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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-CA link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoPlainText>Dear Samer<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>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 <i>must</i> 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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>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).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Regards<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Crispin<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>+++++++++++<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>...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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Warmly,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Samer<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259104849_Technologizing_Humanitarian_Space_Darfur_Advocacy_and_the_Rape-Stove_Panacea/file/60b7d529fb1e6ecbd5.pdf?origin=publication_detail"><span style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259104849_Technologizing_Humanitarian_Space_Darfur_Advocacy_and_the_Rape-Stove_Panacea/file/60b7d529fb1e6ecbd5.pdf?origin=publication_detail</span></a><o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>