Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

3.5a shows Margaret Hamilton,
Figure
in 1969, alongside the code she
photographed
her team wrote that helped put a man on
and
moon. Katie Bouman (Figure 3.5b), in 2019,
the
shown with stacks of hard drives of telescope
is
that gave us the first image of a black hole.
data
50 years apart, the images celebrate
Taken
women’s significant contributions to
two
advancements. Around the
technological
that these images went viral in 2019,
time
part of the absence and erasure of
Another
in the field comes from the very way we
women
to produce an image of a
endeavour
hole. black
after, the internet began to scrutinize
Shortly
extent of her contribution, and cast doubt
the
the legitimacy of featuring her story so
on
Opportunistic Twitter and
prominently.
accounts impersonating her were
Instagram
up to spread falsehoods and diminish
set
achievement. This troubling tale of our
her
urges us to consider—in an age when
times
innovation is an increasingly
technological
enterprise—what does it look like
collaborative
definition of technology intersects with
Our
identities to produce different frictions. Of
different
frictions, movements such as Afrofuturism
these
born and animated. Although the term
are
was not coined until 1993, the
“Afrofuturism”
relating to the intersection of race and
ideas
had been floating among the African
technology
especially in North America, for decades.
diaspora,
through them is the realization that the
Woven
scenarios of a technological future were
optimistic
neutral. The techno-enthusiasm of the space
not
that imagined the cosmos as the new frontier
race
not neutral, especially given that the “frontier”
was
referred to US expansion since the 17th
previously
This sentiment is captured in Gil Scott-
century.
song “Whitey on the Moon”, placing the
Heron’s
achievement of the moon landing
technological
the context of racial and social inequalities.
in
3II. Perspectives
For reflection
Women technologists
Katie Bouman became the public face of the
to give women technologists their due credit?
Figure 3.5b Katie Bouman
Figure 3.5a Margaret Hamilton
define technology.
A greater emphasis on women’s activities
immediately suggests that women, and in particular
black women, were among the rst technologists.
After all, women were the main gatherers, processors
and storers of plant food from earliest human times
onward. It was therefore logical that they should be
the ones to have invented the tools and methods
involved in this work such as the digging stick, the
carrying sling, the reaping knife and sickle, pestles
and pounders. If it were not for the male orientation
of most technological research, the signicance of
these inventions would be acknowledged.
(Wajcman quoted in Jasano et al 2001)
66