Berners-Lee on Nature and the Web

by gtdonovan on February 16, 2011 at 3:05 pm · Filed under Berners-Lee, control, ecology, governance, nature, participation, quotes, technonature, web, YDRC

From Berners-Lee’s Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality:

. . . people seem to think the Web is some sort of piece of nature,
and if it starts to wither,
well,
that’s just one of those unfortunate things we can’t help.

Not so.

We create the Web,
by designing computer protocols and software;
this process is completely under our control.

We choose what properties we want it to have and not have. (emphasis added)

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Escobar on the Political Ecology of Technonature

by gtdonovan on March 12, 2010 at 1:30 pm · Filed under ecology, Escobar, identity, informationalism, methodology, nature, quotes, technonature

From After Nature, p13:

A definition of political ecology for technonature would emphasize the biocultural configurations that are emerging and those that are possible according to particular constellations of actors, technologies, and practices. The political ecology of technonature would study the actual and potential biocultural arrangements linked to technoscience, particularly along the axes of organicity-artiflciality and reality-virtuality. It would examine discourses and practices of life and the extent to which they are conducive to new natures, social relations, and cultural practices. It is important that the ethnographies of technonature not focus on elite contexts only or on their impact on nonelite communities; they should also explore the locally constituted cultural and material resources that marginalized communities are able to mobilize for their adaptation or hybridization in the production of their identities and political strategies

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