As Deleuze said, concepts do have an origin and a need to be but also do have an expiring date. That is to say, you use one or another concept if it makes sense in a particular “agencement” in which you are trying to live or, in this case, research. And, likewise, you abandon a concept if it suddenly does not make sense or it does not bring forward new connections or affinities with what you are interested in. It is all about finding the “agencements qui nous conviennent” and stopping our “interpretation” about if that meant A or B. You can further elaborate this very idea if you take into consideration Alice in Wonderland quote about the meaning of words (Which Deleuze does also refer to; and Did I in a previous post).

“- When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, – it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

- The question is,said Alice, – whether you can make words mean so many different things.

- The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, – which is to be master – - that’s all.” (Carroll, 1865)

Having said so, I think that, unless we want to act as some sort of “thought police (thinkpol for Orwell fans…)”, we should celebrate (which does not mean to accept everything) the proliferation of a multiplicity of uses of some notions that, originally embedded in STS, have been used in other fields. Some of these translations have been fruitful such as to seriously take into consideration post/de-colonial and feminists approaches; for instance. That said, if we think about the notion of Cyborg as elaborated by Donna Haraway, we can acknowledge for many “misuses” of the term. But were not that misuses relevant to someones, weren’t they aimed at a purpose? I think that the relevance of “cyborg” was precisely due to a quick and widely acceptance into many academic fields which, more or less accurately (that is the point), did respect the very idea from which the cyborg arose. In deed, Donna Haraway, in a conference held at Barcelona and cosponsored by the UAB’s Department of Social Psychology, sustained that, although many STS scholars referred to the notion of cyborg (amongst which she explicitly mentioned Bruno Latour), they (her words) never realized that it was about gender.

So, after all, it should not be that strange to found pertinent uses of STS concepts “across the borders”. Though, and here is the crucial point (IMHO), battles for naming and labeling may arise. Given that, if what you are doing with “my” concept is not what “I” do, then call it another thing which is great in order to avoid confusion. But it is also naïf in the sense that, somehow, one is to believe that there is only one proper way of “using” things and neglects, indeed, the possibility of “translation” of this very concepts that, although retaining something, do also leave something aside. For the notion of cyborg (which btw I am not quite sure we could include it into STS vocabulary, but still) when re-used by some STS scholars, and according to Haraway, it was “gender” which was left aside when translated. So, ¿what is really “unacceptable” and what is “suitable” for different translations of STS concepts such as Obligatory Point of Passage, Translation, Actor, Network, Script, etc. Which, ironically, they are themselves translations from other sources or “origins”?; to put it shortly.

from saltpublishing.com

This is not to argue against a concern about how concepts are abused (insofar as you do not need to talk about an Action-Net if the only thing you state in a paper is that some elements are interconnected or, else, if claims of authority are made as you assume to rightfully use a term or concept). Instead I am willing to interrogate what it is that we found so disrupting in misusing a term, concept or notion.

Another point, very different from concept uses or misuses, is about “choices” and “pertinence”. Here I am grateful to the suggestion of considering how the idea of space can be conceptualized. As, for the time being, I was looking at the idea of production of space by Henri Lefebvre so as to argue that wifi was not just an instrumental effect of a technology but rather a production of space that allowed (and was produced) by a series of practices that were not possible before. But did not pay attention to other theories or ways of conceiving space such as those appearing on Marianne de Laet and Annemarie Mol “The Zimbabwe Bush Pump” known paper. Well, for days to come, I will have to think about crossings between urban sociology, political sociology and STS [given that it is not that “evident” that they could work together or at least, the way I intended to do it

Ok, quick posting for the aftermath of the seminar 

RAX!

sharing is a pleasure; giving credit too:

]]> http://wifi-r.molekulab.net/translate-a-concept-and-%c2%bf-on-uses-and-misuses-of-sts-notions/feed/ 0 http://wifi-r.molekulab.net/presenting-work-at-the-centre-de-sociologie-de-linnovation-csi/ http://wifi-r.molekulab.net/presenting-work-at-the-centre-de-sociologie-de-linnovation-csi/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:20:18 +0000 Yann Bona http://wifi-r.molekulab.net/?p=175 On July , 8th some people (Including myself…) at the CSI  are presenting their work at the monthly seminar.  After giving some thought, I chose to present a fragment of a chapter of my thesis which I am currently working on (In French…). It will draw on some recent findings here in Paris concerning WiFi and deepen into the history of routers. This is, how a huge armchair-like machine ended up in our homes as a cute closed-box with an antenna.

