Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-09T00:37:39.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Container Technologies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

This paper goes beyond critiques of western philosophical notions of space as passive, feminine, and unintelligent by reconfiguring containment as an (inter-)active process. The author draws on work in the history of technology, on a cybernetic epistemology that emphasizes the interdependence of organism and environment, and on intersubjectivist psychoanalytic theories of the maternal provision. A more unexpected ally is found in Heidegger, whose writings on holding and supply are read in ways that contribute to the development of an urgently required philosophy of container technologies.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aristotle, 1979. Generation of Animals. Trans. A. L. Peck. Aristotle in Twenty‐Three Volumes. Vol. XIII. Loeb Classical Library. 1942. Reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bachelard, Gaston 1969. The poetics of space. Trans. Jolas, Maria. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory 1972. Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine/Random House.Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory 1979. Mind and nature: A necessary unity. New York: Dutton.Google Scholar
Berg, Ann‐Jorunn 1994. A gendered socio‐technical construction: The smart house. In Bringing technology home: Gender and technology in a changing Europe, ed. Cockburn, Cynthia and AFürst‐Dilic, Ruza. Birmingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Best, Sue. 1995. Sexualizing space. In Sexy bodies, ed. Grosz, Elizabeth and Probyn, Elspeth. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bijker, Wiebe E., Hughes, Thomas P., and Pinch, Trevor, eds. 1987. The social construction of technological systems. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bijker, Wiebe E., and Law, John, eds. 1992. Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bion, W. R. 1959. Attacks on linking. IJP 40: 308–15. Quoted in Thomas H. Ogden, The dialectically constituted/decentred subject of psychoanalysis (IJP 73: 613–26, 1992)Google Scholar
Cockburn, Cynthia, and Fürst‐Dilic, Ruza, eds. 1994. Bringing technology home: Gender and technology in a changing Europe. Birmingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Cockburn, Cynthia, and Ormrod, Susan. 1993. Gender and technology in the making. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Grosz, Elizabeth 1995. Space, time and perversion: The politics of bodies. St Leonard's, N.S.W: Allen and Unwin/Routledge.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1954. Vorträge und Aufsätze. Pfullingen: Günther Neske.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1962a. Analysis of environmentality and worldhood in general. In Being and time, Trans. Macquarie, J. and Robinson, E. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1962b. Die Technik und die Kehre. Pfullingen: Günther Neske.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1971a. Building Dwelling Thinking. In Poetry, language, thought, Trans. and ed. Hofstadter, Albert. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1971b. Poetry, language, thought. Trans. and ed. Hofstadter, Albert. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1971c. The Thing. In Poetry, language, thought, Trans. and ed. Hofstadter, Albert. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1977a. The Age of the World Picture. In The question concerning technology and other essays, Trans. Lovitt, William. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1977b. The Question Concerning Technology. In The question concerning technology and other essays, Trans. Lovitt, William. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1977c. The question concerning technology and other essays. Trans. Lovitt, William. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin 1977d. Science and Reflection. In The question concerning technology and other essays, Trans. Lovitt, William. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Ihde, Don. 1990. Technology and the lifeworld. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce 1985. Speculum of the other woman. Trans. Gill, Gillian C.Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1981. Desire in language: A semiotic approach to literature and art. Trans. Gora, Thomas, Jardine, Alice, and Roudiez, Leon S.Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1984. Revolution in poetic language. Trans. Roudiez, Leon S.New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno 1993. We have never been modern. Trans. Porter, Catherine. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno 1994. Pragmatogonies. American Behavioural Scientist 37 (6): 791808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massey, Doreen 1993. A global sense of place. In Studying culture: An introductory reader, ed. Gray, Anne and McGuigan, Jim. New York: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Mumford, Lewis 1962. Technics and civilization. 1934. Reprint, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Mumford, Lewis 1966. Technics and human development. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Ogden, Thomas H. 1992. The dialectically constituted/decentred subject of psychoanalysis. II. The contributions of Klein and Winnicott. IJP 73: 613–26.Google ScholarPubMed
Pickering, Andrew 1995. The mangle of practice: Time, agency, science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato, . 1971. Timeaus and Critias. Trans. Lee, H. D. P.Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Sofia, Zoë. 1996. Spacing out in the mother shop. In Motherlode, ed. Holt, Stephanie and Lynch, Maryanne. Melbourne: Sybylla Press.Google Scholar
Sofoulis, Zoë. 1999. Machinic musings with Mumford. M/C—a journal of media and culture (2) 6. On‐line at http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/.Google Scholar
Stern, Daniel 1985. The interpersonal world of the infant: A view from psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wajcman, Judy 1991. Feminism confronts technology. St Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Winnicott, D. W. 1965. The theory of the parent‐infant relationship. In The maturational proccesses and the facilitating environment. New York: International University Press.Google Scholar
Winnicott, D. W. 1971. Playing and reality. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Jan, ed. 1983. The technological woman: Interfacing with tomorrow. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, Michael 1990. Heidegger's confrontation with modernity: Technology, politics, art. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar