Doctoral Dissertation Research: A History of Muscle-Powered Transportation Infrastructure Planning and the Broader Political Economy

该奖项支持技术史上的博士论文研究项目，重点是肌肉动力交通和交通技术基础设施的政治经济学。该项目涉及档案研究和口述历史访谈。历史数据有望阐明社会技术政策和实践。这项研究的结果将通过讲习班和学术会议引起从事科学技术研究和基础设施研究等各学科工作的同事的兴趣，并将纳入大学课程，通过公开讲座向更广泛的受众介绍。博士论文研究员将花五个月的时间在三个县进行研究，采访当地人并查阅档案。该研究将对收集到的文本、视觉和人种学数据进行三角分析，以揭示有关交通基础设施规划和交通技术更广泛的政治经济学的见解。该项目将通过将行动者网络理论纳入社会政治背景中来利用理论见解，以便与批判性地反思技术政治的学术传统进行接触，该传统认为嵌入人机关系中的技术政治在时间和空间上并不普遍，但必须在其政治，社会和环境系统中进行审查。通过以这种方式采用行动者网络理论的框架，该项目将调查交通技术在社会政治技术系统中促进用户和其他行动者之间的多层次，多方向的关系。在此过程中，它通过在更广泛的背景下重新定义参与者和网络来扩展ANT的理论框架。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This award supports a doctoral dissertation research project in the history of technology that focuses on muscle-powered transportation and the political economy of transportation technology infrastructure. The project involves archival research and oral history interviews. The historical data promises to illuminate socio-technological policies and practices. The results of this study will be of interest to colleagues working on various disciplines including Science and Technology Studies and Infrastructure Studies through workshops and academic conferences, and they will be incorporated into university courses and presented to broader audiences through public lectures. The doctoral dissertation researcher will spend five months conducting research in three counties interviewing locals and consulting archives. The research will triangulate the textual, visual and ethnographical data collected to bring to light insights concerning transportation infrastructure planning and the broader political economy of transportation technology. The project will use the theoretical insights by incorporating actor-network theory into the socio-political context in order to engage with a scholarly tradition that critically reflects on the politics of technology, which holds that the politics of technology embedded in man-machine relations is not universal across time and space, but must be examined in its political, social, and environmental system. By employing a framework of actor-network theory in this way, the project will investigate the multi-layered, multi-directional relations that transportation technologies foster between users and other actors in the socio-politico-technological system. In so doing, it expands the theoretical framework of ANT by reconceptualizing the actors and the network in a broader context.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.