Human and Technological ‘Redundancy': Phantom Intermediaries in a Nuclear Submarine Industry

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 28, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 355-400

  Mort, Maggie ^a   Michael, Mike ^b  

^a LANCASTER UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT SCHOOL   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84992782617     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631298028003001     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. For a comprehensive overview of this literature, see Maggie Mort, Building the Trident Network: A Study of the Enrolment of People, Knowledge and Machines (unpublished PhD thesis, School of Independent Studies, Lancaster University, 1995)
2. Paul Rosen, Modernity, Postmodernity and Socio-Technical Change in the British Cycle Industry and Cycling Culture (unpublished PhD thesis, School of Independent Studies, Lancaster University, 1995).
3. See also P. Rosen, ‘The Social Construction of Mountain Bikes: Technology and Postmodernity in the Cycle Industry’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 23, No. 3 (August 1993), 479–513
4. Michel Callon, ‘Techno-Economic Networks and Irreversibility’, in John Law (ed.), A Sociology of Monsters (London: Routledge, 1991), 132–161.
5. For a fuller discussion of these issues, see John Law, Organising Modernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
6. See, for example, Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore, MD & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976)
7. Derrida, Writing and Difference (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978)
8. Derrida, Positions (London: Athlone Press, 1982).
9. The meaning of phantom’ we are keen to connote is that associated with ‘phantom limbs’ - limbs which have been amputated or are paralysed, and yet are still ‘felt to be there’ by the patient. Sometimes, this feeling takes the form of an awareness of the presence of the limb, though the limb may be contracted or oddly positioned. In other cases, one may feel the limb to be in pain - for example, an absent hand may be felt as if it is a fist, with the nails digging into the palm. See, for example, Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall, The Challenge of Pain (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
10. We have no wish here to derive a general explanation of the role of phantom intermediaries. Rather, through as thick a description as we can manage, we aim to produce the ‘throwaway explanations’ toward which actor-network theory has traditionally striven. In this respect, we differ somewhat from the sociotechnical network approach that aims to identify ‘structural’ factors. For ‘throwaway explanation’, see Bruno Latour, ‘The Politics of Explanation - An Alternative’, in Steve Woolgar (ed.), Knowledge and Reflexivity: New Frontiers in the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Sage, 1988), 155–176.
11. For an explication and exemplification of the sociotechnical network perspective, see Boelie Elzen, Bert Enserik and Wim A. Smit, ‘Socio-Technical Networks: How a Technological Studies Approach May Help Solve Problems Related to Technical Change’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 26, No. 1 (February 1996), 95–141.
12. Vicky Singleton and Mike Michael, ‘Actor-Networks and Ambivalence: General Practitioners in the Cervical Screening Programme’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May 1993), 227–264.
13. Regarding the notion of global actors, see John Law and Michel Callon, ‘The Life and Death of an Aircraft: A Network Analysis of Technical Change’, in Wiebe Bijker and Law (eds), Shaping Technology/Building Society (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992), 21–52.
14. Barrow Alternative Employment Committee/Steven Schofield, Oceans of Work: The Case for Non-Military Research, Development and Production at VSEL Barrow (Barrow-in-Furness: BAEC, 1987): enquiries about this publication should be addressed to the School of Peace Studies, Bradford University.
15. See the ‘Business Review’ by Noel Davies, VSEL Chief Executive, in VSEL Annual Report (1993), 5.
16. Noel Davies, quoted in ‘Valve Design Pumps Up VSEL's New Order Hopes’, North West Evening Mail (17 November 1992), 7.
17. Philip Finnegan, ‘Lockheed Leapfrogs McDonnell’, Defense News (18–24 July 1994), 8.
18. Steven Schofield, ‘Defence Technology, Industrial Structure and Arms Conversion’, in Richard Coopey, Matthew Uttley and Graham Spinardi (eds), Defence Science and Technology: Adjusting to Change (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood, 1993), 207–24, at 215: ‘VSEL's expertise lies in the integration of a whole range of sub-systems within a major defence platform: the nuclear submarine, augmented by work on conventional submarines and field howitzers. The specialist requirements of nuclear submarine production include reactor safety within a moving platform, engine silencing techniques, security of communications and exact positioning and location facilities. It is the integration of these sub-systems, which in many cases have no civilian equivalent, that provide the first major obstacle. Second, and crucially, these subsystems have to interact under extremes of conditions and performance which suggest divergences, even at the systems level, between certain kinds of highly specialised defence equipment and what might be considered as similar civil systems (in this case merchant ships and off-shore rig construction)’.
19. ‘Diversification’ is sometimes used, less problematically we would argue, to describe industrial policies pursued in Britain after the two World Wars - for example, as described in J. D. Scott, Vickers: A History (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962), 301–11. It is its recent application to the Barrow situation which can be misleading.
20. Sir Charles Dunphie, quoted in Harold Evans, Vickers Against The Odds 1956–77 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1978), 98. A former civil servant and public relations advisor to Harold Macmillan, Sir Harold Evans became PR advisor to the Vickers Board from 1966 to 1977, the year of shipbuilding nationalization. While his book unquestionably opposes the 1977 nationalization and celebrates Vickers' status as a private company, it remains an invaluable source book, drawing on Evans' unrivalled access to key company individuals and internal documents.
