Author: Katherine Ott
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814761984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365
Book Description
From the wooden teeth of George Washington to the Bly prosthesis, popular in the 1860s and boasting easy uniform motions of the limb, to today's lifelike approximations, prosthetic devices reveal the extent to which the evolution and design of technologies of the body are intertwined with both the practical and subjective needs of human beings. The peculiar history of prosthetic devices sheds light on the relationship between technological change and the civilizing process of modernity, and analyzes the concrete materials of prosthetics which carry with them ideologies of body, ideals, body politics, and culture. Simultaneously critiquing, historicizing, and theorizing prosthetics, Artificial Parts, Practical Lives lays out a balanced and complex picture of its subject, neither vilifying nor celebrating the merger of flesh and machine.
Artificial Parts, Practical Lives
Author: Katherine Ott
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814761984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365
Book Description
From the wooden teeth of George Washington to the Bly prosthesis, popular in the 1860s and boasting easy uniform motions of the limb, to today's lifelike approximations, prosthetic devices reveal the extent to which the evolution and design of technologies of the body are intertwined with both the practical and subjective needs of human beings. The peculiar history of prosthetic devices sheds light on the relationship between technological change and the civilizing process of modernity, and analyzes the concrete materials of prosthetics which carry with them ideologies of body, ideals, body politics, and culture. Simultaneously critiquing, historicizing, and theorizing prosthetics, Artificial Parts, Practical Lives lays out a balanced and complex picture of its subject, neither vilifying nor celebrating the merger of flesh and machine.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814761984
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 365
Book Description
From the wooden teeth of George Washington to the Bly prosthesis, popular in the 1860s and boasting easy uniform motions of the limb, to today's lifelike approximations, prosthetic devices reveal the extent to which the evolution and design of technologies of the body are intertwined with both the practical and subjective needs of human beings. The peculiar history of prosthetic devices sheds light on the relationship between technological change and the civilizing process of modernity, and analyzes the concrete materials of prosthetics which carry with them ideologies of body, ideals, body politics, and culture. Simultaneously critiquing, historicizing, and theorizing prosthetics, Artificial Parts, Practical Lives lays out a balanced and complex picture of its subject, neither vilifying nor celebrating the merger of flesh and machine.
Making Disability Modern
Author: Bess Williamson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350070440
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
Making Disability Modern: Design Histories brings together leading scholars from a range of disciplinary and national perspectives to examine how designed objects and spaces contributes to the meanings of ability and disability from the late 18th century to the present day, and in homes, offices, and schools to realms of national and international politics. The contributors reveal the social role of objects - particularly those designed for use by people with disabilities, such as walking sticks, wheelchairs, and prosthetic limbs - and consider the active role that makers, users and designers take to reshape the material environment into a usable world. But it also aims to make clear that definitions of disability-and ability-are often shaped by design.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350070440
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
Making Disability Modern: Design Histories brings together leading scholars from a range of disciplinary and national perspectives to examine how designed objects and spaces contributes to the meanings of ability and disability from the late 18th century to the present day, and in homes, offices, and schools to realms of national and international politics. The contributors reveal the social role of objects - particularly those designed for use by people with disabilities, such as walking sticks, wheelchairs, and prosthetic limbs - and consider the active role that makers, users and designers take to reshape the material environment into a usable world. But it also aims to make clear that definitions of disability-and ability-are often shaped by design.
Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Author: Ryan Sweet
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030785890
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
This open access book investigates imaginaries of artificial limbs, eyes, hair, and teeth in British and American literary and cultural sources from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture shows how depictions of prostheses complicated the contemporary bodily status quo, which increasingly demanded an appearance of physical wholeness. Revealing how representations of the prostheticized body were inflected significantly by factors such as social class, gender, and age, Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture argues that nineteenth-century prosthesis narratives, though presented in a predominantly ableist and sometimes disablist manner, challenged the dominance of physical completeness as they questioned the logic of prostheticization or presented non-normative subjects in threateningly powerful ways. Considering texts by authors including Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle alongside various cultural, medical, and commercial materials, this book provides an important reappraisal of historical attitudes to not only prostheses but also concepts of physical normalcy and difference.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030785890
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
This open access book investigates imaginaries of artificial limbs, eyes, hair, and teeth in British and American literary and cultural sources from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture shows how depictions of prostheses complicated the contemporary bodily status quo, which increasingly demanded an appearance of physical wholeness. Revealing how representations of the prostheticized body were inflected significantly by factors such as social class, gender, and age, Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture argues that nineteenth-century prosthesis narratives, though presented in a predominantly ableist and sometimes disablist manner, challenged the dominance of physical completeness as they questioned the logic of prostheticization or presented non-normative subjects in threateningly powerful ways. Considering texts by authors including Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle alongside various cultural, medical, and commercial materials, this book provides an important reappraisal of historical attitudes to not only prostheses but also concepts of physical normalcy and difference.
