Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese Expansion

Based on historical materials about the technology of the 15th and 16th century Portuguese maritime expansion, the author shows that in order to understand the emergence, functioning, and collapse of technological systems we need to develop an approach that will be centred on the notion of heterogeneous engineering. Heterogeneous engineering presupposes that the building of technological systems involves associating and channelling diverse entities and forces, both human and nonhuman. This permits an analysis of how the existence of particular systems is shaped equally by different factors: natural, social, economic, and technical. In the case of Portuguese maritime expansion, the success of system-building was determined by the association between shipbuilding; the navigational skills of the navigators; navigational equipment and guns; features of the capes, oceanic currents, and winds; and the system of state support, training, and regulation—all of which made possible the establishment of a stable and powerful network that allowed the Portuguese to dominate the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Therefore, the construction of a technological system is a process of resolving conflicts between heterogeneous elements, and the associated elements must be able to withstand encounters with hostile forces and entities, both physical (e.g. oceans) and social (e.g. the Muslims). The systems approach proposed by the author shows, first, that technology can be analysed using the principle of generalized symmetry, which states that the same type of analysis should be made for all components in a system whether these components are human or not; and, second, that actors should be understood as entities that exert detectable influence on other entities