BRay - Gender and Technology

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Gender and Technology

Francesca Bray

Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9LL,United Kingdom; email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2007. 36:3753

First published online as a Review in Advance onApril 18, 2007

TheAnnual Review of Anthropologyis online atanthro.annualreviews.org

This articles doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.36.081406.094328

Copyright c2007 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

0084-6570/07/1021-0037$20.00

Key Words

coproduction, domestication, skills, technoscience, globalization

Abstract

The praxis-oriented interdisciplinary field of feminist technolo

studies (FTS) has done most among the social sciences to build abrant and coherent school of gender and technology studies. Givtheir shared commitment to exploring emergent forms of pow

in the contemporary world, there is surprisingly little dialogue btween FTS and mainstream cultural anthropology. This review b

gins by outlining FTS and its concepts and methods. I then tuto the anthropology of technology, which also offers useful conc

tual frameworks and methods for exploring gender regimes. Thto highlight the ideological and methodological contrasts betwesocial and cultural analyses of technology and the implications

gender analysis, I discuss the treatment of technology in two leaing theoretical fields in the cultural anthropology of modernity aglobalization: the anthropology of technoscience, and material c

ture studies. I conclude by asking which forms of engagement migbe envisaged between the fields.

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methods it has developed for relating gender

and technology. I then turn to the anthro-pology of technology, which does not high-light gender to the same degree but never-

theless offers useful conceptual frameworksand methods for exploring gender regimes.

Gender-technology relations also feature inthe anthropology of work, labor, and develop-ment, but unfortunately space precludes dis-

cussing them here (see Freeman 2001, Ortiz2002, Mills 2003). Rather, to highlight the

ideological and methodological contrasts be-tween social and cultural analyses of technol-ogy and the implications for gender analysis,

I discuss the treatment of technology in twoleading theoretical fields in the cultural an-

thropology of modernity and globalization:

the anthropology of technoscience, and mate-rial culture studies. I conclude by asking what

forms of engagement might be envisaged be-tween the fields.

FEMINIST TECHNOLOGYSTUDIES: THECOPRODUCTION OF

TECHNOLOGY AND GENDER

Feminist technology studies has developed in

dialogue with the history and sociology oftechnology, disciplines in which feminist cri-tiques have played a central part in overturn-

ing grand narratives and developing new an-alytical models (Lerman et al. 1997, Faulkner2001, Wajcman 2004). Feminist sociologists

and historians based in the Netherlands, theUnited Kingdom, and Australia, and a net-

work of Norwegian scholars that includes so-cial anthropologists, have played a prominentrole in developing the field.

Arguing that in the modern world an effec-tive engagement with technology is essential

to feminist praxis, FTS strives to develop thetheoretical and methodological tools to an-alyze technology and gender simultaneously

in equal depth (Lohan 2000, Faulkner 2001).Unlike much other feminist research on tech-

nology, which tends to treat technological ar-tifacts as ready-mades, FTS looks to the pro-

duction of technology as a point of politicalleverage.

One influential narrative of modernity,a standard view (Pfaffenberger 1992) still

in common currency today, designates sci-ence as the purest and most powerful form

of knowledge, the driving force of moder-nity; technology is essentially the applica-tion of science to practical problems. Tech-

nology studies long ago rejected this model,insisting that technology must be studied inits own right as a distinctive practice; in the

1980s science studies also came to acknowl-edge the critical role of technology and its

epistemologies in shaping the production ofscientific knowledge. Despite exploring thepolitical, cultural, and even cosmological di-

mensions of technical projects, technologystudies long remained gender-blind, focusing

on modern industrial and military technolo-giesandreflectingthesocialrealitiesoftheen-gineering and business worlds in foreground-

ing Man the Machine-Maker (Staudenmaier1985).

In the 1970s radical feminists and eco-feminists initiated a critique of the inher-ently patriarchal nature of technology, and of

technoscience more generally. Here the per-

ils of essentialization surfaced: Somefeministscondemned all technology as intrinsically op-pressiveof women; others perpetuated stereo-types of women as inherently nurturing. So-

cialist feminists generally tried to be morecontextual in their work, pushing Marxist

analysisbeyondclasstoaskwhyandhowmod-ern Western technology had become a maledomain; to address the gendering impact of

modern divisions of labor and of the assig-nation of women to the domestic sphere; to

expand the spectrum of significant technolo-gies to include refrigerators as well as spaceprobes and suspension bridges; and to explore

