Towards a reflexive framework for development

technology transfer after the empirical turn

Evan Selinger

pp. 377-403

in: Jan K. Berg Olsen, Frederik Voetmann Christiansen, Stig A. Pedersen, Søren Riis, Pelle Guldborg Hansen, Ulrik Jørgensen (eds), Technology and science, Synthese 168 (3), 2009.

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to: (1) detail how recent trends in philosophical theory have made it possible for philosophers of technology to critically discuss technology transfer; (2) demonstrate that economic standards of assessment are conducive to obscuring the hidden tradeoffs that technological practices, such as mobile phone use in Bangladesh, can engender; and (3) provide the basis of an alternative model that can reflexively addresses dimensions of technology transfer that neo-classical economic accounts occlude.