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                CALL FOR PAPERS
<br>
<br>Workshop and Special Issue on
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>*Technological Innovations and Social Change: The History of Automation and
<br>the Future of Work in East Asia, 1960s–2010s*
<br>
<br>
<br>An international workshop to be held at the
<br>Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
<br>
<br>May 12, 2018
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>We invite submissions for a workshop and subsequent special issue of an
<br>STS-related journal devoted to the history of automation and the future of
<br>work in East Asia, running from the 1960s into the 2010s. Naubahar Sharif
<br>(Hong Kong University of Science and Technology: sosn@ust.hk) will serve as
<br>editor of this special issue.
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>Scholars interested in participating in this workshop and special issue
<br>should submit an extended abstract (2–3 pages in length) by *February 28,
<br>2018. *Authors will be notified by March 15, 2018 if their papers have been
<br>accepted for presentation at the workshop. There is no registration fee.
<br>All meals, airfare and up to two nights of hotel accommodations will be
<br>provided. Complete drafts of the papers (comprising a minimum of 5,000
<br>words in English) must be submitted by *April 27, 2018*. All papers will be
<br>circulated among the participants in advance and participants will comment
<br>on each other’s papers. A subset of authors will be asked to submit their
<br>papers for inclusion in the special issue by June 30, 2018, with the
<br>expectation that their papers will be published in by late-2018, provided
<br>they pass the external review process.
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>*Overview and Submission Procedures*
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>We are entering into a Fourth Industrial Revolution wherein automation
<br>equipment backed by cloud data could determine the dominant logic of
<br>operations that sustain the world’s economy. Both China’s “Made in
<br>China
<br>2025” plan and Vietnam’s “Industry 4.0” program embrace a technicist
<br>view
<br>that considers social change a consequence, not a cause, of technological
<br>development. This workshop will perceive automation as a “socio-technical
<br>system” in the effort to understand how technology not only shapes society
<br>but is in turn molded by the prevailing structures of economic and
<br>political power (Jasanoff 2004; Marcuse 1941; Nobel 1979). Through a
<br>historical review of the dialectical relations that operate between
<br>technological innovations and social change, we will conceptualize
<br>worker-centered technologies that aspire to a socially sustainable model of
<br>development.
<br>
<br>The history of modernization in East Asian countries has followed a quite
<br>distinct trajectory from that in the West. Here, technological modernity
<br>exists alongside centuries-old social and cultural practices, challenging
<br>the rigid subject/object, human/non-human, and self/other dichotomies
<br>(Latour and Nakazawa 2000). One notable example is the absence of Luddite
<br>attitudes towards machines. Although the first programmable industrial
<br>robot was invented in the U.S. in 1961, its diffusion in East Asian
<br>countries quickly outpaced that in their originating counterpart. In Japan,
<br>half of the major potential users began utilizing them within, on average,
<br>only eight years, compared with 12 years in the U.S (Kumaresan and Miyazaki
<br>1999). Korea has recently maintained a faster pace of automation to
<br>register the world’s highest robot density in manufacturing (531/10,000
<br>workers) (IRF 2016).
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>The trajectory of the contemporary East Asian model reframes the Needham
<br>Question, which has heretofore been answered by describing the region’s
<br>science and technology development through a narrative of “failure”. The
<br>East Asian experience reflects the importance of socio-cultural factors in
<br>shaping economic development, triggering debates over Asia’s uniqueness as
<br>a region (Chen 2010; Deyo 1989).
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>Some scholars deploy a culture-centric view that either charges Confucian
<br>culture with normalizing labor acquiesce or impugns the influence of
<br>Buddhism for making “no particular distinction between the animate and
<br>inanimate” (Christopher 1983: 292; Kaerlein 2015). Such an Orientalist view
<br>has been criticized by political economists for marginalizing questions of
<br>power and exploitation, especially in disregarding the conditions and role
<br>of labor in the automation process (Morris-Suzuki 1988).
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>The emphasis on worker conformity has become untenable with the rise of
<br>activism among Asian workers since the 1980s that has paralleled
<br>globalization. In Korea, many firms vigorously implemented automation
<br>following the 1987 Great Workers’ Strike when employers tried to improve
<br>productivity and flexibility by using robots to replace human labor (Koo
<br>2001). Similarly, such notions as “techno-animism” (Jensen and Blok
<br>2013),
<br>which assumes that Asians are receptive to new technology, fail to capture
<br>the dynamic struggles between the state, capital, and labor. In Japan, the
<br>rapid diffusion of robots was an expression of the “lifetime employment”
<br>system promoted by the welfare-capitalist social contract that helped
<br>dispel workers’ fears and balance the job-displacing effects of automation
<br>(Morris-Suzuki 1988).
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>We explore the dialectical relations between technological innovation and
<br>social change in East Asia from the 1960s onwards, when processes of
<br>industrial automation accelerated significantly. Throughout the region, we
<br>see a transition from labor-intensive to robot-driven manufacturing, albeit
<br>within varying historical contexts: Japan and Korea initiated the
<br>transition during the Cold War era, while China and Vietnam did so in the
<br>post-socialist transition to neoliberalism. Apart from some limited studies
<br>examining the automation process in Japan (Morris-Suzuki 1988), there has
<br>been little research on specific patterns of industrial upgrading or on its
<br>impact on social change in the East Asian context.
