Do Politics Have Artefacts?
Zotero / D&S Group / Top-Level Items 2020-01-08
Type
Journal Article
Author
Bernward Joerges
URL
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/030631299029003004
Volume
29
Issue
3
Pages
411-431
Publication
Social Studies of Science
ISSN
0306-3127, 1460-3659
Date
06/1999
Journal Abbr
Soc Stud Sci
DOI
10.1177/030631299029003004
Accessed
2020-01-08 18:19:51
Library Catalog
DOI.org (Crossref)
Language
en
Abstract
In social studies of technology, as in many other scientific disciplines, highly persuasive similes are at work: pious stories, seemingly reaped from research, suggesting certain general theoretical insights. Variously adapted, they are handed down: in the process, they acquire almost doctrinal unassailability. One such parable, which has been retold in technology and urban studies for a long time, is the story of Robert Moses’ low bridges, preventing the poor and the black of New York from gaining access to Long Island resorts and beaches. The story turns out to be counterfactual, but even if a small myth is disenchanted, it serves a purpose: to resituate positions in the old debate about the control of social processes via buildings and other technical artifacts - or, more generally, about material form and social content.