[Stoves] THE BIG DESIGN QUESTIONS: IS TECH APPRO-PRIATE IF IT VIOLATES CULTURAL NORMS?
Ronal W. Larson
rongretlarson at comcast.net
Mon Apr 28 23:28:17 CDT 2014
Cecil etal
1. Thanks for this note. Some inserts below
2. Because, like you, I saw some of the early US history on Appropriate Technology, I found this to be of interest:
http://www.wethenet.eu/wp-content/uploads/Pursell-The-Rise-and-Fall-of-the-Appropriate-Technology-Movement-in-the-US-1965-1985.pdf
3 Some of that AT history, which I also saw up close for a short time, but have been out of mostly, is at https://www.ncat.org/history/
I have a high regard for the AT history, but it has not lived up to the promise of 1976. But there are now 70 employees, and not all in Montana. It is still nice to see it has survived.
See inserts below also.
On Apr 28, 2014, at 3:52 AM, Cecil Cook <cec1863 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Paul. et al,
>
> if you go to the Engineering for Change website at https://www.engineeringforchange.org and then click on news the E4C reference to the paper - Appropriate Technologies in a Globalizing World: FAQs should show up.
>
> Otherwise, you can read the paper which is exploring the tension between technological appropriateness and well established cultural norms by clicking on: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=06763244
[RWL: This is free, and well worth a look. But it didn’t help me on stoves development. Can anyone point us at relevant answers from the article to help in stove development? I see many valid questions, but ones that could have been (and were) written decades ago.
>
> Here are a few of my reflections on AT in a Globalizing World and the E4C program which you may find interesting:
>
>
> It appears to be associated with the cross disciplinary HESE program (Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship) at Penn State Un where 3 staff and/or students have recently published a very insightful interrogation of the increasingly out of date tenets of Gospel of AT according to the previous generation of abstract technology visionaries, designers and development activists such as Fritz Schumacher, Ivan Illich, Bucky Fuller, Murray Bookchin, and many others.
> [RWL: Nice work at HESE. There are a number of similar University programs. The ETHOS program at Iowa state in stoves is a good example. I hope you can expand on what you fee is now out of date - as AT applies to stoves.
>
> Crispin did you read this article yourself or only recommend that I should read it on your behalf. I think it should be shared with the WB CSI team ASAP.
>
> My quick take on the thrust of this insightful and strangely constructive critique of the venerable Tenets of AT was that the last 30 years has necessarily exposed the technical and political short comings of the counter-culture critique of the urban industrial Western society – fixated in the era of 60’s and 70’s – when a motley band of young counter-culture scientists, engineers, and community organizers in Europe and the USA set out to radically transform or even reverse the dominant Euro-American urban industrial ('bigger is better') paradigm of progress.
[RWL: This may be covered in the Pursell history of AT paper cited above. I have only skimmed this paper, but it looks pertinent.
>
> The AT’ers of that time were attempting to envision and materialize the ‘return’ to smaller, simpler, and more human scale technologies of production, DIY houses, self help energy and water systems, community centred economies, and affordable/sustainable infrastructure that equitably empowered the low income majorities and villagers of the Planet. The counter-culture ‘techies’ of that generation sought to radically change the struggle for progress at home and in developing countries by moving away from the centralized technologies of mass production and urban centred mass distribution that today dominate Western industrial societies.
[RWL: This movement is still around in the US - some arguing against biochar. Some arguing for biochar for the same reasons. Biochar and stoves are intimately linked on this list.
>
>
> The proponents of a more ‘appropriate’ technology within the reach of low income families and communities – who constitute the global majority “at the bottom of the pyramid” - emphasized the need for a drastic paradigm shift from cities, super highways, shopping malls, and the technologies and energy systems required to mass produce and distribute the products to which a westernized global middle class was increasingly accustomed. The AT’ers proposed to replace the urban industrial paradigm of efficient (cost minimizing) mass production and consumption “for all” with what Schumacher once called the values and visions of the ‘home comers’. These back-to-the-land ‘home comers’ were the off spring of Helen and Scott Nearing and Mahatma Gandhi who imagined and also demonstrated the possibility of creating a human scale society in which millions of villages and billions of rural and township dwellers would be technologically empowered by AT devices which - when combined with accountable and transparent local self-government – were believed to have the potential to generate full employment and prosperity for all. Gandhi persuasively argued long ago that what the emerging world system most needed was production by the masses in the villages, not mass production by a small urban work force (proletariat) with the unemployed becoming functionless ‘drones’ who become the playthings of urban elites, planners, politicians, engineers, scientists, and corporations.
[RWL: There is some of this discussion here - but much more on the sister “biochar” list. The dialog here has been more on which country the stove is produced in (or assembled) rather than an urban-rural discussion. But we have that also. China is THE major stove country - probably never given a thought 35 years ago.
> The gospel of AT according to Schumacher and Gandhi attempted to correct the failures of big science and technology operating at national and global scales of consciousness, operation, standards, costs, and social and environmental impacts. It radically reconfigured all technology for development solutions and initiatives to prioritize the interests of the mass of humanity at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP). Instead of the urban elites and their institutional agents, the AT paradigm called for privileging the following objectives, variables, and interests in the search for optimum development solutions:
> the world views and moral imperatives (values) of villagers, tribes, farmers, and small town dwellers ,
> the craft skills and culturally encoded ethno-science needed to conserve and manage the nearby environment, and
> the creation of full employment equitable distribution of wealth and opportunity within local and regional economies
[RWL: My perception is that these three are all valued on this list.
