The Utility of Understanding Utilities

Focussed review:

Barnes, J., 2012. Pumping possibility: Agricultural expansion through desert reclamation in Egypt.

Social Studies of Science [online], 42(4), 517-538.

Barnes' article investigates the role of pumps in Egypt, and their capacity to provide and deprive access to water from the Nile for land reclamation. The article refers to Marianne de Laet and Annemarie Mol's (2000) research on the Zimbabwean bush pump, and shares with it the water pump as a focus of study, and the employment of actor-network theory (ANT) as a material-semiotic approach which maps both human and non-human actors onto heterogeneous networks. However, while de Laet and Mol openly found the bush pump "easy to love" (p.252) due to its inherent fluidity in building community relations in Zimbabwe, both at the local and national level, Barnes takes a more critical stance, revealing that the pump often "excludes rather than includes, deprives rather than supplies, divides rather than unites" (Barnes 2012, p.534). Barnes suggests that the difference in their findings may be partly due her decision to situate the artifact in its material surroundings. While Laet and Mol bring to light the bush pump's fluidity by innovatively including it as an actor, they fail to include the fluid critical to the pump's success: water. By focussing on the way the pumps interact with water, Barnes is able to bring to light their connection to other pumps, other sources of water, and their consequent entanglement into a vast, heterogeneous network involving multiple actors, both human and non-human, spanning not just the immediate environment but the level of national and international politics.

Based on Barnes' own 16 month ethnographic research culminating in two case studies, the article paints a vivid and detailed picture of the material and social geography. The reader is invited to travel back in time to join Barnes as she takes account of the farms and villages, the incline of the desert from the cultivated banks of the river, the quality of the soil, the state controlled network of irrigation canals feeding off the Nile, the more-or-less unofficial pumps feeding off those canals as well as functional descriptions of the different pumps involved. We meet powerful investors, angry smallholders, graduate farmers and ministry officials. Even former President Mubarak and the revolution that led to his resignation has a part to play. In the concluding sentence, and many times throughout the paper, Barnes finds that "the pumps that make desert reclamation possible in Egypt are fracturing community, generating new points of tension, resistance, and inequality".

Therein lies the paper's most obvious vulnerability. In following ANT's method the research has left itself open to the same criticisms that are directed towards ANT, primarily attacking the notion that non-humans, in this case water pumps, exercise agency. For this shortcoming Barnes' work pays in a number of ways. Firstly, critics argue that the idea is simply "absurd" (Amsterdamska 1990, p.501) on the intuitive basis that non-rational technologies can not be held responsible for splintering communities. Secondly, by removing the distinction between human and object and representing social relations as horizontal heterogeneous networks, it is "less well equipped for pursuing a critical account of organizations, that is, one which recognises the unfolding nature of reality" (Whittle and Spicer 2008, p.612) and as a consequence investigations become overly descriptive but lack sociological scrutiny. Barnes has included many factors in her examination of uneven water distribution while stressing the role of the pump, however discussion of more traditional points of power imbalance, such as class and gender, are either notably sparse or are entirely absent. Moreover, in pursuit of an evermore inventive focus of inquiry, examining not only the pump but "the material interactions between a technology, such as a pump, and its surroundings", Barnes has further distanced from her analysis the role of social forces.

One way to avoid some of these problems would be to employ the methodology espoused by theorists such as Pinch and Bijker (1984) under the name Social Construction of Technology (SCOT). This approach, as the name suggests, "points to technology as being through and through social" (Pinch 1996, p.22). The methodology involves identifying relevant social groups and demonstrating interpretive flexibility which would correct the lean towards technological determinism (Pinch and Bijker 1984).

Another alternative would use Giddens' (1999) notion of "manufactured risk... risk created by the very progression of human development, especially by the progression of science and technology" (p.4). As water access along the Nile is increasingly determined by technology and politics, the risk of low quantity or poor quality water may be characterised less by external causes such as fate, god or nature and more by causes internal to society such as political decisions or irresponsible science.

