Scholars Award: The Appropriate Technology Movement in American Political Culture

学者奖：美国政治文化中的适当技术运动

• 批准号: 0822907
• 负责人: Jordan Kleiman
• 金额: $ 13.18万
• 依托单位: SUNY College at Geneseo
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-01 至 2010-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0822907&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Scholars; Award; Appropriate; Technology; Movement

This Scholar's Award from the NSF's program in Science, Technology and Society supports research that examines the history of the Appropriate Technology Movement in the United States. The Appropriate Technology Movement (ATM) emerged in the 1960s as an alternative strategy for international economic development based on technologies that are small in scale, democratically controllable, low in capital commitment, environmentally sustainable, and adaptable to local cultural conditions. As the movement gained momentum in the late 1960s, appropriate technologists set their sights on the social and environmental reform of the industrialized world as well. This study will examine several topics related to this effort as it unfolded in the U.S., including the ATM's historical connections to the counterculture and the Environmental Justice Movement, its interaction with the state, and its gender politics. Scholarly and popular accounts of the movement are based on an exceedingly narrow body of evidence and are thus burdened by a number of misconceptions: that the movement is a manifestation of romantic anti-modernism and is thus anti-technology and anti-city; that its only strategy for social change is the development and dissemination of "green" hardware; and that it devolved into a new-age fad in the 1970s and disappeared shortly thereafter. This study will gather evidence that may help clear up these misconceptions by drawing on extensive primary-sources. The data sources include oral histories collected from thirty AT organizations in over 20 states, as well as substantial archival research. Examination of this evidence will make possible a more balanced assessment of the ATM's strengths and weaknesses and will reveal that the movement's effort to combine small-scale, community-controlled technology with an array of cooperative economic institutions is deeply rooted in the American populist tradition. This research will also explain why the effort to translate AT principles into public policy has met with only limited success. This research will result in a scholarly book on the history of the American branch of the ATM and will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, activists, and technology-users more generally.

这个学者奖来自美国国家科学基金会的科学，技术和社会计划，支持研究，审查在美国的适当技术运动的历史。 20世纪60年代出现的适当技术运动是国际经济发展的一种替代战略，其基础是规模小、民主可控、资本投入少、环境可持续和适应当地文化条件的技术。随着这一运动在20世纪60年代后期获得动力，适当的技术专家也将目光投向了工业化世界的社会和环境改革。 这项研究将探讨与这一努力相关的几个主题，因为它在美国展开，包括ATM与反主流文化和环境正义运动的历史联系，它与国家的互动，以及它的性别政治。 学术界和大众对这场运动的描述都是基于极其狭隘的证据，因此存在许多误解：这场运动是浪漫主义反现代主义的表现，因此是反技术和反城市的;它的唯一社会变革战略是开发和传播“绿色”硬件;它在20世纪70年代演变成一种新时代的时尚，此后不久就消失了。 这项研究将收集证据，可能有助于澄清这些误解，利用广泛的主要来源。 数据来源包括从20多个州的30个AT组织收集的口述历史，以及大量的档案研究。 对这些证据的研究将使我们有可能对ATM的优势和劣势进行更平衡的评估，并揭示出该运动将联合收割机小规模的、社区控制的技术与一系列合作经济机构相结合的努力深深植根于美国的民粹主义传统。 这项研究还将解释为什么将AT原则转化为公共政策的努力只取得了有限的成功。 这项研究将产生一本关于ATM美国分支历史的学术著作，并将引起学者、政策制定者、活动家和技术用户的兴趣。