the reproductive and ethical as well as theproductive effects of labor organization or of

technological design (Oakley 1974, Cockburn1983, Corea et al. 1985, Kramarae et al. 1988,Wajcman 1991). Cowans landmark study of

household technologies (1983) undermined

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sociotechnicalsystem: thedistinctivetechnological activity

that stems from thelinkage of techniquesand material cultureto the socialcoordination of labor

script: material/sociotechnical effectsbuilt into the designof technologicalartifacts

consumptionjunction: the placeand time at which

the consumer makeschoices betweencompetingtechnologies

interpretiveflexibility: divergentinterpretations ofform, use, ormeaning of an objector of its users

the common belief that technology makes

our lives easier, showing how mechanizationserved to raise cultural standards of cleanli-ness rather than freeing women from domes-

tic drudgery. Through interrogating conceptssuch as technological efficiency and signifi-

cance (Stanley 1993), FTS has broadened thescope of technology studies to include such as-semblages as the brassiere, the closet, and the

white collar (McGaw 1996). Feminist studiesof the engineering profession charted the in-

stitutional, social, and cultural barriers againstwomen (Arnold & Faulkner 1985, Cockburn1985, Bucciarelli 1994). The FTS agenda was

both intellectual and political: While under-mining gender stereotypes and masculinist ac-

counts of modernity, the ultimate goal of fem-

inist technology studies was, and remains, thetranslation of scholarship into feminist praxis

(Faulkner 2001, Wajcman 2004). FTS fol-lows the technology studies agenda in study-

ing technology as a distinctive domain, butlike feminist science studies (Harding 1986)it interrogates its gendering at every level

(Cockburn & Ormrod 1993).In the late 1980s constructivist approaches

emerged in technology studies that shiftedtheoretical and empirical attention from en-

gineers decisions to the complex social ne-gotiations and contestations, the heterogene-ity of expertise, of interest groups, and ofmaterial or institutional networks involved

in technological innovation and in the sta-bilization or redesigning of artifacts (Bijker

et al. 1987). The concept of sociotechnicalsystems reflected the principle that the so-cial and the technological are inseparable, a

seamlessweb(Hughes1986).Marxistschol-ars unmasked the politics embodied or en-

coded in the design of technological arti-facts (Winner 1986, Feenberg 1999). Actornetwork theorists proposed treating artifacts

as having agency: These nonhuman actorsmay resist enrollment into our technolog-

ical projects; furthermore we may delegateto nonhuman actors moral as well as mate-rial roles, inscripted into their design (Akrich

1992, Latour 1992).

A core interest of constructivist studiestechnology is how artifacts (mass-produc

bicycles, electrical supply systems) comebe as they are (Hughes 1983, Pinch & Bijk

1987). This approach initially tended to kethe focus of analysis upstream, looking

the processes of conceptualization and tmarshalling of resources that go into dsign, production, and marketing. As fem

nist critics noted, in modern industrial soeties an upstream focus may exclude womeHowever, the artifact itself, or its represen

tion through instruction manuals, advertiments, marketing, or the media, can often

shown to incorporate configurations of tuser, including gender scripts, for instanshavermodels that inscript male desires to t

ker versus female preferences for simplic(van Oost 2003) or cars marketed to men

powerful, to women as reliable (Hubak 199FTS scholar Cowan first brought atte

tion to the importance of the consumer

determining the success or failure of tecnologies. She defined the consumption jun

tion as the place and time at which tconsumer makes choices between competitechnologies(1987,p. 263). Onceconsum

(or rather users), like producers, were treat

as rational actors embedded in complex sciotechnical and cultural systems, it becameasier to explain their decisions to adopt orrefuse a technology, as well as the degrees

interpretive flexibility to which they migsubject it (Parr 1999, Lgran 2003a).

This shift of attentiondownstream,to cosumers, mirrored a broader trend in socand cultural analysis toward studying co

sumption as the principle site for the prduction of meaning and the reproduction

power relations in modern societies. In tecnology studies, however, the role of consumis more complex, interesting, and power

than is usually the case in cultural studiIn technology studies consumers are users

refusers), engaging activelysometimes poitively, sometimes negativelywith the phyical as well as the symbolic dimensions of t

artifact (Oudshoorn & Pinch 2003).