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>The region was once touted as the incubator of “four little dragons” or
<br>“newly industrializing countries” (NICs) when export-oriented,
<br>labor-intensive production helped it achieve rapid industrialization and
<br>rising literacy (Vogel 1991; Chowdhury and Islam 1993). Now, however,
<br>facing shrinking orders and rising labor costs in the aftermath of the 2008
<br>global economic crisis, countries like China and Vietnam have had to adopt
<br>industrial upgrading to transform their workshop-of-the-world status to
<br>that of manufacturing powerhouse. However, the dominant discourses of
<br>“Industry 4.0” and “robotic dividend” assume a Whiggish perception of
<br>technology as “progress”, but they have been oblivious to the impact of
<br>advanced machineries on social equality and labor solidarity. We have not
<br>yet explicitly heard the voices of those who are potentially vulnerable to
<br>these changes, nor have we seen robust government plans that seek to
<br>mitigate the adverse impacts on workers. It remains to be seen whether
<br>embracing high-tech manufacturing can lead to socially sustainable
<br>development.
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>By perceiving industrial automation as a “socio-technical system”, the
<br>workshop will explore a dialectical approach to technology and labor by
<br>focusing in particular on workers’ everyday interactions with technology.
<br>On the one hand, this approach refutes the mainstream notion of
<br>technological determinism in virtue of which economists view labour as a
<br>static and passive force awaiting manipulation by capital. On the other
<br>hand, it also cautions against the opposite tendency, which champions
<br>workers’ power as inherently invulnerable to machines. It is, however,
<br>worth studying how specific cultural, political, and social
<br>factors—Confucianism, post-socialist ideologies, and authoritarian
<br>regimes—might play out in the interface of shop-floor automation and labor
<br>activism.
<br>
<br>
<br>The aim of this workshop is to explore the historical and social
<br>implications of industrial automation by combining historical experience
<br>and current transformations. Topics and questions that we will explore
<br>include, but are not limited to:
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>1)    What are the socio-cultural, political, and economic conditions that
<br>induce East Asian governments to launch policies that stimulate industrial
<br>upgrading? How do these countries devise their own strategies to tackle
<br>social issues through policy? How do ideas, technologies, and practices
<br>flow across national borders and temporalities?
<br>
<br>2)    What have been the outcomes of these policies? What kinds of social
<br>and technical barriers have emerged? How do manufacturers decide whether or
<br>not to automate, which parts of their factories to automate, and to what
<br>level of sophistication they should automate? How has automation led to
<br>changes in industrial organization?
<br>
<br>3)    What are the historical path dependencies—technological and
<br>policy-related, for example—that have significantly influenced how
<br>technology policy in East Asia is shaped today?
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>To submit an abstract for consideration for the workshop, please attach
<br>your abstract to an e-mail and send it to both Naubahar Sharif (sosn@ust.hk)
<br>and Yu Huang (huangyu@ust.hk). In the subject line of the e-mail, please
<br>write: MMEA Workshop: The Title of Your Paper.
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>*References*
<br>
<br>
<br>Chen, Kuan-Hsing. 2010. Asia as Method: Towards Deimperialization. Durham,
<br>NC:
<br>      Duke University Press.
<br>Chowdhury, Anis and Iyanatul Islam. 1993. The Newly Industrialising
<br>Economies of         East Asia. New York: Routledge.
<br>Christopher, Robert. 1983. The Japanese Mind: The Goliath Explained. New
<br>York:
<br>      Linden Press.
<br>Deyo, F. C. 1989. Beneath the Miracle: Labor Subordination in the New Asian
<br>      Industrialism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
<br>IFR. (2016). World robotics 2016 industrial robots. International
<br>Federation of
<br> Robotics. Retrieved from http://www.ifr.org/industrial-robots/statistics/.
<br>Jasanoff, Sheila. 2004. States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science
<br>and the
<br>      Social Order. New York: Routledge.
<br>Jensen, CB and A Blok. 2013. “Techno-Animism in Japan. Shinto Cosmograms,
<br>    Actor-Network Theory, and the Enabling Powers of Non-Human
<br>Agencies”. Theory, Culture, and Society 30(2): 84-115.
<br>
<br>Kaerlein, Timo. 2015. “The Social Robot as Fetish? Conceptual Affordances
<br>and      Risks of Neo-Animistic Theory”. International Journal of Social
<br>Robotics 7: 361-     370.
<br>
<br>Koo, Hagen. 2001. The Social Robot as Fetish? Conceptual Affordances and
<br>Risks
<br>
<br>      of Neo-Animistic Theory. Itaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
<br>
<br>Kumaresan, Nageswaran and Kumiko Miyazaki. 1999. “An Integrated Network
<br>      Approach to Systems of Innovtion: The Case of Robotics in Japan”.
<br>Research
<br>      Policy 28(6): 563-583.
<br>Latour, Bruno & Shinichi Nakazawa (2000) “To Move Beyond ‘Modernity’-
<br>Dialogue
<br>      between Bruno Latour and Nakazawa Shinichi”, in S. Nakazawa (ed),
<br>Feature: A
<br>      Contract with Nature (Tokyo: Coucou no tchi): 190-211.
<br>Marcuse, Herbert (1941) “Some Social Implications of Modern Technology”.
<br>Studies      in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (3) (April): 414-439.
<br>Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. (1988). Beyond Computopia: Information, Automation
<br>and
<br>      Democracy in Japan. New York: Routledge.
<br>Noble, David. 1979. “Social Choice in Machine Design: The Case of
<br>Automatically
<br>      Controlled Machine Tools, and a Challenge for Labor.” Politics and
<br>Society 8 (3–
<br>      4): 313–347.
<br>Vogel, Ezra F. (1991) The Four Little Dragons: The Spread of
<br>Industrialization in East
<br>      Asia. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
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