Theory and Narrative in the History of Technology: Response

Abstract

THEORY AND NARRATIVE IN THE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY: RESPONSE JOHN LAW For the last four years I have been collecting material about a major British aircraft project, the TSR.2 tactical strike and reconnaissance aircraft. This project, which was first conceived in about 1956 and was canceled amid much acrimony in 1965, employed at least 20,000 people at its height. As a part of my study I have read all the secondary material I can find, I have seen a great deal of primary source material of one kind or another, and I have interviewed more than thirty of the major participants. During the last eighteen months I have been writing this material up. This has, I confess, been a particularly difficult exercise. One of the reasons for this has been that it is possible to write it up in different ways. Let me simplify and say that I could write it up as critical narrative history. Alternatively, I could use parts of that narrative to explore more theoretically oriented questions that have to do with technology and the way in which it interacts with social relations. I start by mentioning my current work on the TSR.2 aircraft for two reasons. First, I want to say that when Angus Buchanan talks about a distinction between narrative history on the one hand, and social science theory on the other, I immediately, and quite painfully, recognize that there is indeed a difference between the two. Any sociologist or anthropologist who has handled a large body of historical or ethnographic material has that tension inscribed in his or her soul. But second, I cannot understand why he appears to be so hostile to theory and theoretically directed studies of technology. My root position is quite simple. It is that narrative history and social science theory are driven by different kinds of concerns and interests. One is not intrinsically superior to the other. They are simply different. Which of the two happens to appeal to us as Dr. Law is professor of sociology and director of the Unit for Technology Analysis at the University of Keele. He is currently working on the social shaping of military technology, managerial decision making in scientific laboratories, and the sociology of power. He thanks Donald Mackenzie and Trevor Pinch for comments on an earlier version of this article.© 1991 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040- 165X/91/3202-0006$01.00 377 378 John Law individuals is largely a matter of personal taste. This should cause no problems, for the world is a large and pluralist place. Rather to the contrary, it should be seen as a source of great potential strength. This is because narrative history, its methodological standards, and its findings are resources for theory about technology. They offer descrip­ tions of events and episodes that may be used in other ways by social scientists. And, of course, they have the potential to act as a check on unrestrained theoretical speculation. But the converse should also be true. That is, social science, its theories, its methods, and its syntheses may and surely should be seen as a resource for those who are primarily concerned to write narrative history. In particular, social science has the potential to raise questions and doubts about the commonsense assumptions that get built into narrative history. Looked at in this way, the issues raised by Buchanan turn into a series of quite different questions that will have very different answers. The first question is, What does or could the body of recent social science work on technology do in the context of social science? To note that this is not a matter discussed by Buchanan is not to criticize him, for he is concerned with historical rather than social science matters. Nevertheless, it is an important question. The second question is, What does, or could, this body of work do for narrative history? This is the focus of Buchanan’s concern: his answer, if I may paraphrase, is that it does virtually nothing. Indeed, he sometimes seems to be close to saying that it actually represents a danger to narrative history. And the third...