Technicians

Notes and Records of the Royal Society

Volumn 62, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 3-16

  Iliffe, Rob ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 38949213336     PISSN: 00359149     EISSN: 17430178     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rsnr.2007.0053     Document Type: Review

References (112)

1. S. Shapin, 'The invisible technician', Am. Scientist 7, 554-563 (1989);
2. Shapin, A social history of truth. Civility and science in seventeenth-century England (University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 355-407, esp. pp. 359-365,
3. and cf. Arlene Kaplan Daniels, 'Invisible work', Social Prob. 34, 403-415 (1987).
4. For salient comments on the general tendency of low-status workers to become more invisible, in opposition to Robert K. Merton's celebrated 'Matthew Effect', see Margaret Rossiter, 'The Matilda Effect in science', Social Stud. Sci. 23, 325-341 (1993)
5. and Michael Strevens, 'The role of the Matthew Effect in science', Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. A 37, 159-170 (2006).
6. See Stuart Leslie, The Cold War and American science: the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (Columbia University Press, 1994),
7. Peter Galison and Bruce Hevly (eds), Big Science: The growth of large scale research (Stanford University Press, 1992)
8. and Patrick McGrath, Scientists, business and the State, 1890-1960 (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2001).
9. For alternatives to the factory system and mass production see Charles Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin (eds), Worlds of possibilities: flexibility and mass production in Western industrialization (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1997).
10. The highly skilled, local and embodied nature of scientific work is examined inter alia in Jerome Ravetz, Scientific knowledge and its social problems (Oxford University Press, 1973);
11. Derek J. de Solla Price, 'Of sealing wax and string', Nat. Hist. 84, 49-56 (1984);
12. Michael Lynch, Art and artifact in laboratory science: a study of shop work and shop talk in a research laboratory (RKP, London, 1985);
13. Harry Collins, Changing order: replication and induction in scientific practice, 2nd edn (University of Chicago Press, 1993);
14. Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory life: the construction of scientific facts, revised edn (Princeton University Press, 1986);
15. Joseph Rouse, Knowledge and power: towards a political philosophy of science (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1987), esp. pp. 58-126;
16. Frank Nutch, 'Gadgets, gizmos and instruments: science for the tinkering', Sci. Technol. Hum. Values 21, 214-228 (1996);
17. Lucy Suchman, Plans and situated actions (Cambridge University Press, 1997);
18. and Davis Baird, Thing knowledge: a philosophy of scientific instruments (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004).
19. Many of these works refer back to the short but canonical analysis of skill and connoisseurship in Michael Polanyi, Personal knowledge: towards a post-critical philosophy (University of Chicago Press, 1958 and 1974), ch. 4;
20. see also Hubert L. Dreyfus, What computers still can't do? The limits of artificial intelligence, revised edn (Harper & Row, London, 1979).
21. See Stephen Wood, 'The transformation of work?' in The transformation of work? (ed. Stephen Wood), pp. 1-43 (Unwin Hyman, London, 1989),
22. and Peter Meiksins and Peter Whalley, Putting work in its place: a quiet revolution (Stanford University Press, 2002).
23. For a riveting account of collaborations between different groups at CERN in the 1970s and 1980s see John Krige, 'Part B: Some socio-historical aspects of multi-institutional collaborations in high-energy physics at CERN between 1975 and 1985', in AIP study of multi-institutional collaborations, Phase 1 (High energy physics). Report no. 4 (Historical findings on collaborations in high energy physics) (CERN, Geneva, 1991) (www.aip.org/history/pubs/collabs/phaselrep4.htm).
24. This conception of 'work' is clearly not intended to imply that 'technical' work is inferior to 'scientific' work, or that technicians merely work while scientists do research. The best introduction to the work of technicians is Stephen Barley and Julian Orr (eds), Between craft and science: technical work in U.S. settings (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY 1997);
25. see in particular Peter Whalley and Stephen Barley, 'Technical work in the division of labor: stalking the wily anomaly', at pp. 23-52,
26. and Stephen Barley, 'Technicians in the workplace: ethnographic evidence for bringing work into organization studies', Admin. Sci. Q. 41, 401-441 (1996).
27. The organizational power of a small number of technicians-their capacity to bring a modern system to a halt simply by not doing their job (rather than actively wrecking it)-has been understood for over a century. See in particular Roy MacLeod and Kay MacLeod, 'The contradictions of professionalism: scientists, trade unionism and the First World War', Social Stud. Sci. 9, 1-32 (1979). Although this article is mainly about efforts by a number of scientists to achieve recognition by unionizing after World War I, the MacLeods cite (at p. 6) the claim made by the Society of Technical Engineers that 'a score of technicians could ... bring industry to a standstill more effectively than 1000 manual workers. Staff workers have only just begun to realise the power they wield'.
