The Cultural Fix: An Anthropological Contribution to Science and Technology Studies

In: Science, technology, & human values: ST&HV, Band 25, Heft 4, S. 492-519

Abstract

Since at least the 1960s, science and technology studies (STS) scholars have distinguished between technological and social fixes. The author introduces a new concept for the STS theoretical tool kit—the cultural fix—and illustrates this concept using examples from her own research on pregnancy loss and neonatal intensive care, as well as that of anthropologists Katherine Newman and Sherry Ortner on downward mobility and unemployment in the United States. It is argued that the cultural fix represents a distinctive anthropological contribution to the field.