This course familiarizes the students with the central role of technology in development and technological change as a controlled, evolving, and often socially constructed process.
The role of technology and technological change in human development and well-being cannot be understated. This is not restricted to only local, regional, and national contexts, but also as enshrined in broader targets such as the Millennium Development Goals. However, technology and technological change are not straightforward but complex processes, often deeply embedded in sociological processes. Social structures, social processes, power, norms and values, politics, culture, and so on, significantly influence processes of technological change and the nature of technology itself. This course understands these dynamics and individual/social decision-making processes around technology.
The entire course rests on two conceptual frameworks – (a) systems of innovation and (b) the social construction of technological systems. A recipient of this course will emerge as more informed on technology and technological processes contributing to scholarly research, development intervention, critique, commentary, and policy building on this area.
Units
The course is comprised of six broad units.
(1) Introduction and Basic Concepts: This introduces the role of technology and technological change in the development process and realizing development goals. We analyze the fundamental nature of technological change, including technological paradigms and trajectories, and see how it has evolved over time. Basic terms in technology studies are also introduced.
(2) The Systems of Innovation (SI) Approach: This unit introduces the first theoretical framework of this course – Systems of Innovation. We understand how innovation is a systemic process at national, regional, sectoral, and local levels; and who the actors and processes involved in technological change and innovation are. We also study technological infrastructure, and how innovation and diffusion are measured.
(3) The Diffusion of Innovations: In this unit, we understand how knowledge and technologies spread. We analyze the fundamentals of networks, the innovation-decision process, and attributes of the agents of diffusion. The importance of social networks in the diffusion and development process is a dominant issue in this unit.
(4) The Social Construction of Innovation and Diffusion: This unit presents the Social Construction of Technological Systems (SCOT) theory as the second core framework of this course. It demonstrates how sociological and cultural variables shape technologies and their diffusion. We also discuss the feminist understanding of technological change, and the lived experience of gender and technology.
(5) Technology and Inequality: This unit is about the relationship between technology and inequality in terms of its relationship to modernity, agency, technological inequalities, and mitigation of inequality.
(6) Innovation and Technological Change in India and the Developing World: The last module takes a vast sweep at critical themes such as building technological capabilities, the digital divide, innovation in the ‘South,’ and finally, innovation policy.
Course Assessment:
There are two assessments for this course.
The response paper component, where the student would be required to submit a critique of an important science, technology, innovation policy measure. This constitutes 40% of the total assessment and is conducted at the course's halfway point.
The term paper is a written assessment of about 2500 words. The objective here is to explore, disentangle, analyze, and understand the selected technology's institutional, diffusional, and contextual making (with the course instructor’s approval). This is an exercise in applying the concepts, perspectives, and tools discussed in this course conceptualizing technology. It, therefore, requires some theoretical reflection with the empirical and is a great opportunity to think creatively and “inter-disciplinarily” about what technology is. This constitutes 60% of the total assessment and is worked through the entire course, submitted at the end.
Course Readings:
Unit I: Introduction and Basic Concepts
1. David and Foray (2002) ‘An Introduction to the Economy of the Knowledge Society’, UNESCO, [pp.9-21]
2. UN Millennium Project (2005) Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development, Task Force on Science, Technology, and Innovation, United Nations, [chap 2,3; pp.20-44]
Unit II: The Systems of Innovation (SI) Approach
1. Cowan, David, and Foray (2000) ‘The Explicit Economics of Knowledge Codification and Tacitness’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 9(2): 211-253
2. Edquist, C. (2005) ‘Systems of Innovation: Perspectives and Challenges’, in Fagerberg et al. (eds.)
Unit III: The Diffusion of Innovations
1. Rogers, E. (1995) The Diffusion of Innovations, The Free Press, Macmillan, New York, chapters 2 (pp.2-35), 4 (pp.136-157), 5 (pp.168-219) and 8 and 9 (excerpts)
2. Barabasi (2002) Linked: The New Science of Networks, Perseus
Unit IV: The Social Construction of Innovation and Technological Change
1. Bijker, W.E., and Pinch, T. (1987) ‘The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other’, in Bijker et al. (eds.) The Social Construction of Technological Systems, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
2. Pfaffenberger, B. (1992) ‘Social Anthropology of Technology’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 21: 491-516
3. Schwartz Cowan, R. (1976) ‘The “Industrial Revolution” in the Home: Household Technology and Social Change in the 20th Century’, Technology and Culture, 17(1):1-23
4. Webster, F. (2006) Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition, Routledge, London and New York
Unit V: Technology and Inequality
1. Halford, S., and Savage, M. (2010) ‘Reconceptualising Digital Social Inequality’,
Information, Communication, and Society, 13(7): 937-955
2. Kamath, A. (2021) ‘A Technological Enquiry into Inequality,’ Working Paper NIAS/SSc/IHD/U/WP/11/2021, National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore
3. Qiu, J.L. (2009) Working-Class Network Society: Communication Technology and the Information Have-Less in Urban China, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, London
Unit VI: Innovation and Technological Change in India and the Developing World
4. Mani, S. (2009) ‘Has India become more Innovative since 1991? Analysis of Evidence and Some Disquieting Features’, Working Paper 415, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum
5. Nayyar, D. (2010), ‘Economic Growth and Technological Capabilities in BRICS’, in Fu and Soete (eds.) The Rise of Technological Power in the South, Palgrave [pp.49-67]
6. Fu and Soete (2010) ‘Introduction’, in Fu and Soete (eds.) The Rise of Technological Power in the South, Palgrave [pp.1-12]