Objects in Motion: Globalizing Technology ed. by Nina Möllers, Bryan Dewalt

Abstract

Reviewed by: Objects in Motion: Globalizing Technology ed. by Nina Möllers, Bryan Dewalt Marta Macedo (bio) Objects in Motion: Globalizing Technology. Edited by Nina Möllers and Bryan Dewalt. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2016. Pp. 256. $44.99. Objects in Motion, edited by Nina Möllers and Bryan Dewalt, is the tenth volume of the book series Artefacts: Studies in the History of Science and Technology. The series is the most visible output of the Artefacts consortium. In the last two decades, this rather informal network, gathering scholars from museums and universities in Europe and the United States, has supported a material-based historical research agenda able to challenge both academics and curators. The present volume clearly furthers the group’s goals. But the ten papers drawn together by Möllers and Dewalt do more than that. Collectively they open an important discussion on the “methodological nationalism” of many histories of science and technology and, at the same time, they interrogate the unproblematic role ascribed to technology in several works dealing with globalization. The role of markets in linking diverse parts of the globe justifies the vital place that international trade has as the element that binds the book’s first five chapters together. The politics of identity, as linked to objects, organize the second group of essays. The diversity of objects studied and the variety of methodological and academic traditions employed—ranging from anthropology to media studies to design to history of technology—do not undermine the volume’s coherence and goals. On the contrary, one of the book’s major strengths is the ability of these objects and methods to problematize the master narratives of globalization. [End Page 902] This is clearly shown in the articles by Knut Stegmann and Johanna Conterio, both dealing with the circulation of American technologies. As argued by Stegmann, the deskilling of construction workers and the consolidation of technical elites in Germany explain the adoption of U.S. reinforced concrete technologies. Conversely, the specificities of the Soviet context, studied by Conterio, justify the rejection of Californian orchard heaters in the citrus groves of the USSR. A comparative reading of these studies helps us think about the limits of Western globalization, and the importance of local dynamics in the making of global technological landscapes. The recognition of the historical importance of engineers and of the sciences in putting objects in circulation is another significant contribution. It is exactly by following experts and things around that authors explore alternatives to the standard geographies of the global world. Thomas Schuetz, David McGee, and Rian Manson take common ingredients of histories of technology, such as car technologies and locomotives, to unveil less obvious material connections, such as the ones established between West Germany and the USSR or Canada or India. But Objects in Motion also defies popular assumptions of what count as objects of study relevant to globalization. The excellent article by Matthew Hockenberry reminds us that the clean rooms of high-tech electronic factories are intrinsically linked with commodities, disrupted landscapes, and exploitative labor systems, like the tin islands of Indonesia, very seldom portrayed as technological. The second set of essays aims to challenge the fixity of the local, the nation, or the globe, and to interrogate narratives of cultural homogenization and hybridity. The inspiring papers by P. Allen Roda and Harun Kaygan take the global circulation of tablas and electric Turkish coffeemakers to discuss politics of regional authenticity and national pride. Both articles portray the way objects are transformed while crossing political boundaries and how in this process they convey ideas of belonging. These are also the arguments explored by Bryan Dewalt, Oliver Schmidt, and Kimberly Coulter in their articles. The multiplicity of case studies along with the consistency of their arguments make Objects in Motion a good companion for historians of technology interested in exploring transnational scales in their work. However, the book allows for the expansion of Artefacts’ academic audience by arguing for the ability of science and technology to reveal concrete dynamics of the global world. Pneumatic tools, canoes, coffeemakers, or tractors, as presented in this volume, become relevant objects for general historians, as they help to bring new...