Appropriating Technology
The standard story of technology
Produced in elite spaces; consumed by everyone
Appropriated Technology
Elite production
lay appropriation
Appropriating
Technology:
Vernacular Science
and Social Power
Edited by Ron Eglash, Giovanna Di Chiro,
Jennifer Croissant, and Rayvon Fouche.
University of
Minnesota Press
2004
3 Categories of Appropriation
1)Reinterpretation
2)Adaptation
3)Re-invention
1. Re-interpretation: semantic
change only
Elite production
Ancient Egypt as white well-springs
of Western civilization, science and
technology
Lay re-invention
Ancient Egypt as Black origins of
an Afrocentric culture, science and
technology
Other Reinterpretation Examples
Elite production
Lay reinterpretation
Analysis of medical properties of
turmeric
Validity of Ayurvedic healing
practices
Wood paneled station wagon
Surfer transportation
Sara Lee orange cake
Soul food
Broadway musicals
Gay “show tunes”
Reinterpretation typically a change in the sense
of ownership—sometimes a priority claim
2. Adaptation: semantic change and use change
(“creative misuse”; repurposing)
Elite production
Boom box in Egypt marketed as
playback
Lay repurposing
Boom box’s latent recording
function used by Bedouins, led to
syncretism and revitalization
3. Reinvention: semantic change, use change
and structural change
• Actual trajectories can be quite complex as
the technology evolves
Emoticons as re-repurposing
1) Email created by those at high social power
2) “Smiley face” emoticons created through appropriation by
lay people
3) Appropriation re-appropriated in this keyboard
Appropriation can be “ethnically specific”
“Dance circuit” by Sharol Graves
Beaded digitizing stylus by
Turtle heart
Why appropriate?
•Sometimes better to solve the problem (lack of social
power) than appropriate as a solution
•Alternative path to policy reform, government
intervention, pleading to corporations
•Analogous to “direct action” in social movements
•Takes advantage of self-organization (Wiki and
mashups: designed for appropriation)
•Technological citizenship by participatory democracy
rather than representative democracy
When should we appropriate?
Only when appropriate!
How does appropriation intersect with “risk”?