TechnoViews

TechnoViews #19 ‘Soda Science. Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola’ | Susan Greenhalgh (Harvard University)

Susan GREENHALGH, interviewed by Gonçalo SANTOS and Jun ZHANG on 28/February/2025 ABOUT THIS EPISODE In this episode, anthropologist and science studies specialist Susan Greenhalgh talks about her most recent book, Soda Science. Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola, taking TechnoViews listeners deep inside the secret world of corporate science, where powerful companies and allied academic scientists mold research to meet industry needs. The episode begins with a brief account of how industry leader Coca-Cola mobilized allies in academia to create a soda-defense science that would protect the industry’s profits by advocating physical exercise, not dietary restraint, as the priority solution to the problem of obesity. The goal of soda science was to use science to discourage the introduction of restrictive public policies like soda taxes that would threaten the revenues of giant soda companies like Coca-Cola. The author then explains why soda science should not be seen as fake science; it is real science, conducted by real and eminent scientists, but distorted to serve corporate benefits. This corruption of the science of obesity raises crucial questions about conflicts of interest in scientific research and the cunning ways giant corporations like Coca-Cola come to shape our diets, lifestyles, and health to their own needs. The author then establishes a contrast between the effects of soda science in China and in the US, and she then discusses some of the biggest challenges she faced during her research in these two countries on such a sensitive topic. Finally, the author discusses the importance of anthropology and the social sciences in the current era of misinformation and disinformation, sharing a few stories that were not included in the book. FEATURED AUTHOR Susan GREENHALGH is the John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society Emerita at Harvard University. An anthropologist, her interests lie in the entanglements of state, corporation, science, and society, and their consequences for human health and social justice writ large. She is author of Just One-Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China; and Cultivating Global Citizens: Population in the Rise of China; co-author of Governing China's Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics; and co-editor of Can Science and Technology Save China?, among other titles. BOOK WEBSITE Greenhalgh, Susan. 2024. Soda Science. Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola. University of Chicago Press, 352 pages | 18 halftones, 7 tables | 6 x 9 https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo221451790.html [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo221451790.html]

TechnoViews #18 'Moving Crops and the Scales of History’ | Francesca Bray, Barbara Hahn, John B. Lourdusamy, and Tiago Saraiva

John B. LOURDUSAMY and Tiago SARAIVA, interviewed by Gonçalo SANTOS and Jun ZHANG on 13/August/2024 ABOUT THIS EPISODE Dr. Lourdusamy and Dr. Saraiva present their recently published book, Moving Crops and the Scales of History, speaking on behalf of a larger collective of authors that includes also Francesca Bray and Barbara Hahn. The episode begins with a discussion of key concepts such as the “cropscape” and the “scales of history,” showing how these concepts challenge stereotypical understandings of historical processes, breaking open traditional historical structures of period, geography and direction and revealing the significance of previously invisible actors and forces. Significant attention is given to the process of book composition. The authors provide unique insights on the process of writing and the criteria that were used to select crops and stories. We also learn that some crops and stories were left out of the book and the reasons why such crops and stories were not included. Finally, the authors explain how they came together as a collective and discuss the virtues and challenges of the pioneering collaborative model of writing developed in the book. FEATURED AUTHORS John B. LOURDUSAMY is an Associate Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Science, Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Tiago SARAIVA is a Full Professor of History at Drexel University, co-editor of the journal History and Technology, and a member of the new Cambridge History of Technology editorial team. BOOK WEBSITE Francesca Bray, Barbara Hahn, John B. Lourdusamy and Tiago Saraiva. 2024. Moving Crops and the Scales of History. [https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300257250/moving-crops-and-the-scales-of-history/] Yale University Press (Yale Agrarian Studies Series). Awarded the Edelstein Prize 2024 by the Society for the History of Technology and the Bentley Book Prize 2024 by the World History Association

TechnoViews #17 ‘The Labor of Reinvention’ | Lin ZHANG (U. of New Hampshire)

