ISBN
978-1529247077Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressISBN
978-1529247091Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
How Technologies Harm
Technologies contribute to harms in a variety of ways, but can we ever say they are harmful in-and-of-themselves?
This book offers a new way to understand how technologies, while not intrinsically harmful, are laden with values and dispositions that can contribute to negative outcomes. Building on insights from postphenomenology, realist social theory and the philosophy of action, it provides a framework for examining technology-harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they contribute to bringing about. It is for anyone seeking to design, regulate, research or simply use technology in a way that prioritizes well-being.
Mark Wood is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Deakin University.
Introduction
1. What Is Social Harm?
2. The Nature of Harm
3. Instruments, Extensions, Affordances
4. Technology As Practice and Actant
5. Postphenomenology and Technological Mediation
6. An Overview of the Framework
7. Design Modes
8. Translation, Infusion, Zemiosis
9. Harms Beyond Use
10. Doing Harm With Things
11. From First-Order to Second-Order Harm Relations
Conclusion: Pulling at the Threads of Enmeshment
