Subversion, Conversion, Development explores alternative cultural encounters with and around information technologies, encounters that counter dominant, Western-oriented notions of media consumption. We include media practices as forms of cultural resistance and subversion, ‘DIY cultures’, and other non-mainstream models of technology production and consumption. The contributors—leading thinkers in science and technology studies, anthropology, and software design—pay special attention to the specific inflections that different cultures and communities give to the value of knowledge. The richly ... More

Subversion, Conversion, Development explores alternative cultural encounters with and around information technologies, encounters that counter dominant, Western-oriented notions of media consumption. We include media practices as forms of cultural resistance and subversion, ‘DIY cultures’, and other non-mainstream models of technology production and consumption. The contributors—leading thinkers in science and technology studies, anthropology, and software design—pay special attention to the specific inflections that different cultures and communities give to the value of knowledge. The richly detailed accounts presented challenge the dominant view of knowledge as a neutral good—that is, as information available for representation, encoding, and use outside social relations. Instead, we demonstrate the specific social and historical situation of all knowledge forms, and thus of the technological engagement with and communication of knowledges. The chapters examine specific cases in which forms of knowledge and cross-cultural encounter are shaping technology use and development. They consider design, use, and reuse of technological tools including databases, GPS devices, books, and computers, in locations that range from Australia and New Guinea to Germany and the United States. Contributors: Laura Watts, Gregers Petersen, Helen Verran, Michael Christie, Jerome Lewis, Hildegard Diemberger, Stephen Hugh-Jones, Alan Blackwell, Dawn Nafus, Lee Wilson, James Leach, Marilyn Strathern, David Turnbull, Wade Chambers.