Structure, Structure, Structure

Calling all historians of technology (or sympathizers) in the Penn community. Have you ever had a sense of unease with some aspects of the Social Construction of Technology approach but weren't sure quite how to articulate your misgivings? Or you didn't want to be confused with a reactionary? (Okay, so maybe SCOT isn't the newest thing in history of technology or STS, but I think it still occupies a somewhat canonical position.) I just came across an article that, to my mind, sums up the limitations of social constructivism as it has been practiced and points out directions it needs to expand and change in order to retain its vibrancy.

To those of who have had the (is it tired?) old structure vs. agency debate with me, or the related debate over actors' vs. analysts' categories, this will all seem pretty familiar. But if you want a nice lucid account of how structure has been neglected in SCOT, why structure is vital and important (the return of power, once again!), and why non-actors' categories are essential, see Hans K. Klein & Daniel Lee Kleinman, "The Social Construction of Technology: Structural Considerations," Science, Technology, and Human Values 27 (2002): 28-52.

In my opinion, these arguments apply equally well to agency-centered, actors-category-only accounts in history more generally, including the history of science and medicine. It is also the same basic set of reasons that explain why I am uncomfortable with the Actor-Network approach in science studies, the whole notion of "co-construction" as supposedly obliterating distinctions between science and society, and so forth. I would highly recommend this article as a reading for history of technology orals lists that include sections on SCOT, as perhaps the best single source analysis of its limitations, not from a conservative or technological determinist point of view but from an emancipatory point of view that seeks to understand the larger social relevance of science.