The Body in Culture, Technology and Society
Author: Chris Shilling
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761971245
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
′Once in a while a manuscript stops you in your tracks... What we are offered here is no recovering of old ground but a step change in perspectives on "body matters" that is both innovative and of fundamental importance to anyone working on this sociological terrain...This text is groundbreaking and simply has to be read′ - Acta Sociologica ′This is Shilling at his creative best...these are seminal observations of the classical theories drawn together as never before. Moreover, as a framework [this monograph] provides a genuinely new and fertile way of reconsidering not just classical sociology but contemporary forms as well′ - Sport, Education & Society ′This is a comprehensive, theoretically sophisticated, and ambitious treatise on the body that draws from, and applies, both classical and contemporary sociological theory in a manner that is innovative and thought-provoking. This book is engaging and thought-provoking, but Shilling′s greatest achievement is his ability to illustrate the importance and continued relevance of classical and contemporary sociological theory to real world concerns. It is a book worthy of widespread attention. It reinvigorated my interest in the sociological classics and contained countless nuggets of interesting information that led me to conclude that it would be a worthy book to recommend to a broad sociological audience′ - Teaching Sociology ′Shilling′s book (like his earlier The Body and Social Theory) is crucial reading...a further valuable contribution in a field where he has provided so much′ - Theory & Psychology ′This is an impressive book by one of the leading social theorists working in the field of body studies. It provides a critical summation of theoretical and substantive work in the field to date, while also presenting a powerful argument for a corporeal realism in which the body is both generative of the emergent properties of social structure and a location of their effects. Its scope and originality make it a key point of reference for students and academics in body studies and in the social and cultural sciences more generally′ - Ian Burkitt, Reader in Social Science, University of Bradford ′Chris Shilling is as always a lucid guide through the dense thickets of the "sociology of the body", and his chapters on the fields of work, sport, eating, music and technology brilliantly show how abstract theoretical debates relate to the real world of people′s lives′ - Professor Stephen Mennell, University College Dublin ′What I find very useful and without any doubt valuable, not only in Shilling′s The Body in Culture, Technology and Society but in his work in general, is the breadth and profoundness of his discussion about the body...the style Shilling maintains is crucial for further development of the sociology of the body as a discipline, for it provides us with a rich intellectual environment about the body′ - Sociology ′For any colleague wanting to have a clear idea of how studies of the body can be empirically grounded as well as theoretically ′rich′, Chris Shilling′s The Body in Culture, Technology and Society , is the book to read. To my mind it offers the best account thus far of not only how social action is embodied and must be recognised as such but also of how social structures condition and shape embodied subjects in a variety of social arenas... This is wonderful insightful ′stuff′ - the ideas and intricate thoughts of a scholar such as Shilling who has been immersed in thinking about the complexities of the body in society as well as sociology for a number of years′ - Sociology of Health and Illness This is a milestone in the sociology of the body. The book offers the most comprehensive overview of the field to date and an innovative framework for the analysis of embodiment. It is founded on a revised view of the relation of classical works to the body. It argues that the body should be read as a multi-dimensional medium for the constitution of society. Upon this foundation, the author constructs a series of analyses of the body and the economy, culture, sociality, work, sport, music, food and technology.
