Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/71061 
Year of Publication: 
1999
Citation: 
[Journal:] Social Studies of Science [ISSN:] 1460-3659 [Volume:] 29 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] Sage [Place:] Thousand Oaks [Year:] 1999 [Pages:] 411-431
Publisher: 
Sage, Thousand Oaks
Abstract: 
In social studies of technology, as in many other scientific disciplines, highly persuasive similes are at work: pious stories, seemingly reaped from research, suggesting certain general theoretical insights. Variously adapted, they are handed down: in the process, they acquire almost doctrinal unassailability. One such parable, which has been retold in technology and urban studies for a long time, is the story of Robert Moses’ low bridges, preventing the poor and the black of New York from gaining access to Long Island resorts and beaches. The story turns out to be counterfactual, but even if a small myth is disenchanted, it serves a purpose: to resituate positions in the old debate about the control of social processes via buildings and other technical artifacts - or, more generally, about material form and social content.
Subjects: 
social studies of technology
Techniksoziologie
URL of the first edition: 
Published Version’s DOI: 
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Accepted Manuscript (Postprint)
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