The Distribution and Resolution of the Ambiguities of Technology, or Why Bobby Can't Spray

Abstract

Much debate has taken place in science and technology studies (S&TS) regarding how to speak about the capacities of technology. Alternative approaches are bound up with questions over the merits of realist and relativist accounts of technology and their potential for analytical insight and practical engagement. This paper advances a basis for examining the link between politics and artefacts, one that draws on but reconfigures the work of post-essentialist authors. This is done by moving away from attempts to detail the social basis of technology to consider instead where the ambiguities associated with technology are resolved. These issues are examined through the case of a (re-)emerging class of devices called `non-lethal' weapons and, in particular, the chemical incapacitant spray used by British police forces. In doing so, this paper reframes debates in technology studies over how far it is possible and desirable to pursue relativist lines of inquiry.