Rationale and context

The drive for technological development has been integral to human evolution since the development of the first stone implements over 3 million years ago. The rate of change since industrialisation in particular has increased dramatically, with continual product innovation essential for a company to remain competitive in the marketplace. As the average product lifecycle continues to decrease, incremental advancements such as the latest laptop with a faster chip or a more efficient washing machine that uses less electricity are expected. More disruptive technological change is, however, far less predictable in its reception and adoption by intended users. There are examples of striking success where a new innovative development has been rapidly accepted and become standard (such as Dyson’s cyclone vacuum cleaner) and others that have been outright rejected (as was the Sinclair C5 battery-assisted tricycle), or adopted in an unanticipated way (as the Mini Cooper was gradually transformed from a small economy car to a rally icon).

 Figure 1: Dyson vacuum cleaner, Sinclair C5  tricycle and the Mini Cooper

In the field of design history, the process of adoption has been referred to as the ‘domestication’ of technology. This involves a process of conflict and collaboration where people ‘tame’ unfamiliar technologies and products for everyday use. In the process of doing so, they also have to modify their own behaviour and practices. Since being coined by the British sociologist Roger Silverstone (Silverstone & Haddon, 1996), domestication has evolved into a methodological approach that explores the complex relationship between societies and their artefacts. With other methods derived from Science and Technology studies (STS) such as actor-network theory and script analysis being adopted for use in historical design work (Fallan, 2010), there has been a re-reading of the ‘heroic’ designer interpretation of innovative development in favour of a broader socio-technical perspective.

In this vein, we have identified the expanding nineteenth century British Empire as a context where the issues of technological adaptation are particularly acute. Technologies established in the rapidly industrialising United Kingdom were applied to diverse locations across the world where it was deemed they could advance the British imperial project. The changes were often traumatic: the rapid and forcible application of new products and techniques contrasted sharply with the vernacular traditions that were previously in place. Despite this, formidable personalities such as Rhodes (Zimbabwe), Lugard (Nigeria) and Napier (India) who were emblematic of the Empire’s ‘idiosyncratic’  expansion (Davis & Huttenback, 1988), demanded their implementation, often in the face of huge logistical and environmental challenges. 

This research will therefore examine the prescriptive use of technology in the British Empire to understand, firstly, how the British sought to define and manage the enormous imperial expansion of the nineteenth century, and secondly, how cultural and social groups (in this case, the colonised), adopt products and processes to meet their own requirements – or choose to reject them in favour of established methods. By mapping these processes in an historical context, this research will shed light on contemporary design issues in a globalised economic context. To this end, we have have developed a 'Migration of Technology' framework. This aligns with the concept of domestication in aiming to understand the socio-technical factors affecting the use of products but broadens the scope of consideration to include design and development in the metropole and the industrial nature of the technologies involved.