> In retrospect, the tenets of AT emerged from the effort to democratize the benefits of science and technology so that all interest groups and constituencies within that society will have equal opportunity to apply the world S&T knowledge base to help them create a customized technological vehicle or substructure that – within the S&T limits – faithfully expresses and – within the funding and capacity limits of the implementing team – actually advances the social interest and cultural patterns of particular civilizations and ethnic communities. What happens when the indigenous spiritual, cosmological and ethno-science ‘capital’ – values and meta-models of reality – have access to the same S&T power and resources at the disposal of DuPont, Apple, or Microsoft?
[RWL: Is the italicization yours for emphasis? We have had some discussion about the value of the internet. The archives of this list are pretty valuable - going back approaching 20 years. Big money is finally appearing through GACC.
>
> Although the conflation of development with the Americanization and Europeanization - really the Westernization of the majority at the BoP - is still after nearly 50 years confusing theorists, policy makers and implementers, the brave tenets of AT attempted to lay out a number of dimensions of technology assessment that over the last 30 years has helped to differentiate between follow-the-self appointed-leader style "westernization" and more appropriate development which is deeply rooted in the indigenous culture, ethno-science and environmental conditions.
[RWL: Very little need to worry about Americans paying any attention to comparing 3-stone, rocket, and TLUD stoves. Re “confusion” - I know of stove people arguing for a fossil stove solution - and a biofuel or biopower solutioncould be what we see in another 10 years - never discussed on this list - not a Westernization issue, but more climate oriented.
>
> If anybody is interested I will send them a historically interesting Appropriate Technology Checklist compiled long ago (1976) by Jerry Yudelson and Lyn Nelson when they worked for the first and possibly the last State (California) Office of Appropriate Technology under Gov Jerry Brown. I have taken the liberty to revise this eclectic technology assessment methodology over the past 35 years while here in South Africa ... but nobody in high or low places seems to be interested in its potential here or any where else I have recently worked as a stove anthropologist.
[RWL: Before asking you for a copy of the (6p) book with the 20 criteria, I thought I should try to find a free copy on the web. I found one - available from Crispin’s former (?) company New Dawn. Anyone interested in Cecil’s thoughts on decision criteria can go to
http://www.newdawnengineering.com/website/library/Papers+Articles/Revitilisation_Of_Local_Economies/
and click on the third one in that list.
I think the book well done and recommend stove list members look it over. More below on the 20 criteria re stoves below. The book credits you with something. Was all in italics (half the book) all yours? The “book" was published in 1976, giving you credit for supplying in “late 1980’s”. Should say what??
I would appreciate seeing your revisions. Privately is OK, but I hope you can give to the full stove list.
> Yudelson and Nelson captured 20 big Technology Assessment dimensions and reduced them to easy 'indicators of appropriateness'. These 20 critical dimension s and about 100 indicators were created to assist
>
[RWL: Where can we see the “100 indicators”? I have googled for them - unsuccessfully. One paper I found that looked valuable on indicators was at:
https://mcedc.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/BauerMS_FinalReport_Dec2013.pdf
This was a report done for Prof. Amadei who is well known here in Colorado for starting Engineers Without Borders. The example here is an RE one- somewhat like stoves. They discuss about 45 (?) indicators - and have lists rather like the 20 from 1976.
>
> distracted politicians,
> busy government officials,
> specialized scientists,
> tunnel visioned technology designers,
> profit sensitive manufactures,
> sales oriented distributors and retailers,
> community minded NGO gooders,
> big funding agents trying to serve the abstract common good, and
> the ultimate end users of any technos/device who gradually figure out how to optimize their multiple cultural, communitarian, economic, environmental,etc. interests and preferences
> to perform quick, comprehensive 'back of the envelope' assessments of the relative appropriateness of competing technologies on offer to perform necessary tasks and infrastructure services. I see no reason why such an AT Checklist cannot be adapted and adopted for use to differentiate between and rate candidate stoves in terms of their relative appropriateness for particular end users in particular cultures, communities and environments.
[RWL: There have been quite a few “check list" discussions on this list. But little agreement I would say on the ordering. Love to hear your thoughts - which Crispin has bragged about - and promised to give to us - on stoves.
And there is apparently a very recent stove report you have written for Indonesia, I think on this topic. Love to see a copy of that.
We need more discussion on criteria. For instance, I am greatly disappointed that GACC continues to work on improved charcoal-using stoves, which rank very low on my list of criteria.
Cecil: Thanks again for your note.
Ron
>
>
> In service,
>
> Cecil Cook
> TechnoShare
> South Africa
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 7:12 PM, Paul Anderson <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> Crispin,
>
> I have tried several times on different days and I am not able to access this site. Can you assist? I assume others have had the same difficulty.
>
> Paul
> Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
> Email: psanders at ilstu.edu
> Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
> Website: www.drtlud.com
> On 4/24/2014 11:55 AM, Crispin Pembert-Pigott wrote:
>> THE BIG DESIGN QUESTIONS: IS TECH APPRO-PRIATE IF IT VIOLATES CULTURAL NORMS?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.engineeringforchange.org/news/2014/04/13/the_big_design_questions_is_a_technology_appropriate_if_it_violates_cultural_norms.html
>>
>> “Culture is dynamic and should not be museumified.”
>>
>>
>>
>> This is of course relevant to stove design and performance.
>>
>>
>>
>> Always ask Big Questions!
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>> Crispin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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