However, supporters of ANT argue that these apparent weaknesses are actually their greatest strengths. In treating humans and non-humans symmetrically, Barnes is following the theoretical approach of viewing society and nature as "coproduced" (Latour 1992, p.287). The empirical benefit of this is to avoid foreclosing potentially sociologically relevant factors. Latour justifies the ascription of agency to artifacts with reference to the NRA slogan, 'guns don't kill people, people kill people'. For Latour, both people and guns have the potential for various functions which combine, along with many more besides, to effect action (Latour 1999, p.176). Similarly, it is only through a combination of the pumps, the water, the farmers, investors and everything else Barnes diligently identifies and examines that water is moved and land flourishes for some and dries up for others and communities are either strengthened or fractured. Another consequence of Barnes' approach is to identify the utility of exploring the material context of an artifact. This line of inquiry may prove to be crucial in coming years due to the increasing threat on global water supplies. According to the UN World Water Development Report (WWAP 2012) the pressure on water supplies from urbanisation, climate change and a rising demand for food creates a complex situation which may require new forms of analysis that focus on interactions with water. In the article under review Barnes provides an excellent example of what this might look like.

Bibliography

Amsterdamska, O., 1990. Surely you are joking, Monsieur Latour! Science, Technology, & Human

Values [online],15(4), 495-504.

Barnes, J., 2012. Pumping possibility: Agricultural expansion through desert reclamation in Egypt.

Social Studies of Science [online], 42(4), 517-538.

Bijker, W. E. and Pinch, T. J., 1984. The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other. Social Studies of Science [online], 14(3), 399-441.

Giddens, A., 1999. Risk and Responsibility. The Modern Law Review [online], 62(1), 1-10.

de Laet, M. and Mol, A., 2000. The Zimbabwean Bush Pump. Social Studies of Science [online], 30(2), 225-263.

Latour, B., 1992. 'One more turn after the social turn…’. In: McMullin, E., ed. The Social

Dimension of Science. Notre Dame: Indiana University of Notre Dame Press, 272-294.

Latour, B., 1999. Pandora's Hope. Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA; London, UK: Harvard University Press

Pinch, T., 1996. The social construction of technology: A review. In: Fox, R., ed. Technological change: Methods and themes in the history of technology. Australia: Harwood Academic Publishers, 17-35.

Spicer, A. and Whittle, A., 2008. Is actor-network theory critical? Organization Studies [online], 29(4), 611-629.

World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), 2012. UN World Water Development Report 4th Edition [online] accessed at [http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/water/wwap/wwdr/wwdr4-2012/] on 26/2/2014.

The Politics of Space Exploration

Remember, remember the 5th of November! This year the most memorable rocket to be fired was The Mars Orbiter Mission which was launched from the east coast of India. While the success of the launch was widely celebrated by the Indian media as an event that would fuel "the ambition of a nation, and the imagination of many others", it is also seen by some as evidence of a stark injustice present in a country where 32.7% of the population live below the poverty line. "Incredible India: we can go to Mars but cannot provide clean water to our people on Earth", tweeted Tavleen Singh, a writer for the Indian Express.

Complaints like these echo those made in the late 1960s when NASA launched Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon. 'The moon and the ghetto problem' refers to the concern felt by many that 'great leaps' were being made in aeronautics while the issue of inner-city poverty was being neglected. Such frustrations prompted The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, considered to be the successor to the recently martyred Martin Luther King, to lead a protest march to the site of the launch, objecting that the effort put towards the Moon Landing ought instead be spent on social programs. Similarly, musician Gil Scott-Heron was moved to record the song Whitey on the Moon regarding the disparity between America's scientific successes and its social failings: "No hot water, no toilets, no lights. (but Whitey's on the moon)". More broadly, this concern highlights the question of how, or if, science can be made to work towards the public benefit.

One may argue that the technological advances such as those made in space flight are responsible for the production of more socially beneficial technologies. According to NASA, its own space exploration has resulted in the development of 1750 'spin-offs' for the betterment of life in the terrestrial domains of health and medicine, consumer goods, transportation, renewable energy, and manufacturing. Likewise, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), recently used its expertise in weather satellites to provide direct assistance through its Disaster Management Support programme during last month's coastal cyclone.

In broader terms however, faith in the power of science and technology to improve social conditions as a by-product may be undeserved when one considers the global inequality that has provided an enduring backdrop to technological advance. This has forced others, such as Alvin M. Weinberg to question whether science and technology can be used deliberately to produce social gains. Although Weinberg admits that social problems do not easily yield to technological engineering he asserts that in certain situations quick technological fixes are desirable in order to buy us more time in approaching the issue using social methods. Writing in 1966, in anticipation of the Apollo mission he suggests that

"our country will soon have to decide whether to continue to spend $5.5 x 10⁹ per year for space exploration after our lunar landing. Is it too outrageous to suggest that some of this money be devoted to building huge nuclear desalting complexes...?"

