The recent start of dam removal on the Elwha River in Washington state, the largest dam removal project to date, is a good reason to spend some time on the ‘un-doing’ of technology. Dam removal is just one example of a major technology being dismantled or removed from an area. If it’s been ‘in the field’ as long as the Elwha River dams have been (on the order of a century), the removal can have as much impact as the construction of the dam in the first place. The effects of the removal will take decades to unfold. While it may be easier to destroy than to create, it’s probably not easier to adapt to the destruction than the creation.
Other examples of technology ‘un-doing’ can be more subtle, though still widespread. Reclaiming roads for pedestrian or other non-paved uses is more common than you might think. And when transit systems changed, the tracks, bridges, wires and other things that helped it work need to be changed or removed to suit.
I haven’t mentioned unplanned technology un-doing – usually abandonment – because the lack of intention behind those instances strikes me as not terribly different than the abandonment or neglect of a neighborhood or housing complex. In the willful ‘un-doing’ there appears to be at least a consideration of its consequences, much like there is in the ‘doing’ of these technologies (though the thoroughness of these efforts varies widely, but is often better now than in the past).
What remains in these cases is not a presence, but an absence. However, the environment has been shaped, and it can be harder to see that influence in the un-doing. Thankfully some researchers are tracking similar dam removal projects. Hopefully someone can draw a similar level of attention to other examples of ‘un-doing.’
Pasco Phronesis 