The Cultural Fix: An Anthropological Contribution to Science and Technology Studies

Abstract

Since at least the 1960s, science and technology studies (STS) scholars have distinguished between technological and social fixes. The author introduces a new concept for the STS theoretical tool kit—the cultural fix—and illustrates this concept using examples from her own research on pregnancy loss and neonatal intensive care, as well as that of anthropologists Katherine Newman and Sherry Ortner on downward mobility and unemployment in the United States. It is argued that the cultural fix represents a distinctive anthropological contribution to the field.

Governance of resettlement compensation and the cultural fix in rural China

“…His case reveals that the externalities of cultural production and social expectation lead to uneven development and inequality by marginalizing certain races, classes and genders (Loughran, 2018). Layne (2000) argues that externalities are an implicit side-effect of cultural productions based on linear pathways of social progress. In her study on the cultural impacts of unemployment, contradiction is implicit in development, as the capitalist system periodically creates types of unemployment, but liberal ideology glorifies upward mobility, rendering individuals failures if they are unable to meet expectations of career and living standards.…”

A Narrative Analysis of Success and Failure in Environmental Remediation

“…Furthermore, if the troubles with the dredge and conveyor are any indication, the public has a right to be skeptical about the possibility that any of these things would have happened. I would suggest that the broader framework for this skepticism resides in the growing public understanding that the so-called "technological fix" (see Layne, 2000;Teich, 1997) can just as often turn out to be the "technological bluff" (see Ellul, 1990).…”

Emotions as Bio-cultural Processes

“…As Layne (2000, p. 357) pointed out, pregnancy losses destroy the ''narrations of linear progress'' cultivated in Western societies as a consequence of the deep-rooted belief in the benefits of technological achievements coming from a deeply rooted belief in progress and technology. Layne (2000) stressed that the prominence and even the power of this belief makes it difficult to tell other stories, that is, stories that do not conform to the general expectations of linear progress and feasibility. Layne also pointed to another highly significant aspect: that the unpredictable and uncontrollable and that pain, suffering, and death are no longer daily narratives and rarely topics of public or medical discourse.…”