David Hakken - Böcker

This study of computing in an economically transforming city in the north of England looks at how new information technologies effect and are affected by a historically vibrant working-class culture. Stressing the complex interplay between technology and culture, especially notions about work and labor, the authors examine how this dynamic is manifest in computer-related jobs, in social relationships, and in the reproduction of local culture. They analyze the structure of computing in Sheffield, placing it in the contexts of national state policy, world political economy, and the regional labor market, and they explore the processes of computing in relation to the reproduction of gendering, the rise of "labor freedom," and local attempts to influence the course of computerization. The experiences of the people in Sheffield and South Yorkshire have much to teach us about what technology does and what we can do to control it. Computing Myths, Class Realities will be of interest not only to anthropologists and sociologists but to all scholars interested in the social correlates of computing.

This book presents a study of computing in an economically transforming city in the north of England to look at how new information technologies effect and are affected by a historically vibrant working-class culture. It is about the extensive change, taking place in contemporary societies.

The financial/social cataclysm beginning in 2007 ended notions of a “great moderation” and the view that capitalism had overcome its systemic tendencies to crisis. The subsequent failure of contemporary social formations to address the causes of the crisis gives renewed impetus to better analysis in aid of the search for a better future. This book contributes to this search by reviving a broad discussion of what we humans might want a post-capitalist future to be like. It argues for a comparative anthropological critique of capital notions of value, thereby initiating the search for a new set of values, as well as identifying a number of selected computing practices that might evoke new values. It articulates a suggestive set of institutions that could support these new values, and formulates a group of measurement practices usable for evaluating the proposed institutions. The book is grounded in contemporary social science, political theory, and critical theory. It aims to leverage the possibility of alternative futures implied by some computing practices while avoiding hype and technological determinism, and uses these computing practices to explicate one possible way to think about the future.

Arguing that humans have always been technological as well as cultural beings, David Hakken calls for a fundamental rethinking of the traditional separation of anthropology and technical studies. Drawing on three decades of research on contemporary technological societies, this book outlines a fresh way of thinking about technology and offers an ethical and political response to the challenge of truly living as "cyborgs" in the age of cyberspace.

How is knowledge produced and used in cyberspace? David Hakken - a key figure in the anthropology of science and technology studies - approaches the study of cyberculture through the venue of knowledge production, drawing on critical theory from anthropology, philosophy and informatics (computer science) to examine how the character and social functions of knowledge change profoundly in computer-saturated environments. He looks at what informational technologies offer, how they are being employed, and how they are tied to various agendas and forms of power. Knowledge Landscapes will be essential for both social scientists and cultural studies scholars doing research on cyberculture.