Perhaps not. Daniel Sarewitz and Richard Nelson provide 3 rules which aim to determine whether a technological fix will be a success or failure. They are as follows:

1. The technology must largely embody the cause–effect relationship connecting problem to solution.
2. The effects of the technological fix must be assessable using relatively unambiguous or uncontroversial criteria.
3. Research and development is most likely to contribute decisively to solving a social problem when it focuses on improving a standardized technical core that already exists.

Technologies which fail to fit this bill should not be expected to succeed, at least in the short to medium term. Instead, advances will mostly be achieved through context-dependent trial-and-error at the level of public policy and organizational management.

With regards to nuclear desalination, the technology has long been established in different conditions and within different nations, which would point towards a context-independent stable core, and it has an easily identifiable effect. However, as Sarewitz and Nelson are keen to point out, "technological fixes do not offer a path to moral absolution, but to technical resolution". Furthermore, unintended consequences found in technological application such as the beneficial 'spin-offs' provided by space exploration also surface in the guise of unwelcome risks and uncertainties.

However, to frame the debate in the terms of Weinberg and the critics of the past, and more recent, space endeavours may be a political act in itself. As Leigh Philips writes in Put Whitey Back on the Moon, "It’s a false choice to say: either space or everything else". To suggest this is to apply neo-liberal metrics based on the myth of extremely limited public funds and the need for immediate return on investment.

When analysing the interplay of science and society, it is important to recognise that politics and ideology are inherent in our own explorations.

Manufacturing the Future

Manufacturing the Future

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, refers to the process of making solid objects from a digital blueprint by applying the material in successive layers, and is believed to herald the dawning of a second or even third industrial revolution (depending on how you count industrial revolutions). Some commentators such as Foxconn founder, Terry Gou, don't believe the hype, downgrading the technology to nothing more than a gimmick. Whether 3D printing will represent a major chapter in the history of technological advance or a mere footnote is impossible to tell at this stage, but it is nevertheless crucial to anticipate how well it might suit society.

Helpfully, Kevin Kelly provides us with some ideas of what to look for in a technology in order to gauge what he calls 'conviviality'. He lists:

• Cooperation
• Transparency
• Decentralization
• Efficiency
• Flexibility
• Redundancy

At first it would appear that 3D printing scores highly against Kelly's criteria for a number of reasons. Firstly, its popularity among hacker and maker communities has led to a surge of 3D printers based on open source plans, with a large number of collaborators volunteering their computer and manufacturing expertise to invent and release products. RepRap is a notable project of this type. For this reason it might be said to support cooperation, transparency, decentralisation and flexibility.

Secondly, this initiative has pushed down prices so low that an entry level printer has recently been released for as little as $199. Low cost is another factor by which it may promote decentralisation.

Thirdly, 3D printers make products more customizable, as alterations no longer mean retooling, only reviewing the blueprint. The ability of 3D printers to produce customizable goods means that they are useful tools for collaborative forms of manufacturing. Firms such as Quirky and Shapeways invite users to submit ideas for prototypes and collaborate towards their final design, packaging, marketing and price. This feature of printing might foster cooperation and flexibility, but it has an even greater potential for decentralisation. Eliminating the advantage of economies of scale, it may become more cost efficient to produce some goods locally, cutting out the dependency on large, centralised factories. Ultimately, this might shift the imbalance of disproportionate production in Asian economies. Furthermore, if production is located closer to the site of consumption, this will promote efficiency, as parts and final products will not have to be shipped across land and sea, reducing transport, fuel and carbon costs

Finally, as 3D printing can manufacture complex objects in one step, it offers the potential to improve efficiency by cutting waste to near zero levels. The AMAZE Project, aspires to use this benefit to produce parts for planes, spacecraft and even nuclear fusion reactors with minimal wastage of raw materials.

For these reasons, the future relationship between 3D printing and society looks positive. Though there are other reasons why this may not be the case. It is too early to predict whether 3D printing will encourage redundancy of alternatives. If it becomes popular, more energy efficient, and able to work with a wider range of materials, it may spell the end for some traditional manufacturing jobs, but it may also create new ones. I have indicated the flexibility of 3D printing above with regards to its background in open source production and its ability to produce customisable goods. But how flexible will users be to freely abandon the technology if they become dependent on it? We may exploit the potential of near zero waste manufacturing and promote efficiency but we might also produce a mass of useless plastic objects which will quickly be binned.

