Social Construction of Technology

Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) theory, introduced by Pinch and Bijker (1984), in "The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other” was initially generated as a response to what were perceived as narrow understandings of technological innovation and change – generally termed technological determinism. The premise of the SCOT perspective is that the emergence of technological products, or artefacts, could – and should – be explained by the social processes surrounding its construction rather than by the inherent technological characteristics of the artefact itself. Traditional notions of technological determinism are defined by a positivist attitude to knowledge that assumes scientific data to be absolutely ‘true’. The SCOT approach, rather, assumes it to be socially constructed – essentially applying a principle from social constructivism to technological studies (Pinch and Bijker 1984). A number of examples were used to demonstrate this perspective in a series of theoretical and historical case study essays in Bijker et al’s ‘The Social Construction of Technological Systems’ in 1987, such as the development of the lightbulb, the development of the air tyre for bicycles, and later the development of Bakelite (Bijker, 1997). SCOT theory highlights the personal and social forces surrounding the development of technology. The key concepts involved are:

1. Relevant social groups – different groups involved with the development of a technology, artefact or system. Meanings and interpretations vary between groups, and technologies, systems and artefacts are a product of negotiation until a point at which the artefact or system under consideration is deemed to meet the needs of all relevant social groups.

2. Interpretive flexibility –the process by which the above groups are able to determine different framings and outcomes of a technological issue. In the Bakelite example, there was, for example, a dispute over the patenting and development of a key chemical component of Bakelite, cellulose (Bijker, 1997), which was viewed

differently by two different scientists, thus affecting the production of the final item. 3. Stabilization – this is when a particular technological option becomes more accepted

in a relevant social group, normalising its presence and function. In the example of the bicycle, Bijker (1997, p93) talks about the reporting of the bicycle in an

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engineering magazine which ceased to specify the type of bicycle, indicating that the word ‘bicycle’ denoted, without dispute, a “low wheeled bicycle, with rear chain drive, diamond frame and air tyres”. These details were now deemed ‘normal’, thus demonstrating stabilization.

4. Closure – different social groups attach a consistent meaning to the item, resulting in one ‘obvious’ solution, either achieved by ‘rhetorical’ closure, or by redefining the problem to suit the solution that has emerged, such as when air tyres on bicycles that started to win road races, modifying the problem definition to include racing and speed (Bijker, 1997). Closure is very difficult to reverse as it marks a widespread socio-psychological departure from a previous ‘norm’.

By explaining technologies according to their social contexts using these four key concepts, SCOT advances the role of agency and the impact of both individual and group

interpretations and negotiations upon a technological development. For understanding domestic retrofit in cities, what is helpful about these concepts is that they begin to bring together various heterogenous components of a socio-technical change process over time, incorporating social interests of individuals and groups, multiple interpretations of the same phenomena, key temporal events, an underlying challenge to the objectivity of scientific knowledge, and attention to the contexts in which decisions and developments are made. The concepts of stabilization and closure start to illuminate potential resistances to other technological options, which is a good starting point for studying the possibilities of and challenges to the kinds of experimental initiatives that form the case studies in this thesis. However, when studying something such as domestic retrofit that has a multitude of technical components, from bricks and mortar to heating controls, insulation and microgeneration, rather than one particular component, the historical case study SCOT approach is less helpful and a somewhat wider perspective is required. Hughes’s (1987) contribution approaches this by theorizing and analysing instead the social construction of large technological systems (the widespread adoption of the electric lightbulb), which not only incorporates the micro-activities of individual technologies and the peculiarities of decisions surrounding them, but also the economic and political circumstances surrounding

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the item or system being developed along with all the other components of it, in a ‘nested’ hierarchy of systems and sub-systems. For example:

“people who build electric light and power systems invent and develop not only generators and transmission lines but also such organizational forms as electrical manufacturing and utility holding companies. Some broadly gifted and experienced system builders can invent hardware as well as organisations, but usually different persons take these responsibilities as the system evolves” (Hughes, in Pinch et al, 1987, p 52).

This quotation depicts a heterogenous network around electricity, but adds focus on the wider infrastructural developments surrounding that technology. However, despite its usefulness, SCOT theory is not without its criticisms. The late Stewart Russell responded to Pinch and Bijker’s initial paper with a series of concerns over the deficiencies of the

approach: firstly in its lack of attention to the politics of negotiations between ‘relevant social groups’ – highlighting the naïve assumption that all social groups were attributed the same status and degree of power and control. Winner (1993a) similarly highlights the lack of attention to voices of social groups, technological framings and social interests that were not considered. Both Winner (1993a) and Russell (1986) and later, Klein and Kleinman (2002) also warn of an overly ‘localised’ view of the process without adequate attention to wider political, cultural and social structures and processes that affect the various groups’ interpretations, calling for a more critical position regarding the after-effects that these technological development processes may have on society. Callon (1987) also highlights the inherent assumptions that the political, economic and social circumstances and pressures on the development of technologies in the SCOT approach are static and predetermined, rather than dynamic and interdependent with the technology. Furthermore, there are connotations to Hughes’ large technical ‘systems’ approach that imply a certain stability and boundedness that is difficult to define in practice, especially when researching a socio- technical issue that is emerging, rather than established (Russell and Williams, 2002). In summary, as useful as the large systems approach and the contextual detail of SCOT are as a foundation, there is not enough criticism or consideration given to either the power dynamics at play surrounding socio-technical change, or the impacts and entwinement of the socio-technical artefact or system on and with the wider world. Furthermore, in the

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case of domestic retrofit in cities, there remain two key issues: firstly, that there are so many technologies, actors, institutions and materials involved in domestic retrofit – as opposed to single technologies or systems - that it would be very difficult to track and account for all of them using a framework that uses technologies as its starting point. Secondly, the focus of this project is on the decisions, practices and organisation of people around a broad socio-technical issue in a particular place. SCOT does little to address socio- technical relations in places, and this is crucial to understanding the formation of domestic retrofit initiatives in the cities where they have emerged. Nonetheless, SCOT’s approach generated momentum in STS which produced more nuanced and politically sensitive approaches, such as the Social Shaping of Technology approach explored next.