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New technologies are often threatening

and unfamiliar. To be incorporated into ourlives they must be successfully domesticated(Srensen & Berg 1991, Silverstone & Hirsch

1992, Lie & Srensen 1996). At one level welearn to adapt to the technologies, acquiring

and communicating technical skills and de-veloping uses and meaningsincluding gen-dered subjectivitieswithin communities of

practice (Wenger 1998, Mellstrom 2004,Paechter 2006). Equally importantis thefeed-

back upstream of intended and unintendeduses. So-called user-centered design is nowroutine in many industries (Oudshoorn et al.

2004), and the choices and subjectivities ofnonusers are becoming just as important to

industry (and to social scientists) as those of

users (Kline 2003, Wyatt 2003).In theintroduction to thesecond edition of

their influential collection on the social shap-ing of technology, Mackenzie & Wajcman

urge researchers to continue to examine thespecific ways in which this shaping takesplace. . .[for] if the idea of the social shaping of

technology has intellectual or political merit,this lies in the details (1999, p. xvi). But how

might case studies best be connected to castlighton broader politicalconfigurations? FTS

does not share the current obsession of an-glophone anthropology with theorizing glob-alization. Rather, it proposes the concept ofintegration as an approach to processes of in-

terpenetration and patterns of homogeniza-tion or heterogeneity within a community,

nation, region, or global network. On onelevel, technological integration hinges on theeffective interconnection of technical hard-

ware and expertise; on another level, it is apolitical, social, and cultural process (Arnold

2005, Misa & Schot 2005). Although usersremain a key focus in FTS, one recent in-tegrative approach, the mediation junction

(Oldenziel et al. 2005), locates stakeholderinteractions, coalitions, and contestations

within overarching contexts of regulation orpolicy, and of state, market, and civil society(see also Oudshoorn & Pinch 2003, pp. 101

90). Oldenziel et al. highlight the importance

hegemonicmasculinity:embodies thecurrently accepted

answer to theproblem of thelegitimacy ofpatriarchy

of consumer organizations in the postwar in-

corporation of American-style kitchens intoEuropean homes, consumption styles, and so-cial valuesand also into safety regulations,

systems of energy supply, and brand rank-ings. Other studies compare patient activism

aroundcancertesting in theUnitedStates andthe United Kingdom (Parthasarathy 2003)or the impact on regulatory policy of global

coalitions supporting or contesting geneti-cally modified crops (Bray 2003).

Another prominent concern in currentFTS is the exploration of femininities andmasculinities, their performance through

technology, and issues of practice, skill, andembodiment, including emotions, pleasure,

sexuality, and eroticism (Law 1998, Law &

Singleton 2000). Together with Butlers anal-ysis of gender as performance, Connells

(1995) concept of hegemonic masculinity,the configuration of gender practice which

embodies the currently accepted answer tothe problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy(p. 77), serves FTS scholars as a tool to ex-

plore how particular gendered identities areattributed, achieved, and performed and their

place within broader configurations of power.Wajcman has noted a distinction between

two expressive and constitutive forms of mas-culinity, both connected to the mastery oftechnology. One is based on toughness andpractical skills (e.g., the mechanic), the other

on intellectual acuity (e.g., the software de-signer) (Wajcman 1991). Horowitzs collec-

tion Boys and their Toys? (2001) examinesmanhood in the workplace, learning to bemen and manhood at play. Faulkner and

her colleagues explore different ways in whichmen and women talk about their techni-

cal aptitude, setting these self-representationsagainst actual practice (Faulkner 2000, Kleif& Faulkner 2003). Mellstrom (2003) has stud-

ied the relation between technologically con-figured masculinities and state ideologies of

modernity in Malaysia; how the embodiedlearned dispositions of mechanics are fos-tered and transmuted from father to son

(2002); and the uses of leisure artifacts such as



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motor-bikes in male bonding in Sweden and

Malaysia (2004). Although the equation be-tween masculinity and technology in Westernsocieties is durable, there are often huge mis-

matches between image and practice so thatfractured and contradictory constructions of

masculinity often coexist (Faulkner 2000).Meanwhile research on non-Western soci-eties challenges these associations. Lagesens

research in Malaysia, for example, shows thatyoung women enter the profession of soft-

ware engineering in roughly equal numbers tomen and believe that their different practicesof problem-solving are equally conducive to

excellence (Lagesen 2005).FTS scholars use the term coproductionto

designatethedialecticalshapingofgenderand

technology. The concept is intended to high-light the performative, processual character

of both gender and technology and to avoidtheanalytical and political pitfalls of essential-

izing either (Grint & Gill 1995, Berg 1997,Faulkner 2001). In modern societies gender isconstitutive of what is recognized as technol-

ogy, determining whether skills are catego-rized as important or trivial (Bowker & Star

