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Truthful lies

Truthful lies. Dr. Linda Hitchin University of Lincoln. Background. Research interest human-technology relations Focus – agency in STS Method deep field ethnography Key interest Social life as mundane, ambiguous and unequal Partial connections [Strathern ] Multiple ontologies [Mol ]

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Truthful lies

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  1. Truthful lies Dr. Linda Hitchin University of Lincoln

  2. Background • Research interest human-technology relations • Focus – agency in STS • Method deep field ethnography • Key interest • Social life as mundane, ambiguous and unequal • Partial connections [Strathern ] • Multiple ontologies [Mol ] • Material performativity [Latour and Law] • Connection to TPP – • Research objects won’t stay in one place! Technologies, Publics and Power

  3. Research questions • What is agency when ‘living-in-tension’? • Two related ethnographies are relevant here • Show and tell! • The first was undertaken late 1990’s and the second began in 2002 • Open now with a vignette from the earlier work LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  4. Science in practice • Conference in January 1998 • University of Wessex • Hosted by Artificial Intelligence Research Unit • Prestigious international group • Convened by Professor Tim Dextor • Lead scientist on the Hyperbrain Project • Conflict, risk to the public and loss of control • First hint…. When Prof Claudia Rowe (Biology, Wessex) has her paper ‘dumped’ at the last minute LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  5. Science is… • Multiple, mobile and light • The meaning of the dropped paper • Claudia knows • buzz • funding • network • kudos • legitamacy … her research is quite suddenly exposed as elsewhere LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  6. Science is… • Multiple, mobile and light • The meaning of the dropped paper • The coordinator of international cooperation knows • Collaborative • Competitive • Disordered - slow to connect • Special LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  7. Science is … • Multiple, mobile and light • The meaning of the dropped paper • Tim knows • Collaborative • Competitive • Vulnerable • Regulated LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  8. The crunch • The international research coordinator is a power crazed loon: “You are all scientist. You all have curiosity about the world you live in. That is good. Without it there would be no progress. Professor Dexter has told you of his work on Hyperbrain. This is a huge breakthrough, a landmark in history” {pause for effect}. Now all human knowledge can be gathered in one place … and, eventually, in the hands of one person … But what of … ordinary people … the great mass of human beings…? What of them? They know too little – and too much. A little learning is a dangerous thing. {Murmurings throughout the hall} Curiosity is the Curse of the Human Brain. { cries of “rubbish” and “no!”} LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  9. Fiction, fact and political description • Fantasists, whether they use the ancient archetypes of myth and legend or the younger ones of science and technology, may be talking as seriously as any sociologist - and a good deal more directly - about human life as lived. ... [Le Guin 1989: 48] • Fiction’s kinship to facts is close, but they are not identical twins. Facts are opposed to opinion, to prejudice, but not to fiction. Both fiction and fact are rooted in an epistemology that appeals to experience… A fact seems done, unchangeable, fit only to be recorded; fiction seems always inventive, open to other possibilities, other fashionings of life [Haraway 1989: 4] LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  10. Kinship: politics of lying • Genre questions • Problematising truth or using truthful lies • Fiction and social imagination • Ringing true • Using ambiguity • Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying. [Le Guin 1989: 131] LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  11. Fieldwork authors • Strong, political and active • Critical practice – to reveal the hidden • Critical tool – social imagination • Example – Helen and the social realists • Commitment • Subversive • Crucial factor – transgression … boundary work LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  12. Slippery practice • Drama focuses attention on the edges • Example: • Character interaction in The Demon Headmaster • Time Dexter’s science: • Loving father • Vague genius • Morally strong • Vulnerable • Explorer LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

  13. Character, action and agency • Character: paradigm of traits • Problem – closest we come is in monolithic terms such as ‘hybrid’ or heterogeneous or in psychoanalytic approaches • 1. Allows us to continually reveal the problem across sites but not much help in thinking it • 2. Carries strong traces of Freudian realism…a risky approach • Authorly approaches to character LMH:Technologies, Publics and Power

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