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Can Constructivism Have Politics? The Democratic Limits of Technological Possibilitarianism

Thu, August 21, 8:30 to 10:30am, Intercontinental Hotel, Monserrat II

Abstract

Although constructivist methodological and epistemological approaches provide an important lens for analyzing technological innovation, it is rarely examined how they might constrain technology scholarship as a political endeavor. Social constructivism is often depicted as freeing the field from the debilitating grasp of technological determinism. However, how does a commitment to viewing the political non-neutrality of technologies as a sole product of sociopolitical decisions during the process of innovation, production and diffusion shape the field’s normative imagination? Through an analysis of academic and popular texts, we contend that the overestimation of technological malleability leads to a politically deadening technological possibilitarianism. Possibilitarianism imagines technologies as adaptable to an almost infinite set of future politico-economic relations. These hypothetical possibilities are projected backwards to shape present perceptions of technological flexibility. The rejection or significant restriction of any technology becomes seen as politically unnecessary, unthinkable or even self-stultifying, because the technology is theoretically malleable to any set of values. This marks a significant departure from the approach of critical technology studies scholars, who we term technological probabilitarians: They root their analysis in the careful consideration of the probable outcomes of certain technological developments given the practical limits of technological flexibility and momentum of larger sociotechnical contexts. For them, technologies remain open to rejection. In characterizing these two divergent positions, we will draw connections to larger scholarly arguments concerning deliberative and radical democracy and technological governance as well as extend earlier analyses of the normative deficits that limit the broader political significance of technology studies.

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