Behold the Inteface Message Processor! from: aleph.llull.net

Hopefully enough it won’t be that boring (given that the chapter could qualify for an honorific membership from the Society of People Interested in Boring Things.) Nevertheless, the goal is to provide a topological approach of the knots and tendencies to which routers have been attached and how these very attachments changed what they are / were since the late ’60’s.

That said, I am expecting great comments from people at the CSI seminar. It is not everyday that you can have your work commented by STS people

RAX!

So, along with the ouverture of the MediaLab, Passageenseine and Hacker Space Fest, please behold the following:

May 30, 31

World Information City @ Maison des Metallos (their logo seems a little bit right-wing fashioned though…but maybe they are willing to reach an effect as situationist-like metal band Laibach did. Nevertheless, we prefer smooth shapes and fluidity over rigid lines and monumentalism. Jhon Urry, Bruno Latour, Saskia Sassen and Brian Holmes, amongst others, will be there)

Plus, people from hackitectura.net which inspired some of my research will trun place de la bastille into a “wikiplaza” profiting from the mega umbrella-event future-en-seine.org May, 30 – June, 07th.

June 3, 4

Hyperurbain2 @ cité des sciences et de l’industrie.

Among the on-going presnetations of hyperurbain2 this one looks great: 11:30 on June, 4th: Le piéton dans la ville : Nouvelles épreuves de la micromobilité hyperdocumentée. Sophie Pène, GRIPIC-EA 1498, Université Paris IV, France

And, to sum up,

June 2-7th

Mal au Pixel (4th edition) @ St.Ouen

Electronic music and bricolage festival. There is a seminar on art, environtment and technology the 7th.

from craslab.org

from e-weekvic.cat

e-Week : E-weEk : eWEEk : eweeK : e-wEeK … is there a correct way to display information? is there a correct way to make mistakes? is there a choice to be made when selecting how information is presented? if so, under what criteria? even if we present a blured text, a blured image, a blured map, still, to a certain degree, we can orient ourselves, we still can atribute a meaning, an ordering, to letters, sounds, images, signals…can we really get lost in an information era?

Well, wifi has that strange ability of turning a non-connected area into a node. To turn a closing device like a rooftop into a broadcast open space. To turn a device designed for indoor use into an outdoor device. And, by so doing, it produces a wifi space (zone). You take one artifact, you modify it’s default script, you place it where it is not supossed to, you connect it with similar artifacts and you already have a netwok of linked artifacts. Once you have a network, you can trace back the connections. In this sense, there are a lot of networks. But not all of them have, for some reason, a map or carthography. A lot of choices are to be made when displaying information. Designers and cartographers are not here by accident

We will be participating in a round table organized by Efraín Foglia (THX!!!)(UVic) and Lucia Lijtmaer (UVic).

The event will take place at the e-week or Vic digital week (la setmana digital de Vic) on May, 7th at 11-13;30H (Aula Magna – Universitat de Vic)

As seen here (copy-pasted):

JORNADA RECORREGUTS, CARTOGRAFIES I PARAULA: TRAÇATS DIGITALS

- 11.00h, Aula Magna – Universitat de Vic
Presentació del projecte “Recorreguts, cartografies i paraula: traçats digitals”, a càrrec de Lucia Lijtmaer (UVic) i Efraín Foglia (UVic).

- 12.00h, Aula Magna – Universitat de Vic
Taula rodona: “Creació transversal / Educació oberta” – Mercé Rodrigo (Goldsmiths University of London), Yann Bona Beauvois (UAB), Ana S. Pareja (editora – projecte “Matar en Barcelona”), Jordi Corominas (periodista cultural – projecte “Matar en Barcelona”), Lucia Lijtmaer (UVic) i Efraín Foglia (UVic).
guifi.net will also be at e-week organizing a workshop on wifi which will surely be of great interest (Vic is largely under guifi.net coverage)
RAX!

