactions with outdoor environments.     

Editorial — Industrial Heritage at Risk

Abstract

This article is based on a lecture given in Oxford in 2009 and was first intended as a contribution to the 300th anniversary of the invention of the Newcomen engine in 2012, but has been revised following the attention given to Britain’s industrial transformation in the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games. The discovery and diffusion of new technologies pervades human history, yet ‘industrialisation’ is thought to be an 18th-century phenomenon. This paper will argue that it was the invention of technologies which speeded up the actual process of work itself which led to massive social change, rather than those which resulted in higher levels of production whilst not changing the actual methods of working. It will consider the contribution that industrial archaeologists have made to a greater understanding of the nature of the so-called ‘Industrial Revolution’ as well as considering how this phenomenon was viewed both at home and abroad.     

The Greeks' sense of language and the 1976 linguistic reforms: illusions and disappointments

Abstract

Even the most desired reforms often become soured by doubt and hostile reaction. Since D(imotiki) replaced K(atharevousa) as the ‘official’ language of Greece after the fall of the Colonels' dictatorship, public unease at the ‘state of the language’ has been marked.     

Nudging Bentham: indirect legislation and (neo-)liberal politics

SUMMARY

The debates over Sunstein and Thaler’s Nudge oppose libertarianism and paternalism, or defend the authors’ proposed manipulation of individuals’ ‘choice architectures’ as a consistent system of libertarian paternalism. My essay looks beyond the terms of this debate and revisits Bentham’s ‘Indirect Legislation’ in order to excavate the issues raised by the deployment of technologies of behavioural economics in schemes of government. On the one hand, nudging is nothing other than a mild and carefully considered mode of indirect legislation, and the authors are right to join Bentham in pointing out that the landscape they seek to improve is always with us; we are always already governed and governing others, and we might as well govern and be governed better than we do/are. On the other hand, nudge-like innovations reveal the extent to which Bentham’s insights have been captured by a disciplinary orientation that removes its subjects from political space. Put differently, the issue with this kind of government is not that it interferes with our liberty so much as that it presumes our lack of political orientation and efficacy. Bentham’s liberal subjects inhabit a public and even republican space that Sunstein and Thaler’s neo-liberal subjects have long since abandoned.