Social constructionist approaches to the study of technology

Abstract

My role in this exchange is to represent social constructionist approaches to the study of technology. This is not an easy task. Unlike behavioral archaeologists or evolutionary archaeologists, social constructionists do not subscribe to a common core of theory; indeed, some of those whom I cite here as social constructionists will probably not identify themselves as such. Under this umbrella I include: (1) advocates of technological style (e.g. Lechtman and Merrill 1977; Lechtman 1984; Childs 1991; Hosler 1994) and technological choice (e.g. Lemonnier 1992, 1993; Gosselain 1998); (2) proponents of practice theory (e.g. Dietler and Herbich 1998; Dobres and Hoffman 1999), agency (e.g. Dobres 2000; Dobres and Robb 2000) and materiality (Jones 2002) when applied to the study of technology; (3) much of ethnoarchaeology (David and Kramer 2001); and (4) some aspects of material culture studies (e.g. Lubar and Kingery 1993; Kingery 1996), archaeometry (e.g. Sillar and Tite 2000; Jones 2002), and industrial archaeology (e.g. Gordon 1988; Gordon and Killick 1993). Whatever else they may disagree over, all of those cited would approve of the following statements: first, that there is usually more than one technology that satisfies the minimum requirements for any given task; and, second, that the choice of a particular technology from a pool of satisfactory alternatives may be strongly influenced by the beliefs, social structure and prior choices of the society or group under study. Social constructionists reject explanations of technological change that invoke unseen hands such as selection, market forces, efficiency, adaptation or the inevitability of progress (Pfaffenberger 1992). For social constructionists, no explanation of an observed technological change is complete unless it relates the observed technology to the choices whether explicit or unconscious made by actual human beings, whether these be individuals or groups. It would be wrong to infer from this that social constructionists are necessarily 'antiscience'. (Some certainly are, but their views hold little of interest for archaeology.) Many social constructionist studies of technology are firmly grounded in evidence generated by techniques adapted from the sciences and engineering. The fact that these techniques provide excellent grist for the mills of humanistic interpretation is just beginning to be appreciated in British archaeology (e.g. Sillar and Tite 1999; Jones 2002), but has been advocated for more than two decades by historians and prehistorians of technology in north America (e.g. Smith 1982; Lechtman 1984; Gordon 1988) and France (see Lemonnier 1993; Petrequin et al. 2000 and citations to prior works therein). The claim by Dobres and Hoffman that 'it is archaeologists who have developed the most sophisticated and creative methodologies to study the empirical and physical dimensions of material