TY - JOUR
T1 - Toward a Symmetrical Global History of Technology: The Adoption of Chlorination in Bogotá, London, and Jersey City, 1900–1920
AU - Aguilar Torres, Edisson
N1 - Edisson Aguilar Torres is a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at King’s College London. His research interests include the history of water treatment technologies and the relationship between water infrastructure and state formation. He can be contacted at [email protected].
PY - 2024/10/25
Y1 - 2024/10/25
N2 - This article discusses how the notion of "diffusionism" has functioned as a straw man in the history of technology. This has prevented it from becoming fully global and symmetrical. In contrast, the second section of this article offers an example of what a symmetrical account of the global history of technology might look like, using the case of chlorination in the early twentieth century. Focusing on London, Bogotá, and Jersey City, it shows that chlorination was initially rejected in each of these places but was later adopted in all of them for economic reasons after discussions that took the same form. It concludes by suggesting that global histories of technology must treat North and South, East and West, center and periphery, and metropole and colony symmetrically, drawing out similarities and differences based on the available evidence without assuming them in advance.
AB - This article discusses how the notion of "diffusionism" has functioned as a straw man in the history of technology. This has prevented it from becoming fully global and symmetrical. In contrast, the second section of this article offers an example of what a symmetrical account of the global history of technology might look like, using the case of chlorination in the early twentieth century. Focusing on London, Bogotá, and Jersey City, it shows that chlorination was initially rejected in each of these places but was later adopted in all of them for economic reasons after discussions that took the same form. It concludes by suggesting that global histories of technology must treat North and South, East and West, center and periphery, and metropole and colony symmetrically, drawing out similarities and differences based on the available evidence without assuming them in advance.
KW - symmetrical
KW - chlorination
KW - diffusionism
KW - water treatment
KW - global history
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85208013491&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1353/tech.2024.a940466
DO - 10.1353/tech.2024.a940466
M3 - Article
SN - 0040-165X
VL - 65
SP - 1195
EP - 1221
JO - TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE
JF - TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE
IS - 4
ER -
