Dear Cameron and All,
I didn't read this before I send my previous post. It is quite obvious
that I'm not inside your head. I would never thought of mini skirts. At
least in this context...
smile,
Eduardo
Em 20-03-2012 16:51, cameron tonkinwise escreveu:
> Dear Don and all,
>
> My primary concern is to ascertain how we can develop more
> sustainable ways of living and working. No-one except US Re-
> publican presidential candidates should now doubt that this
> will require radical innovation. There is much dispute at the
> moment as to whether the level of innovation now needed can
> come only from technological innovation or only from social
> innovation. (I like John Thackara's claim that sustainability
> requires not 'science fiction' but 'social fiction' - something we
> seem to be not-so-good-at.) I am therefore particularly inter-
> ested to determine what, for instance, meaning-driven inno-
> vation might be, and what the role of (social) research (and
> not citation) might be within meaning-driven innovation.
>
> In your and Verganti's piece you define meaning-driven
> innovation as follows:
>
> "Meaning-driven innovation starts from the comprehension of subtle and unspoken dynamics in socio-cultural models and results in radically new meanings and languages, often implying a change in socio-cultural regimes. The invention of the mini-skirt in the 1960s is an example: not simply a different skirt, but a radically new symbol of women’s freedom that recognize a radical change in society. No new technology was involved."
>
> Was the miniskirt an 'invention' or an evolution? Was it a
> 'new symbol of women's freedom'? If it was, was this a symbol
> invented by the women who wore the skirt, or a symbol in-
> vented by the marketers of the mini-skirt which women either
> willingly or unwillingly took up? Is the miniskirt-as-women's-
> freedom an innovation or is it a socio-technical evolution in
> the practices of being a woman, for better or worse? Is any-
> one in control of these kinds of innovations/evolutions,
> whether 3M or Vivian Westwood? If not, if there is only an
> evolving network of coalescing technologies and meanings,
> is radical innovation ever possible? Perhaps things only look
> disruptive in retrospect when a new paradigm more-or-less
> normalizes for a while, making the arrangements of the past
> look strange. In which case, perhaps it is conceptual mistake
> to try to distinguish between technologies and their meanings.
>
> Or perhaps this is just the sought of social research that func-
> tionally fixes the technological as a kind of capitalist alienation.
>
> Cameron
>
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