There are shortcomings to Kelly's check-list; what appears to be a 'convivial' characteristic might produce undesirable effects. The decentralisation, flexibility and transparency of 3D printers have meant that people have been able to create products such as guns and ATM skimmers. A second order effect of these developments may be a strengthening of security and surveillance. Concerns also arise with regards to patenting and copyrights. Large manufacturing firms will not appreciate individuals or other companies cloning their products, and just as copyright law has influenced how we listen to music and watch movies, the legal system may determine how we use 3D printers. 3D printers may lean towards decentralisation and transparency but society may swing the opposite way in response. This raises the issue of how the public might govern a technology which, due to its decentralised nature, does not naturally yield to regulation.

If we know one thing it is that the future of 3D printing is uncertain. As with any widely used technology, as indeed with any human activity, it will offer opportunities which we must be open to, and risks which we must be mindful of. These will be unavoidable, unpredictable and subjective. We must be critical not just of the technology, but also of the way we use and respond to it.

Regulation of Cigarettes and Addiction to Control

This week MEPs voted for stricter controls on how cigarettes are sold. If the legislation is enacted, cigarettes will no longer be sold in packets of fewer than 20, 65% of the packaging must be covered in health warnings and added flavours will be banned. This is the latest effort in a lengthy campaign to rid the world of cigarettes which the Germans began in the 30s, following the 1929 establishment of a link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer. Lung cancer, and other diseases that have since been connected to cigarettes, continue to rank high in the leading causes of mortality. Nearly 700,000 Europeans die from smoking-related illnesses each year and the costs for health care in the EU are estimated to be at least £20.6 billion annually, so it is easy to understand why people would want to remove, or at least curb, the use of this technology.

However, this has been a slow and difficult task due to the popularity of cigarettes, their addictive nature and the power of tobacco companies. Compared with other risks, however, the ones posed by cigarettes are easy to control, as Beck illustrates. To begin with, the cost of regulation is relatively cheap. Environmental risks, in comparison, are potentially devastating but the price to solve the problem is often too great to warrant action. Secondly, the reach of other risks are global, and as such, difficult to tackle without international co-operation. Thirdly, cigarettes are not as integrated into our lives as mobile phones for instance. We might find these a lot more difficult to regulate if they are found to pose serious health risks. Finally, the health threats caused by cigarettes are indisputable, even by pro-tobacco lobbyists. Sometimes, experts disagree with other experts on matters of grave importance. A no-win situation may be presented to the minister tasked with enforcing regulation when the jury is hung as to whether a risk exists at all. They may declare a risk so that the public is saved from the hazard. But, if the risk is later found to be baseless, the minister could be accused of scaremongering. On the other hand, if the minister, supported by the opposing camp of scientists, reassures the public that the risk is negligible and things turn out otherwise, not only do they face the consequence of the hazard, they may also be accused of a cover-up.

 

                                    

The regulation of cigarettes is a good illustration of notions of technological risk, choice and control, ideas introduced by writers such as Anthony Giddens. Advances in science and technology have given us an unprecedented abundance of choice, without which, according to Giddens, we would not feel the effects of risk quite so painfully. Due to liberation from traditional pathways we are confronted by choice from the moment we wake up. Should you eat bacon and eggs for breakfast or muesli and yoghurt? Should you drive or take the train? Should you work in an office or a factory? Should you light a cigarette or abstain? Unfortunately, you now know that these choices are laden with risk, and without God, the devil or sin or any other external source to which you may attribute blame for the evils of the world, the weight of the decision lies firmly on your shoulders. This is a process Ulrich Beck calls individualization which heightens our sense of risk. Smoking cigarettes is now a risky business, not for the dangers it entails, which remain the same, but for the way its dangers are perceived.

                                     

According to Giddens, our sense of risk is "bound up with the aspiration to control and particularly with the idea of controlling the future" which further compounds our sense of risk by creating material man-made dangers. The paradox is that we often turn to technology, further control, to save us from these dangers, which in turn creates its own risks. For instance, while nuclear power reduces the risk of producing carbon emissions and using unsustainable resources through burning fossil fuels, its own risks have been powerfully demonstrated by events such as the Chernobyl disaster (1986), the Three Mile Island accident (1979) and the more recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (2011). We have become trapped in a self-reflexive loop where the control of one risk results in the generation of a new one.

While the regulation of cigarettes may seem benign in comparison, it is a solution to a technological problem which may bring about its own set of risks such as infringement of liberty for smokers, an increase in cigarettes on the black market, loss of tax revenue to the government and an increase in pension expenditure as the population ages. From this perspective, the desire to regulate cigarettes is itself borne out of a dangerous cultural addiction to control. Is there a solution to this? Or are we caught in an inescapable paradox where any attempt to fix our situation exacerbates it?