28. See in particular Stephen Barley and Beth Bechky, 'In the backrooms of science: the work of technicians in science laboratories', Work Occup. 21, 85-126 (1994), esp. pp. 88-95,
29. and Gerald M. Swatez, 'The social organization of a university laboratory', Minerva 8, 36-58 (1970).
30. For medical technicians see Mario Scarselletta, 'The infamous 'Lab Error': education, skill, and quality in medical technicians' work', in Barley and Orr, op. cit. (note 5), pp. 187-209;
31. for photocopier technicians see Julian Orr, Talking about machines: an ethnography of a modern job (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1996).
32. Arguably the most relevant work for understanding the sort of scientific knowledge possessed by senior technicians is Walter Vincenti, What engineers know and how they know it: analytical studies from aeronautical history (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1993).
33. Barley and Bechky, op. cit. (note 7), pp. 96-99, 116 and 120.
34. For technicians' own remarks on the geographically rooted nature of their role (and that of scientists they termed 'supertechs') see Latour and Woolgar, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 217-219.
35. This work, which examined the work of scientists working at the Jonas Salk Institute in the 1970s, is one of the few books in the SSK tradition (as opposed to the sociology of work and occupations) that treats-albeit briefly-the work and attitudes of technicians. For extensive documentation and labelling activities in the laboratory, see Latour and Woolgar, op. cit. (note 3), p. 48,
36. and Barley and Bechky, op. cit. (note 7), pp. 106-107.
37. For the embodied nature of technical work, involving skills acquired through on-the-job experience, see Michael Zenzen and Sal Restivo, 'The mysterious morphology of immiscible liquids: a study of scientific practice', Social Stud. Sci. 21, 447-473 (1982);
38. Douglas Harper, Working knowledge: skill and community in a small shop (University of Chicago Press, 1987);
39. Stephen Barley, 'The social construction of a machine: ritual, superstition, magical thinking, and other pragmatic responses to running a CT scanner', in Biomedicine Examined (ed. M. Lock and D. Gordon), pp. 497-539 (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1988)
40. and Alberto Cambrosio and Peter Keating, 'Going monoclonal: art, science and magic in the day-to-day use of hybridoma technology', Social Prob. 35, 244-260 (1988).
41. See Bertrand Gille, Les mécaniciens grecs: la naissance de la technologie (Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1980);
42. Anthony F.C. Wallace, The social context of innovation, bureaucrats, families and heroes in the early Industrial Revolution, as foreseen in Bacon's New Atlantis (Princeton University Press, 1982), ch. 1;
43. Mario Biagioli, 'The social status of Italian mathematicians, 1450-1600', Hist. Sci. 27, 41-95 (1989);
44. Pamela Long, Openness, secrecy, authorship: technical arts and the culture of knowledge from antiquity to the Renaissance (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2001);
45. Yves Gingras, Peter Keating and Camille Limoges, Du scribe au savant: les porteurs du savoir del'antiquité àla Révolution Industrielle (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2000);
46. Pascal Brioist, 'L'artilleur entre théorie et pratique', in La transmission des savoirs au Moyen Age et àla Renaissance, vol. 2, pp. 165-183 (Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, Paris, 2005);
47. Mathieu Arnoux and Pierre Monnet (eds), Le technicien dans la cité en Europe occidentale, 1250-1650 (CEFR, Rome, 2004);
48. and Eric Ash, Power, knowledge and expertise in Elizabethan England (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2004).
49. See the excellent monograph by John Robert Christianson, On Tycho's island: Tycho Brahe, science and culture in the sixteenth century (Cambridge University Press, 2003), esp. pp. 3-5, 131-132, 143 and 151-170;
50. Victor E. Thoren, The Lord of Uraniborg. a biography of Tycho Brahe (Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. ch. 6;
51. and for the astronomical Republic of Letters see Adam Mosley, Bearing the heavens: Tycho Brahe and the astronomical community in the late sixteenth century (Cambridge University Press, 2007), ch. 2.
52. Compare also the terms apparently demanded of some assistants by Tycho, with similar conditions laid down by Boyle, in Christianson (op. cit., p. 152)
53. and Shapin, op. cit. (note 1), p. 404.
54. For Flamsteed see Lesley Murdin, Under Newton's shadow: astronomical practices in the seventeenth century (IOP, Bristol, 1985)
55. and for Maskelyne see Mary Croarken, 'Astronomical labourers: Maskelyne's assistants at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 1765-1811', Notes Rec. R. Soc. 57, 285-298 (2003), esp. pp. 285 and 294.