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9780761971245
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
′Once in a while a manuscript stops you in your tracks... What we are offered here is no recovering of old ground but a step change in perspectives on "body matters" that is both innovative and of fundamental importance to anyone working on this sociological terrain...This text is groundbreaking and simply has to be read′ - Acta Sociologica ′This is Shilling at his creative best...these are seminal observations of the classical theories drawn together as never before. Moreover, as a framework [this monograph] provides a genuinely new and fertile way of reconsidering not just classical sociology but contemporary forms as well′ - Sport, Education & Society ′This is a comprehensive, theoretically sophisticated, and ambitious treatise on the body that draws from, and applies, both classical and contemporary sociological theory in a manner that is innovative and thought-provoking. This book is engaging and thought-provoking, but Shilling′s greatest achievement is his ability to illustrate the importance and continued relevance of classical and contemporary sociological theory to real world concerns. It is a book worthy of widespread attention. It reinvigorated my interest in the sociological classics and contained countless nuggets of interesting information that led me to conclude that it would be a worthy book to recommend to a broad sociological audience′ - Teaching Sociology ′Shilling′s book (like his earlier The Body and Social Theory) is crucial reading...a further valuable contribution in a field where he has provided so much′ - Theory & Psychology ′This is an impressive book by one of the leading social theorists working in the field of body studies. It provides a critical summation of theoretical and substantive work in the field to date, while also presenting a powerful argument for a corporeal realism in which the body is both generative of the emergent properties of social structure and a location of their effects. Its scope and originality make it a key point of reference for students and academics in body studies and in the social and cultural sciences more generally′ - Ian Burkitt, Reader in Social Science, University of Bradford ′Chris Shilling is as always a lucid guide through the dense thickets of the "sociology of the body", and his chapters on the fields of work, sport, eating, music and technology brilliantly show how abstract theoretical debates relate to the real world of people′s lives′ - Professor Stephen Mennell, University College Dublin ′What I find very useful and without any doubt valuable, not only in Shilling′s The Body in Culture, Technology and Society but in his work in general, is the breadth and profoundness of his discussion about the body...the style Shilling maintains is crucial for further development of the sociology of the body as a discipline, for it provides us with a rich intellectual environment about the body′ - Sociology ′For any colleague wanting to have a clear idea of how studies of the body can be empirically grounded as well as theoretically ′rich′, Chris Shilling′s The Body in Culture, Technology and Society , is the book to read. To my mind it offers the best account thus far of not only how social action is embodied and must be recognised as such but also of how social structures condition and shape embodied subjects in a variety of social arenas... This is wonderful insightful ′stuff′ - the ideas and intricate thoughts of a scholar such as Shilling who has been immersed in thinking about the complexities of the body in society as well as sociology for a number of years′ - Sociology of Health and Illness This is a milestone in the sociology of the body. The book offers the most comprehensive overview of the field to date and an innovative framework for the analysis of embodiment. It is founded on a revised view of the relation of classical works to the body. It argues that the body should be read as a multi-dimensional medium for the constitution of society. Upon this foundation, the author constructs a series of analyses of the body and the economy, culture, sociality, work, sport, music, food and technology.
Rethinking modern prostheses in Anglo-American commodity cultures, 1820–1939
Author: Claire L. Jones
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526113546
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
This book explores the development of modern transatlantic prosthetic industries in nineteenth and twentieth centuries and reveals how the co-alignment of medicine, industrial capitalism, and social norms shaped diverse lived experiences of prosthetic technologies and in turn, disability identities. Through case studies that focus on hearing aids, artificial tympanums, amplified telephones, artificial limbs, wigs and dentures, this book provides a new account of the historic relationship between prostheses, disability and industry. Essays draw on neglected source material, including patent records, trade literature and artefacts, to uncover the historic processes of commodification surrounding different prostheses and the involvement of neglected companies, philanthropists, medical practitioners, veterans, businessmen, wives, mothers and others in these processes.
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526113546
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
This book explores the development of modern transatlantic prosthetic industries in nineteenth and twentieth centuries and reveals how the co-alignment of medicine, industrial capitalism, and social norms shaped diverse lived experiences of prosthetic technologies and in turn, disability identities. Through case studies that focus on hearing aids, artificial tympanums, amplified telephones, artificial limbs, wigs and dentures, this book provides a new account of the historic relationship between prostheses, disability and industry. Essays draw on neglected source material, including patent records, trade literature and artefacts, to uncover the historic processes of commodification surrounding different prostheses and the involvement of neglected companies, philanthropists, medical practitioners, veterans, businessmen, wives, mothers and others in these processes.
