Anth 374 Final Project
One of the key concepts in the anthropological study of science and technology is the power and influence that language and discourse can have. This picture showcases a sperm cell portrayed as a hero while an egg seems like a damsel in distress. There are many analogies and language choices that can influence people to think a certain way. In “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male Female Roles”, Emily Martin talks about how a sperm cell is often compared to a key and an egg is compared to a lock. This analogy makes it clear that one is acting upon another as if the other was an object. These analogies and metaphors create for an inherent bias to perceive the male sperm cell as a dominant one and the female egg cell as an inferior cell. This language can actually be quite powerful as this is commonly taught across schools which can start to sway people’s beliefs on gender equality. This same concept can also be applied to people who are seen as hackers. In “Hacker Practice”, Coleman and Golub discuss how there is this image of hackers being unhealthy young men who are doing mischief or visionaries who are trying to bring about some sort of disruption. The article talks more about how there are different type of people who engage in hacking and computer science related activities while not sharing characteristics with the typical stereotype. This can lead to people not wanting to pursue tech related career paths as there might be a certain social stereotype as to who normally does those roles. Language can be used as a tool to help influence people in a positive manner but it can also be easily manipulated into influencing people in a worse way.
Another key concept in the anthropological study of science and technology is the idea of creating legitimacy or authenticity through interactions. This picture showcases a person who is graciously accepting some drops of water from someone who actually has a lot of water. The person with a lot of water has created legitimacy and is allowed to safely give up only a little bit of his water. People usually are more open minded and willing to trust others if they can develop authenticity. This can especially be seen in online dating culture. In “Dressing up Tinderella: interrogating authenticity claims on the mobile dating app Tinder”, Stephanie Duguay states that one of the big reasons Tinder was able to gain so much traction was due to their link with Facebook. People are willing to trust a Facebook profile as they are comfortable with that and have seen that before. They are then able to validate that this person is a real person and they are more willing to potentially interact with that person. This is an example of successful legitimacy or authenticity. In “ ‘Your DNA Is Our History’ Genomics, Anthropology, and the Construction of Whiteness as Property”, Tallbear and Reardon open up the article by showing how a population geneticist and an Aboriginal painter are not able to come to an agreement. This is because the painter does not trust the geneticist even though the geneticist wants to use science and facts. The geneticist has seen the power of science and technology especially in terms of dating the origins of groups of people. The Aboriginal painter fails to see this legitimacy which is why he doesn’t want to engage in potentially helping the geneticist. This leads to people thinking different things about origin. Without legitimacy or authenticity, it becomes very hard for someone to establish trust or influence in any capacity. People need to feel like they can see someone for who they really are and trust them in order to possibly open up their minds to potentially be influenced.
The way humans perceive time is another important concept when it comes to taking an anthropological approach to studying science and technology. In “Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism”, Judy Wajcman talks about how technology can seem to help us increase productivity and decrease the amount of time we take to finish certain tasks. This might seem like it is giving us more time but this actually leads to most people believing that they are always on a time crunch. It creates an unrealistic and falsified way to look at time which makes us feel as if we are wasting time. The image showcases a clock that is slowly disappearing and this is the way people feel about how people always wish they had more time. In “Authorizing Knowledge in Science and Anthropology”, Fujimara talks about how various theories of time are used to analyze time through various practices and instruments. He also writes about how Einstein viewed time as a creation of the instruments we use to represent time. Time is something that humans can view differently as the way we currently measure time doesn’t account for all of its characteristics. Some people feel that certain moments go slower than other moments due to this perception of time that we have. In today’s world we have a fixation with trying to be efficient which has actually led us to feel that we never have enough time even after all the optimizations.
Laughter and humor is something that we haven’t covered in this anthropological study of science and technology. In “The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor”, John Morreall discusses how humor can be used as a way of building solidarity. He also talks about the relief theory which is basically the idea that laughter is a release of pent up nervous energy. In today’s world we have people of different social statuses interacting together all the time. Since this is happening, people are often times not being themselves in order to showcase respect for someone who is superior to them. A great way to break this barrier and bring people to an equal social status is by laughing at something similar. This can be seen in this image as children are often expected to behavior a certain way out of respect for their parents. The parents assume a authoritarian role in which they have to teach their kids how to act constantly. This moment of mutual laughter can allow them to bond with one another and humanize the parents in a way that lets the kids connect with them. This dynamic also occurs in the workplace as many people are scared to make jokes to people who are higher on the hierarchy. When a joke is made and there is mutual laughter, this can allow for people to connect with one another regardless of their social status.
Academic Study : “The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor” by John Morreall