Foucault from www.whatknows.com

Why post about Foucault in a WiFi Blog? Well, being a social psychologist, I have come to known countless studies that, drawing from a foucauldian perspective could talk about any imaginable phenomena. I guess this is what happens when a great thinker as Foucault becomes widely read and his perspective is shared and sometimes, it is used as a lingua franca for sociologists, psychologist, meds, criminologists, lawyers, politicians, policy makers, managers, and many others. Indeed, as a popular expression tells;

“If you give a hammer to a child, then, everything becomes smashable. Everything becomes a nail.” (popular)

Therefore, it is no surprise that, all of a sudden, everything was read under a disciplinary paradigm, everything was crossed by power relations. And, IMHO, it was great. But times are a changing (Dylan dixit).

And so did Baudrillard publishing his “Oublier Foucault” in ‘77 @  Steve Lotringers semiotexte editorial project.

Nevertheless, there is always a strange feeling of remembrance, sort of  “I know this story, but, it is such a good story that I can not resist hearing it again”. And I guess that for many scholars that will assist at this seminar this will be the case (There are no entries left). Certainly mixed w/ a will to keep learning about Foucault (Because people being able to explain Foucault  thoughts  with maestry are on short supply these days.)

Going back to the question. ¿Foucault-WiFi? It could be “just”* a matter of focusing on how the object-device (WiFi) [materiality] , the body [anatomy] and the norm (How, Where, When  to use WiFi) [politics?] come together. That is what discipline is  also about; not only distributing bodies into spaces and times but establishing, producing the ways one has to behave vis à vis certain objects. Of course there are many ways of adressing this question, as many as researchers are. Mark Poster developed his particular vision of Foucault and Databases, for instance. (But that is another story…)

See you at the seminar

RAX!

* of curse, taken seriously, if we are to follow Foucault procedures, the answer will need a carefull and detailed review of a large corpus of documents. And, probably, giving an account that does not limit his extension to the “discipline” effects. It seems that for Foucault there is always a duality between the “individual” and “individualisation” practises and the management of popultaion as a whole; as a matter of concern and as a generator of fine measuring instruments to grasp the ever increasing multiplicity that is constantly pouring out of the control mecanisms set up to contain (and legislate) her. The population or policy issues have not been adressed here. But, hey, this is just a post.

It is a joint seminar with colleagues from FIC research group. They will be presenting other research topics that are not dealing with wifi. being “carrying a research project” our common linkage. The overture is announced as follows;

guifi.net people on water deposit

16H – Yann Bona – Gestión Ciutadana de la Tecnología. Un estudio de la apropiación tecnológica de las redes WiFi a través de sus usos y prácticas en Barcelona.

16.45 – Jimena Carrasco – Transformaciones en la intervención social con personas con problemas de salud mental y enfermedades psiquiátricas en Chile: Procesos de re configuración de lo social y de la subjetividad en el marco del discurso neo liberal ??

17. 30 – Ana Cristina Aguirre – Los nuevos movimientos sociales transnacionales, el sujeto político civil, una alternativa a la institución. ??

* I will substitute the “??” for proper titles when I get more info. However, this kind of info uses to be last minute delivered.

So, 45 minutes to present something about Citizen Management of Technology | Gestió Ciutadana de la Tecnologia. As far as we have been told, the idea is to get the students to know how they can sort out some issues regarding their future Ph.D projects. We are expected to present our results as a way to show how we have overcome some problems, I guess. Well, good luck… LOL!

from phdcomics.com 16/6/2008

Ok, more seriously now…Let’s start here with a tentative list of things we could talk about:

- research question. This might get a little messy (but it should not).

- examples such as; fixmystreet (recent), free radios (aka radio Alice) (past)

- distinction between research project to be presented elsewhere and research being done. Look and feel issues.

- results form interviews.

- avoid extending beyond 45 minutes / allow 10 for questions and comments…

RAX!