Artificial Vision
Author: Veit Peter Gabel
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319418769
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
This book presents and analyses the most recent research dedicated to restoring vision in individuals who are severely impaired or blind from retinal disease or injury. It is written by the leading groups worldwide who are at the forefront of developing artificial vision. The book begins by discussing the difficulties in comparing and interpreting functional results in the area of very low vision and the principal prospects and limitations of spatial resolution with artificial tools. Further on, chapters are included by researchers who stimulate the surface or the pigment epithelial side of the retina and by experts who work on stimulating the optic nerve, the lateral geniculate body and the superficial layers of the visual cortex. Artificial Vision: A Clinical Guide collates the most recent work of key artificial vision research groups to explain in a comparable and stringent order their varying approaches, the clinical or preclinical outcomes and their achievements during the last years. Senior ophthalmic fellows and academic practitioners will find this guide to be an indispensable resource for understanding the current status of artificial vision.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319418769
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
This book presents and analyses the most recent research dedicated to restoring vision in individuals who are severely impaired or blind from retinal disease or injury. It is written by the leading groups worldwide who are at the forefront of developing artificial vision. The book begins by discussing the difficulties in comparing and interpreting functional results in the area of very low vision and the principal prospects and limitations of spatial resolution with artificial tools. Further on, chapters are included by researchers who stimulate the surface or the pigment epithelial side of the retina and by experts who work on stimulating the optic nerve, the lateral geniculate body and the superficial layers of the visual cortex. Artificial Vision: A Clinical Guide collates the most recent work of key artificial vision research groups to explain in a comparable and stringent order their varying approaches, the clinical or preclinical outcomes and their achievements during the last years. Senior ophthalmic fellows and academic practitioners will find this guide to be an indispensable resource for understanding the current status of artificial vision.
Journal of the Civil War Era
Author: William A. Blair
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807852643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
The Journal of the Civil War Era Volume 2, Number 2 June 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS New Approaches to Internationalizing the History of the Civil War Era: A Special Issue Editor's Note William Blair Articles W. Caleb Mcdaniel & Bethany L. Johnson New Approaches to Internationalizing the History of the Civil War: An Introduction Gale L. Kenny Manliness and Manifest Racial Destiny: Jamaica and African American Emigration in the 1850s Edward B. Rugemer Slave Rebels and Abolitionists: The Black Atlantic and the Coming of the Civil War Peter Kolchin Comparative Perspectives on Emancipation in the U.S. South: Reconstruction, Radicalism, and Russia Susan-Mary Grant The Lost Boys: Citizen-Soldiers, Disabled Veterans, and Confederate Nationalism in the Age of People's War Book Reviews Books Received Professional Notes Mark W. Geiger "Follow the Money" Notes on Contributors The Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807852643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
The Journal of the Civil War Era Volume 2, Number 2 June 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS New Approaches to Internationalizing the History of the Civil War Era: A Special Issue Editor's Note William Blair Articles W. Caleb Mcdaniel & Bethany L. Johnson New Approaches to Internationalizing the History of the Civil War: An Introduction Gale L. Kenny Manliness and Manifest Racial Destiny: Jamaica and African American Emigration in the 1850s Edward B. Rugemer Slave Rebels and Abolitionists: The Black Atlantic and the Coming of the Civil War Peter Kolchin Comparative Perspectives on Emancipation in the U.S. South: Reconstruction, Radicalism, and Russia Susan-Mary Grant The Lost Boys: Citizen-Soldiers, Disabled Veterans, and Confederate Nationalism in the Age of People's War Book Reviews Books Received Professional Notes Mark W. Geiger "Follow the Money" Notes on Contributors The Journal of the Civil War Era takes advantage of the flowering of research on the many issues raised by the sectional crisis, war, Reconstruction, and memory of the conflict, while bringing fresh understanding to the struggles that defined the period, and by extension, the course of American history in the nineteenth century.