Lin ZHANG, interviewed by Joseph BOSCO on 13 December 2023 ABOUT THIS EPISODE In this episode, Dr. Zhang discusses the definition of the “entrepreneur” and why it is important. She also discusses why the idea that entrepreneurship would decrease inequality has become so popular in among PRC leaders. The author also explains the significance of her three cases, and elaborates on the life course of one of the interviewees. She also talks about the tension between seeing entrepreneurship as culturally important and avoiding cultural essentialism. FEATURED AUTHOR Dr. Lin ZHANG, author of the book The Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy, published in 2023 by Columbia University Press. Dr. Zhang earned a PhD in Communication at the University of Southern California, and is currently an Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies at the University of New Hampshire, focusing on critical innovation studies, knowledge and digital labor, and intersectionality. AUTHOR WEBSITE University website: https://cola.unh.edu/person/lin-zhang [https://cola.unh.edu/person/lin-zhang] Personal website: https://linzhangweb.org/ [https://linzhangweb.org/]

TechnoViews #16. 'An Ecological History of Modern China' | Stevan Harrell (U. of Washington)

Stevan HARRELL, interviewed by Loretta Ieng-tak LOU on 9/December/2023 ABOUT THIS EPISODE This episode features a conversation with Stevan Harrell about his recent masterful overview of China's environmental processes from the twentieth century to the present. The author discusses how the ‘ecological history’ approach differs from more conventional approaches to environmental history. The conversation then touches on two of the many topics covered in the book, food and population, to illustrate the value of approaching the past through the concepts and frameworks of systems ecology. A variety of food-related topics are discussed, from the early struggles to feed China’s population, to the recent effects of meatier diets on China’s agriculture and feed imports, to alternative food movements among China’s urbanites worried about food security. Finally, China’s current population crisis and demographic decline are considered from an ecological perspective and taking into account the trade-offs between economic development and ecological resilience. This episode provides a brief introduction to a book that has been hailed as a “tour de force” and as “essential reading for anyone seeking to better understand China’s environmental predicament.” FEATURED AUTHOR Stevan HARRELL taught anthropology, China Studies, and environmental studies at the University of Washington from 1974 to 2017. He conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Sanxia, Taiwan beginning in 1970 and in Panzhihua Municipality (from 1988), Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture (from 1993), and Jiuzhaigou National Park (2005), all in Sichuan. His current project is a history of agricultural change in Whatcom County, Washington. AUTHOR WEBSITE: http://faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/ [http://faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/] BOOK’S OFFICIAL WEBPAGE: https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295751696/an-ecological-history-of-modern-china/ [https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295751696/an-ecological-history-of-modern-china/]

TechnoViews #15. 'Prototype Nation' | Silvia M. Lindtner (U. of Michigan)

Silvia LINDTNER, interviewed by Joseph BOSCO on 25 October 2022 ABOUT THIS EPISODE In this episode, Dr. Lindtner explains what is the “maker” movement, and why she focused on this phenomenon. She discusses how she conducted ethnographic research in companies that can often be wary of outsiders, especially foreigners. She also discusses how making was appropriated by the Chinese Communist Party as part of the state’s tactics of hegemony, functioning not by coercion but by promising happiness. She explains two key concepts in the book, the “socialist pitch” and the term for maker, chuangke 创客, which has slightly different implications in Chinese. She also talks about the assumption many people make that there is something particularly Chinese about making, and how it has to become part of makers’ pitch for investors. FEATURED AUTHOR Dr. Silvia LINDTNER is the author of the book Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (Princeton University Press, 2020), winner of the 2021 Francis L.K. Hsu Book Prize from the Society for East Asian Anthropology, and the 2022 Joseph Levenson Prize for China Scholarship from the Association for Asian Studies. Dr. Lindtner is an anthropologist, and Associate Professor at the University of Michigan in the School of Information, and Director of the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC). AUTHOR WEBSITE University website: https://www.si.umich.edu/people/silvia-lindtner [https://www.si.umich.edu/people/silvia-lindtner] Personal website: http://www.silvialindtner.com/ [http://www.silvialindtner.com/] BOOK'S OFFICIAL WEBPAGE https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691207674/prototype-nation [https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691207674/prototype-nation]