1999). An electric iron is not technology whena woman is pressing clothes, but it becomes

technology when her husband mends it. Awoman engineer who tests microwave ovensis told by her male colleagues that her jobis really just cooking (Cockburn & Ormrod

1993). In the 1970s computers were thoughtof as information technologies and coded

male; it was widely assumed that womenwould have problems with them. By the 1990scomputers had also become communica-

tion technologies; now it was presumed thatwomen would engage with them enthusias-

tically. New technologies spur processes ofboundary work and renegotiations of what istobeconsideredmasculineandfeminine(Lie

2003a, p. 21; Lohan 2001).In terms of praxis, the overarching goal of

FTS is to analyze how technology is impli-cated in gender inequalities to work towardmoredemocratic forms of technology. Noting

the relatively limited potential of consumer

intervention for democratizing technologfrom the outside in, some FTS scholars su

gest that rather than continuing to focus pdominantly on consumption, identity, a

representation, FTS should return to prodution and work, or to the gendering of d

sign processes and the gender subjectivitof designers, as research sites (Oudshooet al. 2004, Wajcman 2004). An importa

paper by Suchman (1999), based on an athropological consultancy for technology dsign in a large industrial enterprise, dra

on Haraway and on labor theory to proponew modes of feminist objectivity, rooted

densely structured and dynamic landscapesworking relations that destabilize the bounaries between producer and user. Documen

ing themasculinist ideologies of theengineing world and exposing prevalent stereotyp

about women and technology may both cotribute to democratizing technology from tinside out. Eventually they might inflect p

vailing ideologies of technology. More moestly, given that gendersystems are more dif

cult to change than are material technologithey suggest ways to encourage more womto become engineers or to reshape state

industry policies of training and employme

(Kvande 1999, Gansmo 2003).

ANTHROPOLOGY OFTECHNOLOGY,ANTHROPOLOGY OFTECHNIQUES

Within the American tradition of cultural a

thropology, technology has generally beviewed as a context for, rather than a centpart of, culture (Wilson & Peterson 200

p. 450). Pfaffenberger (1992) lays outmelancholy history of neglect, dating ba

to Malinowskis declaration that the stuof technology alone was scientifically ster(1935, p. 460) and to Kroeber & Kluckho

(1952, p. 65), who rejected the term marial culture on the grounds that the cultu

was the idea behind the artifact. Technogy continued to be studied by archaeologi

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cultural ecologists [including Geertz at an

early point of his career (1963)], and develop-ment anthropologists; feminist archaeologistshave been particularly productive in rethink-

ing gender-technology relations (Gero &Conkey1991, Wright 1996). Yet within main-

stream cultural anthropology in the UnitedStates, technology was not an object of anal-ysis in its own right, and no recognized

field of anthropology of technology emerged(Pfaffenberger 1992, Suchman 2001). This

antimaterialist aversion was less marked inBritish social anthropology, but despite somedistinguished studies and original theoretical

claims (Goody 1971, 1986; Sillitoe 1988; Gell1992; Ingold 2000), there too anthropological

interest in technology as a theorizable cate-

gory has remained muted.In 1992 Pfaffenberger published an impas-

sioned call to anthropologists to take tech-nology seriously. Anthropology was uniquely

qualified, he argued, to answer importantquestions about technology as a universal hu-man activity. He proposedtranslating the con-

cept of sociotechnical systems, borrowedfrom technology studies, into a template for

anthropological study, laying a basis for com-parative analysis of the place of technolo-

gies in the generation of meaning, in pre-capitalist as well as capitalist societies. In2001 Pfaffenberger once again lamented theenormous cost of Anglo-American anthro-

pologists penchant to ignore technologicalactivities (p. 84). His paper appears in a wide-

ranging collection of perceptive and origi-nal essays on technology by archaeologistsand anthropologists. But theoretically and

methodologicallytheysprawl:a noble attemptby the editor to extract a coherent agenda for

ananthropologyoftechnologyreadslikealist,not a program, and gender is not mentioned(Schiffer 2001b).