The Artificial Ape
Author: Timothy Taylor
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 023010973X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
A breakthrough theory that tools and technology are the real drivers of human evolution Although humans are one of the great apes, along with chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, we are remarkably different from them. Unlike our cousins who subsist on raw food, spend their days and nights outdoors, and wear a thick coat of hair, humans are entirely dependent on artificial things, such as clothing, shelter, and the use of tools, and would die in nature without them. Yet, despite our status as the weakest ape, we are the masters of this planet. Given these inherent deficits, how did humans come out on top? In this fascinating new account of our origins, leading archaeologist Timothy Taylor proposes a new way of thinking about human evolution through our relationship with objects. Drawing on the latest fossil evidence, Taylor argues that at each step of our species' development, humans made choices that caused us to assume greater control of our evolution. Our appropriation of objects allowed us to walk upright, lose our body hair, and grow significantly larger brains. As we push the frontiers of scientific technology, creating prosthetics, intelligent implants, and artificially modified genes, we continue a process that started in the prehistoric past, when we first began to extend our powers through objects. Weaving together lively discussions of major discoveries of human skeletons and artifacts with a reexamination of Darwin's theory of evolution, Taylor takes us on an exciting and challenging journey that begins to answer the fundamental question about our existence: what makes humans unique, and what does that mean for our future?
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 023010973X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
A breakthrough theory that tools and technology are the real drivers of human evolution Although humans are one of the great apes, along with chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, we are remarkably different from them. Unlike our cousins who subsist on raw food, spend their days and nights outdoors, and wear a thick coat of hair, humans are entirely dependent on artificial things, such as clothing, shelter, and the use of tools, and would die in nature without them. Yet, despite our status as the weakest ape, we are the masters of this planet. Given these inherent deficits, how did humans come out on top? In this fascinating new account of our origins, leading archaeologist Timothy Taylor proposes a new way of thinking about human evolution through our relationship with objects. Drawing on the latest fossil evidence, Taylor argues that at each step of our species' development, humans made choices that caused us to assume greater control of our evolution. Our appropriation of objects allowed us to walk upright, lose our body hair, and grow significantly larger brains. As we push the frontiers of scientific technology, creating prosthetics, intelligent implants, and artificially modified genes, we continue a process that started in the prehistoric past, when we first began to extend our powers through objects. Weaving together lively discussions of major discoveries of human skeletons and artifacts with a reexamination of Darwin's theory of evolution, Taylor takes us on an exciting and challenging journey that begins to answer the fundamental question about our existence: what makes humans unique, and what does that mean for our future?
Accessible America
Author: Bess Williamson
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479802492
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
A history of design that is often overlooked—until we need it Have you ever hit the big blue button to activate automatic doors? Have you ever used an ergonomic kitchen tool? Have you ever used curb cuts to roll a stroller across an intersection? If you have, then you’ve benefited from accessible design—design for people with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities. These ubiquitous touchstones of modern life were once anything but. Disability advocates fought tirelessly to ensure that the needs of people with disabilities became a standard part of public design thinking. That fight took many forms worldwide, but in the United States it became a civil rights issue; activists used design to make an argument about the place of people with disabilities in public life. In the aftermath of World War II, with injured veterans returning home and the polio epidemic reaching the Oval Office, the needs of people with disabilities came forcibly into the public eye as they never had before. The US became the first country to enact federal accessibility laws, beginning with the Architectural Barriers Act in 1968 and continuing through the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, bringing about a wholesale rethinking of our built environment. This progression wasn’t straightforward or easy. Early legislation and design efforts were often haphazard or poorly implemented, with decidedly mixed results. Political resistance to accommodating the needs of people with disabilities was strong; so, too, was resistance among architectural and industrial designers, for whom accessible design wasn’t “real” design. Bess Williamson provides an extraordinary look at everyday design, marrying accessibility with aesthetic, to provide an insight into a world in which we are all active participants, but often passive onlookers. Richly detailed, with stories of politics and innovation, Williamson’s Accessible America takes us through this important history, showing how American ideas of individualism and rights came to shape the material world, often with unexpected consequences.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479802492
