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A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination

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learned a little about ethnicity; more recently we discovered gender; and more recently still we learned something - perhaps not very much yet - about age and disability. So might a white, middle class, middle aged man with a normatively approved set of physical skills write of the history of his sociology. So might he comment on the way in which he slowly learned that 'his' sociology had never spoken for 'us': that all along the sociological 'we' was a Leviathan that had achieved its (sense of) order by usurping or silencing the other voices.

Even so, this was a sociology always driven, at least in part, by a concern with distribution - for otherwise it would never have learned of its isolation. It was driven by a concern with pain. It was driven by an ambivalent wish to learn of and intervene about injustice. But what should count as a distribution was fought over time and time again in the retreat from a sovereign order. 'We' found it difficult to recognise class - for after all, we are all free and equal in the market. And ethnicity, too, was slow to come into focus, perhaps because it was hoped that this was underpinned by a logic of class. Then those who took class seriously - and, to be sure, those who did not - found it difficult to recognise gender. Where 'we' are now, gender is somewhat, but only somewhat, in focus. Still there are great silences about gender. As there are
about age, about disability.

Something like this seems to happen: first the dispossessed have no voice at all. Then, when they start to create a voice, they are derided. Then (I am not sure of the order), they are told that they are wrong, or they are told that this was something that everyone knew all along. Then they are told that they are a danger. Then finally, in a very partial form, it may be that their voices are heard and taken seriously. And it has been a struggle all the way. There are several reasons for introducing a volume on technology and power by talking, like this, of the birth of pain in sociology, the discovery of distributions. But the most pressing grows out of what I take to be a great divide between the critical sociological concern with distribution on the one hand, and much of the most important new writing on science and technology on the other. It is easy to characterise that divide, though I find it hard to characterise it well. In one version, however, it amounts to a reciprocal accusation of myopia between sociology and what (for purposes of brevity) I will call STS (science, technology and society).

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Ketersediaan

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW MONOGRAPH

No. Panggil

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Penerbit

London : Routledge., 1991

Deskripsi Fisik

vii, 273 Hlm.

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

0-415-07139-9

Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW MONOGRAPH 38

Subjek

SOSIOLOGI

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

agus

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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