Subversion Conversion Development
            
                Infrastructures
Publisher: MIT Press Ltd; The MIT Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780262525831
Description: This book explores alternative cultural encounters with and around information technologies. These encounters are alternative because they counter dominant, Western-oriented notions of media consumption; they include media practices as forms of cultural resistance and subversion, "DIY cultures," and other nonmainstream models of technology production. The contributors -- leading thinkers in science and technology studies, anthropology, and software design -- pay special attention to the specific inflections that different cultures and communities give to the value of knowledge. The richly detailed accounts presented here challenge the dominant view of knowledge as a neutral good -- information available for representation and encoding but separated from all social relations. The chapters examine specific cases in which the forms of knowledge and cross-cultural encounters are shaping technology use and development. They consider design, use, and reuse of technological tools, including databases, GPS devices, books, and computers, in locations that range from Australia and New Guinea to Germany and the United States. --Provided by publisher.