STS development

if we want technologies to bring development, we have tot take into account (2):

• how some technologies are shaped by western contexts.

• how technologies influence societies in more ways than merely solving the problem they were intended to solve.

development

effort to undo the inequality between supposedly underdeveloped countries and supposedly developed countries, where the latter help the former.

modernization theory

developing countries should copy the process of industrialization and modernization of developed countries.

4 assumptions of the modernization theory

• all societies go through the same path of development

• rich countries are superior to poor countries.

• science and technology that have been proven successful in rich countries can be applied without much difficulty in underdeveloped countries.

• western science and technology are superior: knowledge and technology in developing countries are inferior.

modernization theory, key role for sicence and technology (2)

• western knowledge and technologies need to be brought to developing countries.

• similar to linear model of innovation, technological determinism, technology push.

dependency theory (2)

• poverty is caused by dependence on western countries.

• developing countries should find their own path of development.

2 assumptions of the dependency theory

• there is no single superior path of development

• what works in western countries does not automatically work in developing countries.

epistemic determinism

the ideology that knowledge is an immaterial good whose production is independent of the social context, and that this knowledge can be transferred to another social context where it will have similar meanings and effects.

→ knowledge is seen as universal and transferable.