Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Science And Technology Studies
- Creators: Wetmore, Jameson
Description
This dissertation examines the nexus of three trends in electricity systems transformations underway worldwide—the scale-up of renewable energy, regionalization, and liberalization. Interdependent electricity systems are being envisioned that require partnership and integration across power disparities. This research explores how actors in the Mediterranean region envisioned a massive scale-up of renewable energy within a single electricity system and market across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. It asks: How are regional sociotechnical systems envisioned? What are the anticipated consequences of a system for a region with broad disparities and deep sociopolitical differences? What can be learned about energy justice by examining this vision at multiple scales? A sociotechnical systems framework is used to analyze energy transformations, interweaving the technical aspects with politics, societal effects, and political development issues. This research utilized mixed qualitative methods to analyze Mediterranean electricity transformations at multiple scales, including fieldwork in Morocco and Germany, document analysis, and event ethnography. Each scale—from a global history of concentrating solar power technologies to a small village in Morocco—provides a different lens on the sociotechnical system and its implications for justice. This study updates Thomas Hughes’ Networks of Power, the canonical history of the sociotechnical development of electricity systems, by adding new aspects to sociotechnical electricity systems theory. First, a visioning process now plays a crucial role in guiding innovation and has a lasting influence on the justice outcomes. Second, rather than simply providing people with heat and light, electrical power systems in the 21st century are called upon to address complex integrated solutions. Furthermore, building a sustainable energy system is now a retrofitting agenda, as system builders must graft new infrastructure on top of old systems. Third, the spatial and temporal aspects of sociotechnical energy systems should be amended to account for constructed geography and temporal complexity. Fourth, transnational electricity systems pose new challenges for politics and political development. Finally, this dissertation presents a normative framework for conceptualizing and evaluating energy justice. Multi-scalar, systems-level justice requires collating diverse ideas about energy justice, expanding upon them based on the empirical material, and evaluating them with this framework.
ContributorsMoore, Sharlissa (Author) / Hackett, Ed J. (Thesis advisor) / Minteer, Ben (Committee member) / Parmentier, Mary Jane (Committee member) / Wetmore, Jameson (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This dissertation explores the megamachine, a prominent metaphor in American humanist and philosopher of technology, Lewis Mumford's Myth of the Machine series. The term refers critically to dynamic, regimented human capacities that drive scientific and technical innovation in society. Mumford's view of the nature of collectives focuses on qualities and patterns that emerge from the behavior of groups, societies, systems, and ecologies. It is my aim to reenergize key concepts about collective capacities drawn from Lewis Mumford's critique of historical and modern sociotechnical arrangements. I investigate the possibility of accessing those capacities through improved design for Technology Assessment (TA), formal practices that engage experts and lay citizens in the evaluation of complex scientific and technical issues.
I analyze the components of Mumford's megamachine and align key concerns in two pivotal works that characterize the impact of collective capacities on society: Bruno Latour's Pasteurization of France (1988) and Elias Canetti's Crowds and Power (1962). As I create a model of collective capacities in the sociotechnical according to the parameters of Mumford's megamachine, I rehabilitate two established ideas about the behavior of crowds and about the undue influence of technological systems on human behavior. I depart from Mumford's tactics and those of Canetti and Latour and propose a novel focus for STS on "sociotechnical crowds" as a meaningful unit of social measure. I make clear that Mumford's critique of the sociotechnical status quo still informs the conditions for innovation today.
Using mixed mode qualitative methods in two types of empirical field studies, I then investigate how a focus on the characteristics and components of collective human capacities in sociotechnical systems can affect the design and performance of TA. I propose a new model of TA, Emergent Technology Assessment (ETA), which includes greater public participation and recognizes the interrelationship among experience, affect and the material in mediating the innovation process. The resulting model -- the "soft" megamachine --introduces new strategies to build capacity for responsible innovation in society.
I analyze the components of Mumford's megamachine and align key concerns in two pivotal works that characterize the impact of collective capacities on society: Bruno Latour's Pasteurization of France (1988) and Elias Canetti's Crowds and Power (1962). As I create a model of collective capacities in the sociotechnical according to the parameters of Mumford's megamachine, I rehabilitate two established ideas about the behavior of crowds and about the undue influence of technological systems on human behavior. I depart from Mumford's tactics and those of Canetti and Latour and propose a novel focus for STS on "sociotechnical crowds" as a meaningful unit of social measure. I make clear that Mumford's critique of the sociotechnical status quo still informs the conditions for innovation today.
Using mixed mode qualitative methods in two types of empirical field studies, I then investigate how a focus on the characteristics and components of collective human capacities in sociotechnical systems can affect the design and performance of TA. I propose a new model of TA, Emergent Technology Assessment (ETA), which includes greater public participation and recognizes the interrelationship among experience, affect and the material in mediating the innovation process. The resulting model -- the "soft" megamachine --introduces new strategies to build capacity for responsible innovation in society.
ContributorsGano, Gretchen (Author) / Guston, David (Thesis advisor) / Miller, Clark (Thesis advisor) / Selin, Cynthia (Committee member) / Wetmore, Jameson (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The quality and quantity of talented members of the US STEM workforce has
been a subject of great interest to policy and decision makers for the past 40 years.
Recent research indicates that while there exist specific shortages in specific disciplines
and areas of expertise in the private sector and the federal government, there is no
noticeable shortage in any STEM academic discipline, but rather a surplus of PhDs
vying for increasingly scarce tenure track positions. Despite the seeming availability
of industry and private sector jobs, recent PhDs still struggle to find employment in
those areas. I argue that the decades old narrative suggesting a shortage of STEM
PhDs in the US poses a threat to the value of the natural science PhD, and that
this narrative contributes significantly to why so many PhDs struggle to find career
employment in their fields. This study aims to address the following question: what is
the value of a STEM PhD outside academia? I begin with a critical review of existing
literature, and then analyze programmatic documents for STEM PhD programs at
ASU, interviews with industry employers, and an examination the public face of value
for these degrees. I then uncover the nature of the value alignment, value disconnect,
and value erosion in the ecosystem which produces and then employs STEM PhDs,
concluding with specific areas which merit special consideration in an effort to increase
the value of these degrees for all stakeholders involved.
been a subject of great interest to policy and decision makers for the past 40 years.
Recent research indicates that while there exist specific shortages in specific disciplines
and areas of expertise in the private sector and the federal government, there is no
noticeable shortage in any STEM academic discipline, but rather a surplus of PhDs
vying for increasingly scarce tenure track positions. Despite the seeming availability
of industry and private sector jobs, recent PhDs still struggle to find employment in
those areas. I argue that the decades old narrative suggesting a shortage of STEM
PhDs in the US poses a threat to the value of the natural science PhD, and that
this narrative contributes significantly to why so many PhDs struggle to find career
employment in their fields. This study aims to address the following question: what is
the value of a STEM PhD outside academia? I begin with a critical review of existing
literature, and then analyze programmatic documents for STEM PhD programs at
ASU, interviews with industry employers, and an examination the public face of value
for these degrees. I then uncover the nature of the value alignment, value disconnect,
and value erosion in the ecosystem which produces and then employs STEM PhDs,
concluding with specific areas which merit special consideration in an effort to increase
the value of these degrees for all stakeholders involved.
ContributorsGarbee, Elizabeth (Author) / Maynard, Andrew D. (Thesis advisor) / Wetmore, Jameson (Committee member) / Anderson, Derrick (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018