Among the few American anthropologiststo take technology seriously as technology are

Suchman and Downey. Both work among en-gineers, focusing on the design and produc-tion of technologies, the business contexts in

which they are developed, and the material in-

corporation of values and worldviews into ar-tifacts such as bridges or CAD/CAM technol-

ogy (Downey 1992, 1998; Suchman 2001). Inan essay advocating cyborg anthropology,

Downey et al. (1995) propose close anthropo-logical attention not only to representations

or consumption of technology, but to the cul-tures of the technical communities that pro-duce technologies and to the specific material

effects of technology on perception, commu-nication, and identity. The authors proposecyborg anthropology as an action-oriented

agenda, aligned with FTS, that would engagethe general public and unmask the material as

well as cultural dimensions of domination byrace, class, and gender.

From her uncharacteristic perspective as

an anthropologist working with industry,Suchman (2001) distinguishes three aspects

of research on contemporary technology:(a) ethnographic studies of sites of technologyproduction; (b) studies of technologies-in-use;

and (c) ethnographically based design inter-ventions. Although aspect (c), rooted firmly

in aspects (a) and (b), would be the goal offeminist technology studies, anthropologicalstudies of technologies are usually limited to

aspect (b). In the absence of sustained de-

bate around technology as a distinctive cat-egory of material activity, rather than justanother source of metaphors, it is not sur-prising that most anthropologists prefer just

to look at the dimensions that are most ob-viously cultural productions. As Axel (2006)

notes, anthropologists writing on emergenttechnologies, for example, information andcommunication technologies (Hakken 1993,

Escobar 1994, Wilson & Peterson 2002), in-variably claim that anthropology as a disci-

pline is particularly well suited to chartingtheir emergence. Yet these are accounts notof technology per se but of specific technolo-

gies, and it is not clear that they offer anythingdistinctive from analyses produced in other

branches of cultural studies.Over decades of intensive debates in

the pages of Techniques et culture and other

francophone journals, the French school of



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operationalsequence: the seriesof material, social,and symbolic

operations involvedin a specifictransformation ofmatter

anthropology of techniques, which also in-

cludes archaeologists, economists, engineers,historians, and sociologists, has developedspecific theoretical and methodological reper-

tories for the comparative study of technolo-gies. The convention of defining technique to

include bodily practices (techniques du corps) aswell as the use of tools dates back to Mauss,who sawtechniques du corpsas distinctive cul-

tural practices, and to Leroi-Gourhan, whotreated tool and anatomy as inseparable in

his analysis of the logic of technical action.The French approach begins with detailed at-tention to operational sequences or chanesoperatoires, the series of operations involvedin any transformation of matter (including

our own body) by human beings (Lemonnier

1992, p. 25). From systematic observation ofthe operational sequences of production or

use,analysis proceedsto whatLemonniercallsthe social representation of technologies:

This denotes not only the kinds of meaningthat usually attract the attention of culturalanthropologists, but also the ideas governing

the construction and use of tools and artifacts,an ethnoscience of material nature and action.

Skills (savoir-faire), documented throughoperational sequences, are a key focus in

which material, mental, social, and cultural re-sources converge (dOnofrio & Joulian 2006).The analysis of technological choices orstyles goes beyond, but must account for,

the relevant material affordances or con-straints and systems of technical skill and

understanding (Lemonnier 1993). The coreobservational and analytical methods maybe deployed within a variety of overarching

frameworks, including actor network theory(Latour 1993), modes of production (Guille-

Escuret 2003), or anthropology of ritual(Lemonnier 2004). The approach spans hightech, low tech, and no tech, from the design

of high-speed urban transportation systems(Latour 1996), through the rocky negotia-

tions of technology transfer (Akrich 1993),to gender differences in Indian pottery mak-ing (Mahias 1993) or the place of posture in

Chinese femininities (Flitsch 2004).

Similar to the American anthropologiof technology, the French school vie

technology as a universal human activity aemphasizes the need to build strong analyti

and empirical bridges between upstream adownstream, artifact production and u

Its conceptual frameworks and methods adesigned to apply equally to old or ntechnologies. Scholars such as Mahias (200

have deployed them brilliantly to illuminthe interpenetration of traditional aindustrial, local and global technolog

and technological cultures. Although gendtechnology relations are not as prominent

sustained a theme as in FTS, the metholend themselves to finely textured studiesgendered identity, some focused on individ

technologies or bodily practices (Desrosi1997, Darbon et al. 2002, Pardo 2004), oth

on gendered repertories of technical sk(Mahias 2002). Although Latours studyAramis (1996) has been criticized for gend

blindness (Wajcman 2004), it offers rich mterials for thestudy of masculinities. In a stu

of imperial China, Bray (1997) documenthe historical dynamics of a gynotechnicmutually shaping technologies of dwellin

production, and reproduction central

hegemonic and pragmatic gender identitiRefining the concept of techniques du corIngold (2000) proposes treating the skof craft and of art under the same headi

and highlights their ontogenetic nature. Ffrom being added onto a preformed bod

skills grow with the body: [T]hey are fupart and parcel of the human organism, ofneurology, musculature, even anatomy, a

so are as much biological as cultural (p. 36This approach suggests bridges to rece