21. Bryn Trescatheric, How Barrow Was Built (Barrow, Cumbria: Hougenai Press, 1985), 24.
22. A discussion of how defence production can be both sophisticated and conservative is given in Mary Kaldor, The Baroque Arsenal (New York: Hill & Wang, 1981).
23. Lord Chalfont, VSEL Chairman, in interview with Julian O'Halloran, ‘The Peace Penalty: Whatever Happened to the Peace Dividend?’, Panorama (BBC1 TV, 22 March 1993).
24. G.G. Pringle, ‘Economic Power Generation at Sea: The Constant-Speed Shaft-Driven Generator’, Institute of Marine Engineers Transactions, Vol. 94 (1982), Paper 30.
25. Interview with CSGD Project Manager (Barrow, 28 March 1995).
26. Interview with a former director of VSEL (Barrow, 26 July 1993).
27. Constant Speed Generator Drive (Barrow, Cumbria: Technical Publications Department [Engineers], British Shipbuilders, undated).
28. JMC minutes (8 May 1984).
29. Interview with former managing director, Compact Orbital Gears (Rhayader, Wales, 25 November 1993).
30. Interview with CSGD chief designer and technical manager (Rhayader, 25 November 1993).
31. Interview with Barrow CSGD designer (Barrow, 26 June 1993).
32. JMC minutes (26 April 1983).
33. JMC minutes (21 June 1983).
34. JMC minutes (26 July 1983).
35. JMC minutes (27 September 1983).
36. JMC minutes (13 December 1983).
37. JMC minutes (6 March 1984).
38. JMC minutes (3 July 1984).
39. JMC minutes (21 August 1984).
40. JMC minutes (2 October 1984).
41. Interview with former VSEL technical manager (Barrow, 30 June 1994).
42. Opinion, ‘The Race for the Constant-Speed Drive’, Marine Engineers' Review (September 1983), 3.
43. ‘First Sale ofVickers CSGD’, The Naval Architect (March 1984), El 07
44. ‘ “All Eggs in One Basket” Blast at Vickers’, North West Evening Mail (22 March 1985), 6.
45. This phrase was coined by Thomas Hughes: for an extensive discussion, see T.P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), esp. 14–17.
46. Thomas Hughes, ‘The Evolution of Large Technological Systems’, in Wiebe Bijker, Thomas Hughes and Trevor Pinch (eds), The Social Construction of Technological Systems (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987), 51–82, at 52.
47. Michel Callon, ‘The Sociology of an Actor-Network: The Case of the Electric Vehicle’, in Callon, John Law and Arie Rip (eds), Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology (London: Macmillan, 1986), 19–34.
48. The classic paper on the ‘black-boxing’ of technological artifacts is Michel Callon, ‘Boites Noires et Operations de Traduction’, Economie et Humanisme, No. 262 (November/December 1981), 53–59.
49. The notion is closely related to strategies of simplification, which actors find necessary in complex processes of technical innovation: for a study stressing this aspect, see John Law, ‘The Anatomy of a Socio-Technical Struggle: The Design of the TSR2’, in Brian Elliott (ed.) Technology and Social Process (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1988), 44–69.
50. Originally, the idea of ‘black-boxing’ arose in the sociology of science, where analysts frequently took the contents of science for granted, as a ‘given’, not to be ‘explored’: see Richard Whitley, ‘Black Boxism and the Sociology of Science: A Discussion of the Major Developments in the Field’, in Paul Halmos (ed.), The Sociology of Science (Keele, Staffs.: Sociological Review Monograph No. 18, 1972), 62–92.
51. Andrew Webster, Science, Technology and Society (London: Macmillan, 1991), 47.
52. Jordan Goodman and Katrina Honeyman, The Making of Industrial Europe 1600–1914 (London: Edward Arnold, 1988), 165–166.
53. Colin Mclnnes, Trident - The Only Option? (London: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1986), 51. Ironically, the technical advances and design for this new class of nuclear submarine - the very ambitiousness of the project - also contribute to its ‘baroqueness’, and its lack of industrial synergy or dynamism.
54. Steven Schofield/BAEC, Employment and Security: Alternatives to Trident: An Interim Report (Bradford University, Peace Research Reports No. 10, July 1986), 65.
55. Vicky Singleton, Science, Women and Ambivalence: An Actor-Network Analysis of the Cervical Screening Programme (unpublished PhD thesis, School of Independent Studies, Lancaster University, 1992), 386–387.
56. Maggie Mort, Lisa Perks and Chris Hill, ‘1,500 Jobs Go in New Yard Blitz’, North West Evening Mail (16 November 1990), 1.
57. Interview with Roger Henshaw, Chair, Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (Lancaster, 16 December 1992).
58. Interview with EEPTU official and former branch delegate to BAEC (Southport, 30 January 1995).
59. VSEL RS&AF, see note 117.
60. Interview with former VSEL plater (Barrow, 24 May 1992).
61. Interview with former VSEL welder (Barrow, 3 March 1992).
62. Interview with VSEL crane driver/slinger (Barrow, 25 May 1992).
63. VSEL RS&AF, see note 117.
64. Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Milton Keynes, Bucks.: Open University Press, 1987), esp. 227–37.
65. Nikolas Rose, ‘Individualising Psychology’, in John Shotter and Kenneth Gergen (eds), Texts of Identity (London: Sage, 1989), 119–213, at 126
66. see also Rose, The Psychological Complex (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985)
67. Rose, Governing the Soul (London: Routledge, 1989)
68. Jacques Donzelot, The Policing of Families (London: Hutchinson, 1979).
69. For example, ‘Dr Death’, ‘departure lounges’: see note 124.
70. In this regard, see: Michael Mulkay, ‘Rhetorics of Hope and Fear in the Great Embryo Debate’, Social Studies of Science, Vol 23, No. 4 (November 1993), 721–742
71. See, for example, Claire Armon-Jones, ‘The Thesis of Constructionism’, in Rom Harre (ed.), The Social Construction of Emotions (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 32–56
72. For a recent account, influenced by actor-network theory, of the distributed and constructed nature of the body, see Nikolas Rose, Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power and Personhood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
73. See Bruno Latour, Aramis, or The Love of Technology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).