56. See Jean-François Gauvin, 'Artists, machines and Descartes's Organon', Hist. Sci 44, 187-216 (2006), esp. pp. 194-204;
57. Graham Burnett, Descartes and the hyperbolic quest: lens-making machines and their significance in the seventeenth century (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 2005);
58. William Shea, 'Descartes and the French artisan Jean Ferrier', Annali Inst. Mus. Storia Sci. Firenze 7, 145-160 (1982)
59. and Giulia Belgiosio, 'Descartes e gli artisani', in La Biografia intellettuale di Rene Descartes attraverso le correspondance (ed. Jean-Robert Armogathe, Giulia Belgiosio and Carlo Vinti), pp. 113-165 (Vivarium, Naples, 1999).
60. For Hooke see Rob Iliffe, '"Material doubts": Hooke, artisan culture and the exchange of information in 1670s London', Br. J. Hist. Sci. 28, 285-318 (1995);
61. Stephen Pumfrey, 'Who did the work? Experimental philosophers and public demonstrators in Augustan England', Br. J. Hist. Sci. 28, 131-156 (1995)
62. and Jim Bennett, 'Instruments and ingenuity', in Robert Hooke: tercentennial studies (ed. Michael Cooper and Michael Hunter), pp. 65-76 (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006).
63. For instruments as a means of returning Man to his original state, see Peter Harrison, The fall of Man and the foundations of science (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
64. See John R. Harris, Industrial espionage and technology transfer: Britain and France in the eighteenth century (Ashgate, Aldershot, 1998), p. 550.
65. For skill, machinery and the contemporary division of labour in scientific and technical forums see esp. Myles Jackson, Spectrum of belief: Joseph von Frauenhofer and the craft of precision optics (MIT Press, London, 2000), chs 3-4,
66. and Ken Alder, Engineering the revolution: arms and enlightenment in France, 1763-1815 (Princeton University Press, 1997).
67. More generally, see Robert S. Woodbury, Studies in the history of machine tools (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1972);
68. D. Jeremy, 'British textile technology transmission to the US: the Philadelphia region experience, 1770-1820', Bus. Hist. Rev. 47, 24-52 (1973);
69. Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry armory and the new technology (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1977);
70. Charles More, Skill and the English working class, 1870-1914 (Croom Helm, London, 1980);
71. John Rule, 'The property of skill in the period of manufacture', in The historical meanings of work (ed. Patrick Joyce), pp. 99-118 (Cambridge University Press, 1987), esp. pp. 116-117;
72. Robert B. Gordon, 'Who turned the mechanical ideal into mechanical reality?' Technol. Cult. 29, 744-778 (1988);
73. Richard Biernacki, 'Culture and know-how in the "Satanic mills": an Anglo-German comparison', Textile Hist. 33, 219-237 (2002);
74. and Maxine Berg, The machinery question and the making of political economy 1815-1848 (Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 266-286.
75. See Jack Morrell, 'The chemist breeders: the research schools of Liebig and Thomson', Ambix 19, 1-42 (1972);
76. Gerald Geison, Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology: the scientific enterprise in late Victorian society (Princeton University Press, 1992);
77. Graham Gooday, 'Precision measurement and the genesis of physics teaching laboratories in Victorian Britain', Br. J. Hist. Sci. 23, 25-51 (1990);
78. Hannah Gay, '"Invisible resource": William Crookes and his circle of support, 1871-81', Br. J. Hist. Sci. 29, 311-336 (1996)
79. and Gay, '"Pillars of the College": assistants at the Royal College of Chemistry, 1846-71', Ambix 47, 135-169 (2000).
80. See Rob Iliffe and Frances Willmoth, 'Astronomy and the domestic sphere: Margaret Flamsteed and Caroline Herschel as assistant astronomers', in Women, science and medicine, 1500-1700 (eds Lynette Hunter and Sarah Hutton), pp. 235-265 (Sutton, Stroud, 1997);
81. Barbara J. Becker, 'Dispelling the myth of the able assistant: Margaret and William Huggins at work in the Tulse Hill laboratory', in Creative couples in science (eds Helena Pycior, Nancy Slack and Pnina Abir-Am), pp. 98-111 (New Jersey Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 1996).
82. More generally see Margaret Rossiter, Women scientists in America: struggles and strategies to 1940, new edn (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1984)
83. and Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie, 'Marital collaboration: an approach to science', in Uneasy careers and intimate lives: woman in science 1789-1979 (eds Pnina Abir-Am and Dorinda Outram), pp. 104-128 (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1987).