FTS researches, inspired by Butler (199on the achievement of gender (Lie 2003

ANTHROPOLOGY ANDTECHNOLOGY

Classic anthropological monographs, inclu

ing Malinowskis, are rich in materion technical activities and their meanin

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(Malinowski 1935, Pfaffenberger 2001). Ex-

amining the articulations of work, produc-tion, and skills with exchange, ritual, kinshipdynamics, and social differentiation, they ad-

dress, as does FTS but implicitly, sociotech-nical systems, seamless webs of material,

social, and symbolic practices and relations.Although not expressed in these terms, clas-sic anthropology contributed some fine pre-

cursors to the study of technology and gen-der, for instance in studies of sexual divisions

of labor (e.g., Richards 1939, Hugh-Jones1979).

Once the concept of gender became a spe-

cificanalytical focus, feministscholars focusedon technical practices, old and new, to rethe-

orize core anthropological concepts radically,

including kinship (Strathern 1992), exchange(Weiner 1992), or space (Moore 1986). As

the anthropology of gender fused with theanthropology of modernity and of globaliza-

tion, attention turned to the role of techno-science in reshaping gender regimes. Andwith the broader cultural turn emphasizing

the importance of consumption as the con-stitutive site of subjectivities and power, the

new field of material culture studies contriveda radical new antiessentialist perspective on

technologies.

Anthropology of Technoscience

Technology and such derived concepts astechnoscapes or techno-nature figure

prominently in recent anthropological theo-ries of the place of technoscience in moder-

nity and/or globalization. Key concerns of an-thropological studies of technoscience, as ofFTS, are the formation of the modern sub-

ject and the distribution of power throughemerging global networks. However, Escobar

(1994) explicitly distinguishes the agenda ofthe anthropology of technoscience from thatof the sociology of technology: For anthro-

pologists, inquiry into the nature of moder-nity as the background for current under-

standing and practice of technology is ofparamount importance. In this anthropology

domestication:users appropriatioof new technologiand feedback into

design

is closer to the philosophy than to the new

sociology of technology (p. 213). The cul-turalist approach to technoscience, like thestandard view, is interested first and fore-

most in science, powerful knowledge instru-mentalizedthrough technology. Technologies

are of anthropological interest as phenomenaemerging from particular cultural contexts,contributing to new cultural worlds such as

cyberculture or techno-nature (Escobar1994, 1999).

In destabilizing boundaries between thehuman and the natural or between humanand machine, promoting new, troubling rela-

tions of intimacy, or facilitating new forms ofgovernmentality, emergent technologies such

as in-vitro fertilization, transnational organ

transplants, stem-cell research, or data-banksraise newquestions of how to live(Collier &

Lakoff 2005). New technologies may be con-ceptualized as prostheses, elements of cyborg

fusions between human and machine thatextend our capacities and permit enhancedmodes of being and relating; new forms of in-

terpenetration of zones of space and time; andnew possibilities for action at a distance, for

connection, coalition, or control (Axel 2006,Rafael 2003, Wright 2001). They may figure

as tools for both research and accumulation,concentrating capital or biocapital in certainsites while providing the material proceduresand equipment for the domestication of new

life forms such as stem cells (Franklin 2005).The term global assemblages has been pro-

posed to address the spatial and political dy-namics of these restless flows and concentra-tions of material and symbolic resources (Ong

& Collier 2005).Most work within the anthropology

of technoscience that explicitly attendsto gender-technology relations addressesbiopower and its new subjects: the new mas-

culinities or femininities achieved through re-makings and resexings of thebody; or through

cross-class, transnational, or interethnic re-configurations of kinship and reproduction(Kaufman & Morgan 2005). Analysis fo-

cuses on the potentialities and interpellations



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MCS: materialculture studies

inherent in the new science and its repre-

sentations; on users as ethical pioneers; oninteractions between experts and techniciansand the lay users (or refusers) of biomedical

services; and on lay appropriations or con-testations of new disciplinary regimes (Rapp

