The Contingencies of Transnational Air-conditioning Histories

Abstract

This essay explores the technopolitical and sociotechnical contingencies of the transnational histories of air-conditioning in urban Asia. It interrogates the mainstream technocentric and technologically-determinist understanding of air-conditioning, energy use and climate change by challenging its climatic determinism, diffusionist account of globalization, and understanding of architecture as mere energy conduit. In place of these assumptions, this essay argues that thermal comfort depends on not just climatic variables but also on social practices and cultural norms. It also understands the globalization of air-conditioning technologies as consisting not of diffusionist processes that replicate universal forms but of context-specific translations whereby “universal” forms mutate. Lastly, this essay sees architecture as having material agencies that entangle with thermal comfort and energy in complex manners.