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
A history of design that is often overlooked—until we need it Have you ever hit the big blue button to activate automatic doors? Have you ever used an ergonomic kitchen tool? Have you ever used curb cuts to roll a stroller across an intersection? If you have, then you’ve benefited from accessible design—design for people with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities. These ubiquitous touchstones of modern life were once anything but. Disability advocates fought tirelessly to ensure that the needs of people with disabilities became a standard part of public design thinking. That fight took many forms worldwide, but in the United States it became a civil rights issue; activists used design to make an argument about the place of people with disabilities in public life. In the aftermath of World War II, with injured veterans returning home and the polio epidemic reaching the Oval Office, the needs of people with disabilities came forcibly into the public eye as they never had before. The US became the first country to enact federal accessibility laws, beginning with the Architectural Barriers Act in 1968 and continuing through the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, bringing about a wholesale rethinking of our built environment. This progression wasn’t straightforward or easy. Early legislation and design efforts were often haphazard or poorly implemented, with decidedly mixed results. Political resistance to accommodating the needs of people with disabilities was strong; so, too, was resistance among architectural and industrial designers, for whom accessible design wasn’t “real” design. Bess Williamson provides an extraordinary look at everyday design, marrying accessibility with aesthetic, to provide an insight into a world in which we are all active participants, but often passive onlookers. Richly detailed, with stories of politics and innovation, Williamson’s Accessible America takes us through this important history, showing how American ideas of individualism and rights came to shape the material world, often with unexpected consequences.
Giving Voice
Author: Meryl Alper
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262337355
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
How communication technologies meant to empower people with speech disorders—to give voice to the voiceless—are still subject to disempowering structural inequalities. Mobile technologies are often hailed as a way to “give voice to the voiceless.” Behind the praise, though, are beliefs about technology as a gateway to opportunity and voice as a metaphor for agency and self-representation. In Giving Voice, Meryl Alper explores these assumptions by looking closely at one such case—the use of the Apple iPad and mobile app Proloquo2Go, which converts icons and text into synthetic speech, by children with disabilities (including autism and cerebral palsy) and their families. She finds that despite claims to empowerment, the hardware and software are still subject to disempowering structural inequalities. Views of technology as a great equalizer, she illustrates, rarely account for all the ways that culture, law, policy, and even technology itself can reinforce disparity, particularly for those with disabilities. Alper explores, among other things, alternative understandings of voice, the surprising sociotechnical importance of the iPad case, and convergences and divergences in the lives of parents across class. She shows that working-class and low-income parents understand the app and other communication technologies differently from upper- and middle-class parents, and that the institutional ecosystem reflects a bias toward those more privileged. Handing someone a talking tablet computer does not in itself give that person a voice. Alper finds that the ability to mobilize social, economic, and cultural capital shapes the extent to which individuals can not only speak but be heard.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262337355
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
How communication technologies meant to empower people with speech disorders—to give voice to the voiceless—are still subject to disempowering structural inequalities. Mobile technologies are often hailed as a way to “give voice to the voiceless.” Behind the praise, though, are beliefs about technology as a gateway to opportunity and voice as a metaphor for agency and self-representation. In Giving Voice, Meryl Alper explores these assumptions by looking closely at one such case—the use of the Apple iPad and mobile app Proloquo2Go, which converts icons and text into synthetic speech, by children with disabilities (including autism and cerebral palsy) and their families. She finds that despite claims to empowerment, the hardware and software are still subject to disempowering structural inequalities. Views of technology as a great equalizer, she illustrates, rarely account for all the ways that culture, law, policy, and even technology itself can reinforce disparity, particularly for those with disabilities. Alper explores, among other things, alternative understandings of voice, the surprising sociotechnical importance of the iPad case, and convergences and divergences in the lives of parents across class. She shows that working-class and low-income parents understand the app and other communication technologies differently from upper- and middle-class parents, and that the institutional ecosystem reflects a bias toward those more privileged. Handing someone a talking tablet computer does not in itself give that person a voice. Alper finds that the ability to mobilize social, economic, and cultural capital shapes the extent to which individuals can not only speak but be heard.