TY  - GEN
AB  - This article examines interconnected questions that are central to new scholarship on the history of technology in modern South Asia. Which communities, groups and individuals have formed and sustained relationships with knowledge and practices that are seen as representative of technological modernity? Why were some individuals and communities understood—by both the state and various South Asian publics—to be cultivators of technological knowledge, while others were not? And to what degree were claims on technical knowledge and practice made and sustained through South Asian “vernacular” languages, practices, and conceits? The article integrates Punjabi verses written by an early 20th-century railway carpenter with an analysis of current historiographical trends. In doing so, it explores both the opportunities and limitations of the new social historical turn in the history of technology in South Asia. I argue that recent efforts to expand the “who” of the South Asian history of technology must lead us to new approaches to the social role of technology itself, and to new considerations of technology's relationship with science, labor, the environment, and material culture.
AD  - University of Chicago
AU  - Lanzillo, Amanda
DA  - 2024-11-29
ID  - 14172
JF  - History Compass
KW  - colonialism
KW  - empire
KW  - history of science
KW  - nationalism
KW  - social history
KW  - South Asia
KW  - technology
KW  - vernacular knowledge
L1  - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/14172/files/Railway-Carpenter-in-the-History-of-Technology.pdf
L2  - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/14172/files/Railway-Carpenter-in-the-History-of-Technology.pdf
L4  - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/14172/files/Railway-Carpenter-in-the-History-of-Technology.pdf
LA  - eng
LK  - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/14172/files/Railway-Carpenter-in-the-History-of-Technology.pdf
N2  - This article examines interconnected questions that are central to new scholarship on the history of technology in modern South Asia. Which communities, groups and individuals have formed and sustained relationships with knowledge and practices that are seen as representative of technological modernity? Why were some individuals and communities understood—by both the state and various South Asian publics—to be cultivators of technological knowledge, while others were not? And to what degree were claims on technical knowledge and practice made and sustained through South Asian “vernacular” languages, practices, and conceits? The article integrates Punjabi verses written by an early 20th-century railway carpenter with an analysis of current historiographical trends. In doing so, it explores both the opportunities and limitations of the new social historical turn in the history of technology in South Asia. I argue that recent efforts to expand the “who” of the South Asian history of technology must lead us to new approaches to the social role of technology itself, and to new considerations of technology's relationship with science, labor, the environment, and material culture.
PY  - 2024-11-29
T1  - A Railway Carpenter in the History of Technology?: New Opportunities From Modern South Asia
TI  - A Railway Carpenter in the History of Technology?: New Opportunities From Modern South Asia
UR  - https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/14172/files/Railway-Carpenter-in-the-History-of-Technology.pdf
Y1  - 2024-11-29
ER  -