[Nettime-bold] where is the social in the technological?

[Faith Wilding <fwild@andrew.cmu.edu>]

thanks Coco for posting this response to the thumb tribe article. I was at 
a conference last week in which a sociologist from San Francisco State also 
talked about her research with immigrant women technology workers in 
Silicon valley (yes Donna they are still working there under much the same 
conditions as when you first wrote about them in the early '80s). She 
pointed to many of the same illnesses and health effects as Grupo Factor x 
did. She also pointed out that many of these women have at least 3 jobs 
because otherwise they could not pay the exorbitant rents in the Silicon 
Valley. The stress factor among them is incredibly high and worst of all 
they have pretty much no social life and no time to be social which brings 
on a lot of depression. Whether their thumbs are getting more muscular and 
flexible wasn't mentioned but in terms of pleasurable embodiment it seems 
their lives are pretty devastating.
I also want to say that similar stress levels are true of so many of my 
women friends with jobs in academia or other professions. While many of us 
are much more satisfied with our work and our lives, many of us are also 
approaching levels of overwork and stress that are really disabling. And if 
we insist on having social lives it becomes even more stressful. I believe 
not enough attention is paid to the importance of the social and the 
embodied experience of the social.
in solidarity, faith wilding

--On Wednesday, March 27, 2002 12:10 AM +0000 TONGOLELE@aol.com wrote:

> Sadie Plant's technoeuphoric views on how digitial technologies
> "transform"  the body are insidiously pro-globalization and ethically
> irresponsible. The  last post failed to mention that her "study" on the
> impact of cell phones was  financed by Motorola - and it appears to be
> quite a puff piece that serves  the interests of her employers.
>
> Below is an excerpt from a recent report by Casa de la Mujer-Grupo Factor
> X  in Tijuana, Mexico on the long term effects of working in electronics
> assembly plants on maquiladora workers' bodies.
>
> Enjoy,
> coco fusco
>
> "In terms of academic research in Mexico, little attention has been
> directed  to the long-term impact on labor conditions and the health of
> the workers. In  spite of this, it has been possible to ascertain the
> following: work related  injuries are directly related to the kind of
> work that is realized. For  example, in the electronics industry there
> are a number of illnesses and  conditions that are directly related to
> working with toxic substances.  Symptoms range from headaches (from
> inhalation of solvents), skin and eye  irritations, gastrointestinal
> illnesses, to repercussions in reproductive  health, such as spontaneous
> abortions, temporary sterility and anecephalia  (babies born without or
> with partial brains). In additions, there have been  grave cases of
> massive intoxication from severe overexposure to toxic  substances.
>
> One of the frequent conditions from which maquiladora workers suffer,
> regardless of where they work is stress generated by the rising rate of
> the  rhythm of production. Little has been analyzed and much less
> legislated in  relation to this; on the contrary, there exists a tendency
> to diminish the  hours of work due to extra increments in the standards
> of production. Little  has been analyzed or legislated regarding this
> issue. On the contrary, there  exists a tendency to diminish the
> relevance of the extra hours due to the  increments in the standards of
> production, which directly impacts upon the  mental health of workers."
>
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