1998, Greenhalgh 2005). However the tech-nological apparatus itself is usually left as ablack box. Despite Downeys cyborg man-

ifesto, there are few anthropological stud-ies of the material production or design of

the technologies of biopower, cybercultures,or techno-natures. Rabinows illuminatingbiographies of technology, studying the co-

production of technological apparatus, tech-nocracy, research agendas, and scientific

imaginaries, are rare anthropological analy-

ses of the power inherent in the nuts andbolts of technology (Rabinow 1996, Rabinow

& Dan-Cohen 2005). Traweeks classic up-stream study of the mechanical foundations of

high-energy physics (1988), which explicitlyexplores the gendering of technocratic pro-duction and practice, is another exemplary

rarity.

Material Culture Studies

The anthropology of technoscience engageswith heroic technologies, such as DNAsequencing or organ transplantation, that

promise to transform what it means to behuman. Material culture studies (MCS) cur-rently takes up the challenge of decoding the

mundane technologies of everyday life suchas kitchen equipment or cars, analyzing the

role of material artifacts in producing subjec-tivities and social relations. As a counterbal-ance to classical Marxist analyses that treated

work and production as the loci where iden-tity and meaning were produced, the cul-

tural Marxism of MSC prioritizes meaningand identity production through the socialprocesses of consumption (Miller 1995). One

theoretical concern of MCS is to critiquethe reification of globalizationby demonstrat-

ing that the global is always manifestedand experienced as a local phenomenon.

Widely viewed as global in nature, yet intrsically cultural in their use, the new comm

nications technologies offer irresistible tcases.

MSC studies of the Internet in Trinid(Miller & Slater 2000) or of cell-phones

Jamaica (Horst & Miller 2005) generate richtextured analyses of how technology use itertwines with sociality, including the expr

sion and affirmation of gendered identitand forms of intimacy and relatedness. Thalso document the gratifying extension

Jamaican or Trinnie styles of communition across transnational spaces, transfor

ing the experiences of migration or dipora. The point is convincingly made thCaribbean Internet users are not reacti

to globalization but creating it. By insiing that the new technologies facilitate b

do not determine these cultural extensiothese studies reflect the MCS position materiality.

MCS proposes the concept of materialto transcend the object-subject divide, view

as an enduring weakness of Western thougOne might have thought this would opup very interesting possibilities for theorizi

technology, skills, and subjectivity. Howev

in repudiating reification of the object, MCspecifically dismisses technology as an analyical category. Although Miller develops meods for charting the extension of technolo

use that correspond to the specific wayswhich the Internet or cell-phones work,

insists that the primary interest is how thare brought into being as cultural artifactsis correct, as Miller asserts, that the Intern

is in constant flux, its features continually rworked by its users. Yet even the Internet

volves a framework of technical design, coing, and regulation (local or transnationthat channels and constrains the forms

communication and socialityit allows (Wils& Peterson 2002, Wilk 2005). Millers stu

ies of communications technologies are actally rich in detail on the political-economcontext within which they were launch

and adopted, and on user skills, techni

46 Bray


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as well as social. Generally speaking, how-

ever, MCS is open to criticism for excessiveculturalism: while the demolition of theessentialized object was an urgent neces-

sity, the declaration of objects and im-ages emptiness has become a proof for an

anthropology committed to the victory ofthe cultural over the material, and of thediscursive over the figural (Pinney 2002,

p. 259).

FRUITFUL EXCHANGES?

The interdisciplinary field of feminist stud-

ies of technology has done more than anyother social science to build a vibrant and

coherent school of gender and technology

studies. FTS has drawn heavily on ideas andmethods developed within anthropology: the

integrity of social action and culture; themicromacro linkage of everyday skills and

techniques and political-economic activities;and detailed empirical observation and broad-ranging comparative analysis. Could we now

envisage more explicit and sustained forms ofengagement among different branches of an-

thropology and FTS, to strengthen our un-derstanding of gender-technology relations in

a rapidly changing world?Philosophically, FTS and the anthropol-

ogy of technology share a strong materialism

in their approach to culture-technology di-alectics. Exchange between the fields there-fore presents few epistemological problems.

