a reading response of "Obduracy in Urban Socio-Technical Change"

1. Respons Paper: Obduracy in Urban Socio-Technical Change
Unbuilding Cities: Obduracy in Urban Sociotechnical Change
Anthropology of Tourism
Thursday, 14:45 - 16:15
John Ertl
Maharani Dian Permanasari
Graduate Student of
Cultural Resource Management Program
Cities in developed countries are considered to be
dynamic and flexible spaces —never finished but always under
construction (pg.10). The process of making significant
adjustment in the design of the cities will take a lot of efforts,
time, and money. Once built, cities with its elements and existing
urban structures become fixed, obdurate, immobile, and
securely anchored in their own histories as well as in the
histories of their surroundings.
In this passage, Hommels emphasizes the
confrontation between the obduracy of the “old” or existing
urban structures and the “new” ideas for urban development.
The study focusing in three Dutch urban redesign projects: the
facelift of a city center/downtown area (Hoog Catharijne) as
part of the Utrecht City Project; the reconstruction of an urban
highway in Maastricht; and the spatial renewal of the suburban
district called Bijlmermeer.
Viewing Cities as Technological Artifacts
The author view cities as large socio-technological
artifacts and as the result of human interactions, constructions,
and representations, which includes the material and the
immaterial. Thus, applying the STS (Science, Technology, and
Society) concepts, which were earlier applied to other
technological artifacts development, will be suitable to study the
cities. Hommels demonstrates the usefulness of STS tools and
explores the role of obduracy in sociotechnical change. She
states that obduracy and urban change are major concerns for
both urban scholars (or other academic audience) and for
practitioners such as architects and urban planners. Therefore,
she use obduracy as a focal point in exploring on how STS and
urban studies might benefit each other.
The author aims to show how focusing on obduracy
makes it possible to look at urban form and processes of
change by elaborating and extending three different models of
obduracy. In doing so, she refutes four “commonsense”
explanations of urban obduracy below:
Obduracy of Technology: Three Conceptual Models
In the analysis of obduracy, focusing on the
persistence of decisions involving the design and building of
urban technologies may be quite useful. Three models are
presented in table below:
• “change is too expensive”
• Financial considerations can be a reason to
keep things as they are, but they can also be a
reason to start unbuilding processes.
Economy (lack of
money)
• conflicts of interests are crucial, and the
process of seeking agreement on what should
be done is very time-consuming
Communication
(interaction process)
• The more powerful actor keep things as they
are (or to change things)
• Power balances may change frequently during
unbuilding processes
Monolithic idea of
power
• obduracy cannot be explained only by
reference to the physical properties, because a
wide range of cultural factors are also
important
Material reasons
Dominant
Frames
Embeddedness Persistent
Traditions
Explanatory
mechanisms
Obduracy
explained by
constrained
ways of thinking
& interacting
Obduracy
explained by
close
interconnectedn
ess of social &
technical
elements
Obduracy
explained by
long-term
persistence of
traditions
Concepts &
metaphors
Technological
frames;
paradigms;
mental models;
professional
worldviews
Actor networks;
irreversibility;
fixity & mobility
of space
Momentum;
trajectories;
path
dependence;
city-building
regimes;
archetypes
Disciplinary
background/
intellectual
tradition
Social
construction of
technology;
history of
planning
Actor-Network
theory; urban
geography
Large technical
system
approach;
history of
technology;
urban history;
evolutionary
economics
Type of
explanation
Interactionist Relational Enduring
The Frames model emphasizes obduracy in design
processes, in which actors with diverse views are involved in
planning and “unbuilding” activities and analyzing their
potentially conflicting ways of thinking and interacting.
Embeddedness emphasizes the interrelatedness of human
and non-human elements in an urban socio-technical
ensemble. Focus on persistent traditions highlights how
cultural and collective traditions influence the development of
technology over time.
Personal Remarks
This chapter provides some interesting models of
thinking about built environment. The term “obduracy” itself is
relatively new for me because I understand the context about it
in different language. In my previous Design Major, I took a
course of “Design in Built Environment” and the “Persistent
Tradition” model is often being used in the development of
design, architecture, or urban and regional planning.
As for the projects in developing a city, Indonesia
(particularly Bandung, where my university located) often
involve the public in some design actions. The recent
development involving the public is engaging a city forest,
creating public parks, holding culinary festivals, etc.
1

2. Anthropology of Tourism
Thursday, 14:45 - 16:15
John Ertl
Maharani Dian Permanasari
Graduate Student of
Cultural Resource Management Program
From the passage, three models of obduracy creates
some chances to explore -to which extent they can be applied
to develop a sustainable city with well-connected elements and
structures: not only as a healthy and prosperous place which
providing safe places for people to live, but also giving comfort
by being accessible, attractive, and lively in diverse community.
Obduracy and Product Design in Cultural Resource
Management
Regarding with my current research project, the
enduring conception of obduracy in the long-term persistence
of traditions plays a significant role, since I am researching
about “eating culture” and how it affects the design
development of the products (eating utensils). Applying design
thinking method, the research output will have to be a
problem-solving system or product that prioritize the users’
need. Although innovation is one of the basics in design
thinking, the role of obduracy is needed in order to create
design constraints, thus differentiate product design with art.
Respons Paper: Obduracy in Urban Socio-Technical Change 2
Image source: http://tumblr.thisbigcity.net/post/73009406853/landscape-a-design-
sustainable-cities
“Good art sends a different message to everyone.
Good design sends the same message to everyone.”