User:JendisMoreau/Bryan Pfaffenberger

Bryan Pfaffenberger (1949-), is an American anthropologist whose research evolved from a focus on ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka to a new anthropological subfield, the anthropology of technology (AoT). He is considered to be one the new subfield’s several founders. He was a professor of anthropology at Knox College (Illinois) from 1977 to 1984, and subsequently at the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at the University of Virginia, until his retirement in 2013. EDUCATION

Pfaffenberger received his A.B. in Anthropology from University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1971 with distinction, and enrolled in Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology the following year. In 1977, after three years of anthropological field research in Sri Lanka, he received his Ph.D. in the same field. His advisor was Gerald Berreman, who introduced Pfaffenberger to a perspective that influenced his development of AoT theory: symbolic interactionism.

BIOGRAPHY

In his graduate work at Berkeley, Pfaffenberger’s work focused on ethnic conflict in complex societies. In his field research in Sri Lanka, he studied Sri Lanka’s Kataragama pilgrimage and festivals, which are jointly attended by Sri Lankan Buddhists and Hindus, .) , but further study among Tamils in Sri Lanka became impossible due to the Tamil insurgency that began in 1983.

During a sabbatical leave in 1984, Pfaffenberger began his exploration of the new anthropological perspectives on the intersection of technology and society. To pursue this new interest in the history and sociology of technology, he accepted an appointment in 1985 at the University of Virginia’s Department of Science, Technology, and Society, which is housed in the university’s engineering school, with a mandate to develop the anthropology of technology and contribute to the public’s computer literacy. He wrote several books on computer technology for novice readers, including books on Linux, Usenet, Gnome, and a multi-edition dictionary of computer terms that was translated into more than a dozen foreign languages (Pfaffenberger, B. (1999). Webster's new world dictionary of computer terms. Hungry Minds, Incorporated.) The move put Pfaffenberger in contact with colleagues specializing in British science studies (Michael Gorman) and the history of technology (W. Bernard Carlson).

The years to follow would see the publication of several papers that are considered foundational in the new field pf the anthropology of technology (see Selected Publications, below.) Broadly, these papers help launch the anthropology of technology by introducing anthropological readers to concepts from the history of technology and science and technology studies (STS), as well as advancing these concepts in light of anthropological theory.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Fetishized Objects and Humanized Nature. His first publication in the anthropology of technology, this paper argues that culturally supplied Western perspectives suspend views of technology within two equally unhelpful poles of mythic thinking: technological determinism (depicting technology as the cause of social formations) and technological somnambulism (denying a causal link). The paper argues for a distinctively anthropological view of technology founded on the insight of French anthropologist Marcel Mauss that technologies are among total social phenomena in Mauss’s sense; technology is simultaneously material, social, and symbolic. The paper illustrates this point as applied to Sri Lankan irrigation schemes.

The Social Meaning of the Personal Computer. This paper draws on the work of anthropologist Victor Turner in developing a novel, processual social theory of technology called technological dramas. A technological drama begins with a rupture, an event sufficiently horrific to bring out hidden social conflicts. Here, the rupture was the revelation of computer use for targeting purposes in Vietnam. with massive civilian casualties. There follows a period of conflict, reflecting the hidden contradictions in a society and bringing them to the fore. Processes occurring during the period of conflict include regularization, the effort of some groups to reassert control by means of redressive measures, and situational adjustment, the strategy of those adversely affected by regularization efforts. In the PC story, adjustment included phone phreaking, computer break-ins, and college students bricking up the entrance to campus computer centers. All of these phases involve technological activities, ranging from invention to sabotage. The third phase, reconstitution, ends the conflict by means of a technological innovation that attempts to resolve the conflict: here, the invention of the personal computer. A final phase, designification, occurs when the history of conflict is forgotten.

The Harsh Facts of Hydraulics Attacks the use of technological determinist perspectives to understand irrigation systems in contemporary as well as premodern Sri Lankan irrigation systems. Argues that countervailing customs negated the putatively inescapable social stratification impacts of gravity-flow irrigation systems.

Social Anthropology of Technology. Develops the technological dramas concept as a comprehensive social theory of technology.

Symbols Do Not Create Meanings — Activities do

HONORS

Albert Payson Usher Prize, Society for the History of Technology, 1992 ASEE Book of the Year Award, 1992

PERSONAL LIFE

He is married to the former Suzanne Naghdi, daughter of Paul M. Naghdi (1924-1993), a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. The couple have two children and six grandchildren.