FTS lacks research on gendered dimensionsof technical skills (Faulkner 2001), and here

methods developed by the French school fordocumenting operating sequences andsavoir-

fairemight prove helpful. In considering the

full spectrum of gender subjectivities achievedor imposed through technology in differ-

ent contexts, another obvious lack in FTSat present is studies of non-Western soci-eties, past as well as present. The anthro-

pology of technology, by theorizing tech-nology as a universal human activity, offers

not only a rich spectrum of non-Westernand premodern case studies, but also ana-

lytical frameworks for reintepreting histori-cal and ethnographic documents from FTS

perspectives.In its attention to the materialities of ev-

erydaylife, theFrench schoolof anthropologyof technology shares common ground with

MCS, but fundamental disagreement aboutwhether technology constitutes an analyticalcategory is a serious barrier to dialogue. It

is not totally insurmountable, however. Dant(2005) argues for the value of incorporatingmore attention to technical skills and prac-

tices into MCS analysis; some contributorsto Material Culture Studies focus on tech-

nological goods as technologies (Shove &Southerton 2000); and French practitionersof MCS have successfully borrowed from the

anthropology of techniques, integrating anal-ysis of production and skills into their studies

of consumer culture (Warnier 1999, Faure-Rouesnel 2001). Were anglophone MCS totread a similar path it might have to abandon

some ambitious idealist claims about materi-ality. Yet valuable new insights into the co-

production of technology and gender mightresult if the strengths of MCS in chartingthe coproduction of global and local culture

were extended to acknowledge technology.

This would also provide a neat way for MCSto incorporate global flows of financial, cor-porate, and regulatory power more fully intotheir analyses.

The anthropology of technoscience at-tends closely to these global flows of power,

and despite significant philosophical differ-ences with FTS, there is a strong case tobe made for closer dialogue between the

fields. Concepts such as sociotechnical sys-tems, stabilization, and integration allow

FTS to explore how technologies and theassociated politics of gender travel acrossspace and time and how they consolidate

into systems that resist change. These ap-proaches, along with FTS methods for study-

ing the design and production of technolo-gies, could enhance technoscience studies ofbiopower and of global assemblages. Atten-

tion to the gendering of technical design



12/19

would be particularly valuable in advancing

understanding of biopower. Conversely, in fo-cusing so closely on the gender-technologynexus itself FTS sometimes neglects deeper-

lying ideogical dimensions within which any

regime of truth concerning gender and tec

nology must ultimately be understood, awhich the anthropology of technoscientakes as its object, namely emergent confi

urations ofoikosandanthropos.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The author is not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity

this review.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Heartfelt thanks are due to Ed Evans, Wendy Faulkner, Sandy Robertson, and Louise Vaughfor their help and advice.

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Annual Review

Anthropology

Volume 36, 2007Contents

Prefatory Chapter

Overview: Sixty Years in Anthropology

Fredrik Barth 1

Archaeology

The Archaeology of Religious Ritual

Lars Fogelin 55

atalhyk in the Context of the Middle Eastern Neolithic

Ian Hodder 105

The Archaeology of Sudan and Nubia

David N. Edwards 211

A Bicycle Made for Two? The Integration of Scientific Techniques into

Archaeological Interpretation

A. Mark Pollard and Peter Bray

245

Biological Anthropology

Evolutionary Medicine

Wenda R. Trevathan 139

Genomic Comparisons of Humans and Chimpanzees

Ajit Varki and David L. Nelson 191

Geometric Morphometrics

Dennis E. Slice 261

Genetic Basis of Physical Fitness

Hugh Montgomery and Latif Safari 391

Linguistics and Communicative Practices

Sociophonetics

Jennifer Hay and Katie Drager 89

vii


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Comparative Studies in Conversation Analysis

Jack Sidnell

Semiotic Anthropology

Elizabeth Mertz

Sociocultural AnthropologyQueer Studies in the House of Anthropology

Tom Boellstorff

Gender and Technology

Francesca Bray

The Anthropology of Organized Labor in the United States

E. Paul Durrenberger

Embattled Ranchers, Endangered Species, and Urban Sprawl:

The Political Ecology of the New American WestThomas E. Sheridan

Anthropology and Militarism

Hugh Gusterson

The Ecologically Noble Savage Debate

Raymond Hames

The Genetic Reinscription of Race

Nadia Abu El-Haj

Community Forestry in Theory and Practice: Where Are We Now?

Susan Charnley and Melissa R. Poe

Legacies of Derrida: Anthropology

Rosalind C. Morris

Indexes

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 2836

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 2836

Errata

An online log of corrections toAnnual Review of Anthropologyarticles may be fou

at http://anthro.annualreviews.org/errata.shtml

Documents

BRay - Gender and Technology