A teoria da performatividade no contexto dos estudos de ciência, tecnologia e sociedade: um resgate do caso do veículo elétrico na França dos anos de 1970

Abstract

The general objective of this study is to explain the dissension that exists between the subfields of sociology regarding the studies of science, technology and society. In order to do so, the specific objectives are the examination of the historical foundations of these subfields, as well as of the foundations and the development of the performativity thesis, and the analysis, from the perspective of this latter and as a practical example, of the case regarding the attempt of adoption of electric vehicles in France in the 1970s. As for the scientific method, this work employs the hermeneutic one, as regards the approach, and historical, observational and monographic ones, in relation to the procedure. It is also a basic (in terms of nature), exploratory and explanatory (in terms of objectives), bibliographic (in terms of technical procedure) and qualitative (in terms of approach to the problem) research. In the theoretical field, it is concluded that language, the basis of any communication process, seems to be the fundamental root of the dissension, mainly because it implies a peculiar subjectivity in the social sciences, due to the double hermeneutics, and as a result of the reflexive observation of this subjectivity there is a sociological yearning for the adoption of the methods of the natural sciences, which are seen, due to the very subjectivity of the beholder, in an ideologized and utopian manner as to their objectivity and immutability. It is concluded, still in the theoretical field, that the understanding of the fundamentals of the performativity thesis (conceivably inserted into sociology), upon reaching the “root of the dissension”, can allow a critical insight into science, technology and society as objects of study of sociology and is able to highlight the needlessness, and even the impropriety, of imitation by this discipline in relation to these methods of the natural sciences, which are erroneously believed to be absolutely objective and unchanging. As for the practical example, it is concluded that the eventual non-adoption of electric vehicles in France in the 1970s was strongly influenced by the performative statements of different actors, and not merely a case of limitation dictated by the state of the art of the then available technology.