[Stoves] Forestry and Fuel

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Samer

 

I think you and Saeed have done a really good job of investigating this meme
and how it arose to become a significant element of fundraising for fuel
efficient stoves.

 

The particular aspect that interests me is how, once started, the 'root' of
the idea which existed in someone's world gets transplanted into other
places and grows into a rather different creature. Like a cat released from
sack, there is no getting it back inside. It just runs away to a life of its
own.

 

There is a strong parallel with the 'world of testing' of stoves. There are
ideas that start with 'let's test this...' and later be becomes 'this is how
testing should be done' and later, in other hands. 'this is the way testing
must be done'.  The principal justification for this and for the 'fuel
efficient stoves reduce rape' meme are that other have said very similar
things (citations provided) therefore it either must be true, or it is true
and this is how to frame it.

 

As everyone will be aware, social science follows the same rules are regular
science. It is therefore worrying that claims 'which sound like they could
be true' are repeated often and for long enough to 'become true' merely
because it has been 'popularised'.  It is a bit like Zsa Zsa Gabor who was
really famous, but mostly for being really famous. 

 

Because vested interests always shape the messages they carry, it is
inevitable that additional baggage accumulates, but something as important
as the technologisation of social phenomena really needs some unpacking. I
usually call it techno-cure and there are several synonyms. What you have
described in heavily referenced detail is the impact of socially-rooted
pressures (desires, ego, personal goals, agendas) on the shaping and
selection of technology and what it is claimed to do (cure, heal, comfort,
satisfy, ennoble, uplift, validate, confirm, make worthy).

 

Stoves do make heat, but they are so utterly social devices we find that an
optimised device, from the point of view of the engineer-inventor, is
nothing close to what is wanted by the market. Trying to turn all social (or
personal) issues  into a technical problem is one of the pathologies of
materialist culture.  Not every wound is best healed using a bolt, nut and
lock washer.

 

Regards

Crispin

 

+++++++++++

 

...For those of you interested, the link to the paper is below, which
details the construction of the 'stoves reduce rape' narrative and some of
the implications I suggest above. Always happy for feedback and discussion.

 

Warmly,

Samer

 

 

 
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259104849_Technologizing_Humanitar
ian_Space_Darfur_Advocacy_and_the_Rape-Stove_Panacea/file/60b7d529fb1e6ecbd5
.pdf?origin=publication_detail>
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259104849_Technologizing_Humanitari
an_Space_Darfur_Advocacy_and_the_Rape-Stove_Panacea/file/60b7d529fb1e6ecbd5.
pdf?origin=publication_detail

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