Appropriating Technology


Book Description

From the vernacular engineering of Latino car design to environmental analysis among rural women to the production of indigenous herbal cures-groups outside the centers of scientific power persistently defy the notion that they are merely passive recipients of technological products and scientific knowledge. This is the first study of how such "outsiders" reinvent consumer products-often in ways that embody critique, resistance, or outright revolt.Contributors: Richard M. Benjamin, Miami U; Hank Bromley, SUNY, Buffalo; Massimiano Bucchi, U of Trento, Italy; Carmen M. Concepcin, U of Puerto Rico; Virginia Eubanks, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Lisa Gitelman, Catholic U; David Albert Mhadi Goldberg, California College of Arts and Crafts; Samuel M. Hampton; Michael K. Heiman, Dickinson College; Linda Price King; Valerie Kuletz; Lisa Jean Moore, College of Staten Island, CUNY; Brian Martin Murphy, Niagra U; Paul Rosen, U of York; Michael Scarce, Peter Taylor, U of Massachusetts, Boston; Turtle Heart.Ron Eglash is assistant professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Jennifer Croissant is associate professor at the University of California. Giovanna Di Chiro is assistant professor at Allegheny College. Rayvon Fouch is assistant professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.




Field Guide to Appropriate Technology


Book Description

Field Guide to Appropriate Technology is an all-in-one "hands-on guide" for nontechnical and technical people working in less developed communities. It has been developed and designed with a prestigious team of authors, each of whom has worked extensively in developing societies throughout the world. This field guide includes: - Step-by-step instructions and illustrations showing how to build and maintain a vast array of appropriate technology systems and devices - Unique coverage on healthcare, basic business and project management, principles of design, promotion, scheduling, training, microlending, and more - Teachers, doctors, construction workers, forest and agricultural specialists, scientists and healthcare workers, and religious and government representatives will find this book a first source for advice - Step-by-step instructions and illustrations showing how to build and maintain a vast array of appropriate technology systems and devices - Unique coverage on healthcare, basic business and project management, principles of design, promotion, scheduling, training, microlending, and more - Teachers, doctors, construction workers, forest and agricultural specialists, scientists and healthcare workers, and religious and government representatives will find this book a first source for advice










Technology Choice


Book Description

This book attempts to provide a theoretical framework for answering difficult questions evoked by the concept of technology choice primarily by conducting a review of the Appropriate Technology movement and its ideas and experiments.




Macro Policies For Appropriate Technology In Developing Countries


Book Description

This book explores the effects of macro-policies and determines which policies have best promoted appropriate technology in developing countries. It explores the political economy of macro-policies, examining which groups in society are likely to benefit from alternative policies and technologies.




Healing Appalachia


Book Description

Healing Appalachia is the first book to apply "appropriate technology," or the simplest level of technology that can effectively achieve the desired result, specifically to the Appalachian region. The authors examine thirty low-cost, people-friendly, and environmentally benign appropriate technologies that are concerned with such issues as food preservation, land use, shelter, and transportation. They pay close attention to the practicality of each technique according to affordability, ease of use, and ecological soundness. Details on construction and maintenance and resources for locating further information are included, making this an essential volume for everyone who cares about the future of Appalachia.




What Tech Calls Thinking


Book Description

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "In Daub’s hands the founding concepts of Silicon Valley don’t make money; they fall apart." --The New York Times Book Review From FSGO x Logic: a Stanford professor's spirited dismantling of Silicon Valley's intellectual origins Adrian Daub’s What Tech Calls Thinking is a lively dismantling of the ideas that form the intellectual bedrock of Silicon Valley. Equally important to Silicon Valley’s world-altering innovation are the language and ideas it uses to explain and justify itself. And often, those fancy new ideas are simply old motifs playing dress-up in a hoodie. From the myth of dropping out to the war cry of “disruption,” Daub locates the Valley’s supposedly original, radical thinking in the ideas of Heidegger and Ayn Rand, the New Age Esalen Foundation in Big Sur, and American traditions from the tent revival to predestination. Written with verve and imagination, What Tech Calls Thinking is an intellectual refutation of Silicon Valley's ethos, pulling back the curtain on the self-aggrandizing myths the Valley tells about itself. FSG Originals × Logic dissects the way technology functions in everyday lives. The titans of Silicon Valley, for all their utopian imaginings, never really had our best interests at heart: recent threats to democracy, truth, privacy, and safety, as a result of tech’s reckless pursuit of progress, have shown as much. We present an alternate story, one that delights in capturing technology in all its contradictions and innovation, across borders and socioeconomic divisions, from history through the future, beyond platitudes and PR hype, and past doom and gloom. Our collaboration features four brief but provocative forays into the tech industry’s many worlds, and aspires to incite fresh conversations about technology focused on nuanced and accessible explorations of the emerging tools that reorganize and redefine life today.




Appropriate Technology in Vector Control


Book Description

This book was first published in 1990. It discusses a plethora of both high and low tech options for the control of vectors such as mosquitos in the spread of disease.




Community Technology


Book Description