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Gandhi's technoscience: sustainability and technology as themes of politics
Author(s) -
Ninan Anup Sam
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
sustainable development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.115
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1099-1719
pISSN - 0968-0802
DOI - 10.1002/sd.381
Subject(s) - technoscience , ingenuity , politics , sustainability , democratization , sociology , agency (philosophy) , environmental ethics , epistemology , compendium , sociotechnical system , autonomy , social science , political science , democracy , management , law , economics , philosophy , ecology , biology , linguistics
Based on an in‐depth examination of the original writings of Mohandas Gandhi, spanning over 98 volumes, and the compendium of works by his associates J. C. Kumarappa and Vinoba Bhave, this article explores the technoscientific notions of the Gandhian school of thought to broaden the technology–sustainability discussions. Premised on the idea of nature, the varying nature–human definitions were crucial for Gandhians in pursuing their political activities. Positing nature methodologically as an unproblematic abstract category, Gandhians formulated, redefined and appropriated technoscientific spaces; thereby facilitating their technological choices and artefacts to embody the values of sustainability, decentralized autonomy and labour‐intensiveness. They engaged science and technology as a contextually contingent social process and integrated it into a mass political movement by identifying technoscience as a site of political action. This article adds to the STS discussions on democratization of technology, and the socially embedded nature of scientific ingenuity and multivalency of technological choices. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.