84. Even when taking into account the contributions of technicians and engineers, and naming them, it remains almost impossible to discuss their work historically without attributing to great names such as Airy, Maxwell and Rayleigh an overwhelming degree of authority and responsibility for everything done in the institutions of which they were in charge. See Simon Schaffer, 'Astronomers mark time: discipline and the personal equation', Science in Context 2, 115-145 (1988)
85. and Schaffer, 'Late Victorian metrology and its instrumentation: a manufactory of ohms', in Invisible connections: instruments, institutions and science (eds Robert Bud and Susan Cozzens), pp. 23-56 (SPIE Optical Engineering Press, Bellingham, WA, 1992).
86. More broadly, see also Michel Foucault, Discipline and punish. The birth of the prison (Penguin, London, 1991)
87. and Bruno Latour, Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987).
88. The overwhelming significance of technical know-how for facilitating weapons systems is starkly laid out in Donald Mackenzie and Graham Spinardi, 'Tacit knowledge, weapons design, and the uninvention of nuclear weapons', Am. J. Sociol. 101, 44-99 (1995).
89. More generally, see R. Torstendahl, Dispersion of engineers in a transitional society: Swedish technicians, 1860-1940 (Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm, 1975);
90. Nicholas Lampert, The technical intelligentsia and the Soviet State: a study of Soviet managers and technicians, 1928-1935 (Macmillan, London, 1979);
91. James Edmonson, From mécanician to ingénieur: technical education and the machine building industry in nineteenth century France (Garland, New York, 1987);
92. S.L. Sanger, Working on the Bomb: an oral history of World War II (ed. Craig Wollner) (Continuing Education Press, Portland, OR, 1989);
93. Peter Brown Hales, Atomic spaces: living on the Manhattan Project (University of Illinois Press, Champaign, 1997);
94. John Gimbel, Science, technology and reparations. Exploitation and plunder in postwar Germany (Stanford University Press, 1990);
95. Linda Hunt, Secret agenda. The United States government, Nazi scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 (St Martin's Press, New York, 1991);
96. Matthias Judt and Burghard Ciesla (eds), Technology transfer out of Germany after 1945 (Routledge, London, 1996);
97. and John Farquharson, 'Governed or exploited? The British acquisition of German technology, 1945-48', J. Contemp. Hist. 32, 23-42 (1997).
98. Peter Galison, Image and logic: a material culture of microphysics (University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 36-37, 198-199, 344-345, 370-410, 557-558 and 779-780;
99. and Galison, 'Three laboratories', Social Res. 64, 1127-1155 (1997).
100. On big systems of technoscience see Tom Hughes, Networks of power (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1983).
101. Jennifer Light, 'When computers were women', Technol. Cult. 40, 455-483 (1999), esp. pp. 464-471;
102. W. Berkley Fritz, 'The women of ENIAC', IEEE Ann. Hist. Comput. 18, 13-28 (1996);
103. and, more generally, Ingrid Scholl and Ina Küller, Micro sisters. Digitalisierung des Alltags: Frauen und Computer (Elefanten Press, Berlin, 1988).
104. For the scanning girls see Galison, Image and logic, op. cit. (note 19), pp. 33, 53, 198-200 and 370-384.
105. For women in the Manhattan Project see Ruth Howes and Caroline Herzenberg, Their day in the sun: women of the Manhattan Project (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1999),
106. and for broader aspects of the stalling and deskilling of women's work in the twentieth century see Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More work for mother: the ironies of household technology from the open hearth to the microwave (Basic Books, New York, 1983);
107. Lisa Fine, The souls of the skyscraper: female clerical workers in Chicago, 1870-1930 (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1990)
108. and Cynthia Cockburn, Brothers: male dominance and technological change (Pluto Press, London, 1991).
109. On the automation and commercialization of key aspects of laboratory practice at the end of the twentieth century see Joan Fujimura, Crafting science, transferring biology: the case of oncogene research (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997);
110. Peter Keating, Camille Limoges and Alberto Cambrosio, 'The automated laboratory: the generation and replication of work in molecular genetics', in The practice of human genetics (eds Everett Mendelsohn and Michael Fortun, pp. 125-142 (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1999);
111. and Kathleen Jordan and Michael Lynch, 'The dissemination, standardization and routinization of a molecular biological technique', Social Stud. Sci 28, 773-800 (1998).
112. On the other hand, there are now a number of websites where retired technicians have given an account of their careers, and it would be extremely worthwhile, where possible, to coordinate these reminiscences and encourage others to leave similar records.