Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power

363 Pages·2015·1.585 MB·English

by  Sheila Jasanoff, Sang-Hyun Kim

Dreamscapes of Modernity

Dreamscapes of Modernity
Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the
Fabrication of Power
EDITED BY SHEILA JASANOFF
AND SANG- HYUN KIM
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Sheila Jasanoff is the Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology
Studies at the Harvard Kennedy School. Sang- Hyun Kim is associate professor
at the Research Institute of Comparative History and Culture at Hanyang
University in Korea.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2015 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2015.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 27649- 6 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 27652- 6 (paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 27666- 3 (e- book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226276663.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Dreamscapes of modernity : sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of
power / edited by Sheila Jasanoff and Sang- Hyun Kim.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 226- 27649- 6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978- 0- 226- 27652- 6
(pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978- 0- 226- 27666- 3 (e- book) 1. Science—Social
aspects. 2. Technological innovations—Social aspects. I. Jasanoff, Sheila.
II. Kim, Sang- Hyun, 1967–
Q175.5.D74 2015
303.48'3—dc23
2014050176
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
CONTENTS
sheila jasanoff
ONE / Future Imperfect: Science, Technology, and the
Imaginations of Modernity / 1
william kelleher storey
TWO / Cecil Rhodes and the Making of a Sociotechnical
Imaginary for South Africa / 34
michael aaron dennis
THREE / Our Monsters, Ourselves: Reimagining the
Problem of Knowledge in Cold War America / 56
warigia bowman
FOUR / Imagining a Modern Rwanda: Sociotechnical
Imaginaries, Information Technology, and the
Postgenocide State / 79
ulrike felt
FIVE / Keeping Technologies Out: Sociotechnical
Imaginaries and the Formation of Austria’s
Technopolitical Identity / 103
j. benjamin hurlbut
SIX / Remembering the Future: Science, Law, and
the Legacy of Asilomar / 126
sang-h yun kim
SEVEN / Social Movements and Contested Sociotechnical
Imaginaries in South Korea / 152
suzanne moon
EIGHT / Building from the Outside In: Sociotechnical
Imaginaries and Civil Society in New Order Indonesia / 174
joshua barker
NINE / Guerilla Engineers: The Internet and the Politics of
Freedom in Indonesia / 199
nancy n. chen
TEN / Consuming Biotechnology: Genetically Modified Rice
in China / 219
regula valérie burri
ELEVEN / Imaginaries of Science and Society:
Framing Nanotechnology Governance in Germany
and the United States / 233
elta smith
TWELVE / Corporate Imaginaries of Biotechnology and
Global Governance: Syngenta, Golden Rice, and Corporate
Social Responsibility / 254
clark a. miller
THIRTEEN / Globalizing Security: Science and the
Transformation of Contemporary Political Imagination / 277
andrew lakoff
FOURTEEN / Global Health Security and the Pathogenic
Imaginary / 300
sheila jasanoff
FIFTEEN / Imagined and Invented Worlds / 321
Acknowledgments / 343
Contributor Biographies / 345
Index / 347

ONE
Future Imperfect: Science, Technology,
and the Imaginations of Modernity
SHEILA JASANOFF
Technological innovation often follows on the heels of science fiction, lag-
ging authorial imagination by decades or longer. One hundred fifty years
passed between the youthful Mary Shelley’s fantastic story of a vengeful crea-
ture brought to life by Dr. Frankenstein and the production of new life forms
in twentieth- century biological laboratories (Shelley 2008 [1818]). Jules
Verne’s Nautilus, piloted by Captain Nemo, took to the ocean depths well
before real submarines went on such long or distant voyages (Verne 1887).
At the dawn of the Progressive Era, the American socialist Edward Bellamy
(1889) foresaw an economy fueled by rapid communication, credit cards,
and in- home delivery of goods; a hundred years on, those imagined revo-
lutions have become routine. Aldous Huxley (1932) fantasized about an as-
sembly line of artificial human reproduction to serve state purposes twenty
years before the unraveling of the structure of DNA, which in turn paved the
way for the currently forbidden cloning of human beings. Arthur C. Clarke
(1968) created the scheming, lip- reading computer Hal thirty years before
IBM programmers developed Deep Blue to beat chess master Gary Kasparov
at his own game. And interplanetary travel was in the minds of such writers
as H.G. Wells, Fred Wilcox, and Fred Hoyle appreciably before Neil Arm-
strong stepped onto the moon with his “giant leap for mankind.”
Belying the label “science fiction,” however, works in this genre are
also fabulations of social worlds, both utopic and dystopic. Shelley’s lab-
generated monster turns murderous because he is excluded from society
by his abnormal birth and hence is denied the blessings of companionship
and social life enjoyed by his creator. Jules Verne’s Nemo, a dispossessed
Indian prince driven by hatred of the British colonialists who exploited his
land and destroyed his family, seeks freedom and scientific enlightenment
in the ocean depths. Biopower runs amok in Aldous Huxley’s imagined