Submitter: Juan Ocampo, Lund University, juan.ocampo@fek.lu.se
Abstract:
Emerging from an ethnographic study of grassroots financial innovations in Kenya, this mixed media exploration responds to the question of “How can one recognize and be respectful with differences in the study of technology?”. Doing research with western scientific frameworks, but being from the global south, it was important to reflect on ways researchers could consciously and respectfully study and make use of the experiences, traditions, and knowledge of communities. The recognition of the vernacular as source of technological production is something that scholars of science, technology and society studies have dealt with, especially those interested in African American studies. This representation builds on Funk as a signification of human expression, which “should be understood as an alternative form of rationality” (Bolden, 2013, p.3). This audiovisual experience invites the recognition of emotions and sensuality in the production of knowledge and cannot be rationalized using the western rationalist conception of technology. One needs to pursue a connection with cognitive and physical realms through mechanisms beyond simple reason or logic, one needs to free the mind and let kinetically oriented cognitive mechanisms flow, in other words, let the body and spirit move and remove.
Areas of STS Scholarship: Economics, Markets, Value/Valuation, Race/Black studies and STS, Science communication
Authors/Participants: Juan Ocampo, Lund University
