Discussion List
- The conference is over, but we're continuing the discussion on the Technology & Identity listserv. To join, send e-mail to listproc@cornell.edu with nothing in the subject line and "subscribe TECHIDENTITY-L firstname lastname" in the body (where firstname and lastname are your first name and last name, respectively).
- Discussion list archives are forthcoming.
Panel Summaries
As a theoretical term, identity is being increasingly invoked by analysts in science and technology studies (S&TS) and other fields to order and explain actors' values, interests, practices, and more generally, world-views. As social constructs, heterogeneous assemblages can form, maintain, fragment, and completely transform the identities of collectivities and actors. The graduate students of the Science & Technology Studies Department at Cornell University announced a conference to explore the boundaries of identity, held on April 16-18, 1999. How are identities constructed and defined? What work do actors achieve by drawing on identity as a resource? In our analyses, what work do we accomplish by using the term "identity" as compared to other theoretical resources? By focusing on the constructed boundaries of identity, including those between other identities, we investigated core questions in S&TS such as how some identities are maintained or how a particular sociotechnical system can support multiple identities. Although conference participants studied these questions at multiple levels, such as the nation-state or the laboratory, and with diverse empirical concerns, all papers engaged with theoretical questions raised by the intersection of technology and identity. Ken Gergen, Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College, delivered the keynote address.
For more information, please contact:
Shobita Parthasarathy
Dept. of Science and Technology Studies
Cornell University
726 University Avenue
Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 255-6234 (phone)
(607) 255-0616 (fax)
sp73@cornell.edu
This conference was co-sponsored by the following:
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Last Update: July 9, 1999