Technology- and product-oriented movements are mobilizations of civil society organizations that generally include alliances with private-sector firms, for which the target of social change is support for an alternative technology and/or product, as well as the policies with which they are associated. TPMs generally involve “private-sector symbiosis,” that is, a mixture of advocacy organizations/networks and private-sector firms. Case studies of nutritional therapeutics, wind energy, and open-source software are used to explore the tendency for large corporations in established industries to incorporate (...) the products and technologies advocated by the TPM. As the incorporation process proceeds, the alternative technologies undergo design transformations that make them more compatible with existing products and technological systems. As the technological/product field undergoes diversification, “object conflicts” erupt over a range of design possibilities, from those advocated by the more social movement–oriented organizations to those advocated by the established industries. (shrink)

This article addresses two interrelated questions: Why is it often difficult to create better environmental conditions in the world using traditional political processes and new technological fixes? May science and technology studies analyses of user strategies and micropolitics contribute to societies’ treatment of these difficulties? Focusing on the problems that the electric car has confronted in establishing itself as a viable alternative to the internal combustion car, the authors argue that its failure illustrates the poverty of organized politics, on one (...) hand, and the shortcomings of engineering design practices, on the other. The authors suggest that a thoroughgoing change in the automobility system will take place only if more attention is paid to the actual use of alternative vehicles. By driving differently and viewing automobility differently, electric vehicle owners develop “user scripts” that challenge established political and engineering scripts while contributing to what the authors call a “cultural politics of automobility.”. (shrink)