The interplay between science, technology, and society constitutes a foundational axis of socio-anthropological inquiry, interrogating how human collectives construct, negotiate, and contest knowledge systems and material innovations. 

Rooted in the premise that scientific practices and technological artifacts are neither neutral nor autonomous, socio-anthropological frameworks illuminate their embeddedness within cultural, political, and economic matrices. 

The social constructivist paradigm, advanced by scholars such as Bruno Latour and Wiebe Bijker, posits that scientific facts and technological systems emerge from iterative processes of social negotiation. 

Latour’s actor-network theory (ANT) dismantles the Cartesian dichotomy between human and non-human actors, arguing that scientific knowledge is co-produced through networks of laboratories, funding bodies, policymakers, and even instruments. 

For instance, the development of the atomic bomb was not merely a triumph of physics but a sociopolitical project shaped by wartime imperatives, institutional hierarchies, and ethical trade-offs. 

Similarly, Bijker’s concept of technological frames underscores how innovations like the bicycle evolved through contested interpretations by engineers, users, and regulators, reflecting broader societal values around mobility and gender.

This constructivist lens challenges the myth of scientific objectivity, revealing how epistemic authority is often contingent on power relations. Donna Haraway’s notion of situated knowledges further critiques the “god trick” of universalist science, advocating for perspectival accountability. Indigenous knowledge systems, marginalized by colonial technoscience, exemplify how epistemological pluralism is suppressed in favor of hegemonic Western paradigms, as seen in the erasure of traditional ecological practices in favor of industrial agriculture.

Foucault’s biopolitics and Marcuse’s technological rationality converge in analyzing how science and technology become instruments of governance and social control. 

Modern states deploy technocratic regimes—surveillance systems, algorithmic governance, biometric identification—to legitimize authority and discipline populations. 

The digitization of public services, framed as “efficiency,” often masks neoliberal agendas that privatize data and exclude marginalized groups lacking digital literacy. Similarly, corporate techno-capitalism, exemplified by Silicon Valley’s platform monopolies, commodifies human interaction through social media algorithms that amplify polarization while centralizing profit.

Critically, technological determinism—the belief that technology autonomously drives progress—serves as ideological scaffolding for such power structures. Langdon Winner’s seminal question, “Do artifacts have politics?” exposes how infrastructures like highways or AI facial recognition encode racial and class biases. 

The “smart city” ideal, touted as apolitical innovation, frequently reinforces spatial segregation by prioritizing affluent zones for technological investment. Thus, technology becomes a site of struggle, where subaltern groups deploy counter-technologies, from open-source software to grassroots renewable energy projects, to resist hegemonic technopower.

Anthropological analyses further unravel how societies ascribe cultural meanings to technological artifacts. Mary Douglas’s symbolic anthropology elucidates how technologies function as “material metaphors,” embodying collective identities and moral boundaries. 

The automobile, for instance, transcends utility to signify freedom in American culture, yet also embodies environmental guilt in climate-conscious discourses. Similarly, Arjun Appadurai’s concept of technoscapes highlights global flows of technology that hybridize local practices, as seen in the adaptation of mobile banking in Kenya’s M-Pesa system, which fused neoliberal finance with informal communal trust networks.

Rituals of technological adoption also reflect ontological anxieties. Sherry Turkle’s ethnographies of digital culture reveal how AI companions and social media personas mediate contemporary crises of authenticity and loneliness. Conversely, Luddite movements and neo-primitivist rejections of technology signify cultural resistance to perceived dehumanization, framing innovation as a threat to existential coherence.

To sum up, socio-anthropological interpretations ultimately advocate for a reflexive praxis that acknowledges science and technology as terrains of emancipatory potential and oppressive risk. By deconstructing the mythos of technological inevitability and centering marginalized epistemologies, scholars can inform participatory design models that democratize innovation. 

The challenge lies in cultivating technoscientific systems that prioritize pluriversal equity over profit or control—a task demanding not only interdisciplinary rigor but ethical courage. In this light, science and technology cease to be mere tools; they become mirrors reflecting humanity’s highest aspirations and deepest contradictions.