Retooling: A Model of Sociotechnical Change for Turbulent Times
Abstract
Retooling is a ubiquitous practice that mobilizes innovation, maintenance, and repair to address sociotechnical change in times when transformations seem difficult to accomplish. Retooling entails an intentional reorientation of purpose, foregrounds the nonlinear trajectories of technological and scientific shifts, and focuses our attention on the meso level of organizational and collective life. This paper offers a theorization of retooling grounded in two case studies: one about water reuse technologies in the United States and the other about efforts to refashion the sugarcane industry in Brazil. We suggest that retooling is a useful analytic tool at a time when both innovation and maintenance seem not only difficult to differentiate but also insufficient for explaining sociotechnical change on their own. Furthermore, during turbulent times when change seems difficult to accomplish, retooling offers a capacious conceptualization that highlights the political orientations that inspire all sociotechnical transformations and the possibilities that emerge from mobilizing what-is to bring about what-should-be.
References
Albrich, Elaine. 2015. “Raising Water Conservation Awareness by Drinking Beer.” Alcoholic Beverages Law: Stoel Rives Alcohol Beverage Blog, June 2, 2015. Accessed August 7, 2023.
Alley, William M., and Rosemarie Alley. 2022. The Water Recycling Revolution: Tapping into the Future. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Alves, Francisco. 1993. “Greve nos Canaviais e Agricultura Modernizada: Novos Desafios” [Strike in the Sugarcane Fields and Modernized Agriculture: New Challenges]. São Paulo em Perspectiva [São Paulo in Perspective] 7(3): 133–137.
Anderson, Warwick. 2002. “Introduction: Postcolonial Technoscience.” Social Studies of Science 32(5–6): 643–658.
https://doi.org/10.1177/030631270203200502.
Ballestero, Andrea. 2023a. “Casual Planetarities: Choreographies, Resonance, and the Geologic Presence of People and Aquifers.” Environmental Humanities 15(3): 266–283.
https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-10746134.
⸻. 2023b. “Trusts at the Financial Frontier: The Flickering Forms of Property, Water, and Governance.” Journal of Cultural Economy 16(3): 423–38.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2023.2176344.
Ballestero, Andrea, Kregg Hetherington, and Eden Medina. 2024. “Los Hechos Nunca Andan Solos: The Futures of Facts in Latin America.” Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society 7(1): 1–13.
https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2024.2421655.
Barnes, Jessica. 2017. “States of Maintenance: Power, Politics, and Egypt’s Irrigation Infrastructure.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35(1): 146–164.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775816655161.
Barrera-Osorio, Antonio. 2009. “Knowledge and Empiricism in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish Atlantic World.” In Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, 1500–1800, edited by Daniela Bleichmar, Paula De Vos, Kristin Huffine, and Kevin Sheehan, 219–32. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Barreto, Maria Joseli. 2018. “Novas e Velhas Formas de Degradação do Trabalho no Agrohidronegócio Canavieiro nas Regiões Administrativas de Presidente Prudente e Ribeirão Preto (SP)” [New and Old Forms of Labor Degradation in the Sugarcane Agro-Hydro-Business in the Administrative Regions of Presidente Prudente and Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo, Brazil)]. PhD Dissertation, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil.
http://hdl.handle.net/11449/154594.
Barros, Óscar, Lara Costa, Filomena Costa, Ann Lago, et al. 2019. “Recovery of Rare Earth Elements from Wastewater Towards a Circular Economy.” Molecules 24(6): 1005.
https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24061005.
Bauchspies, Wenda K., and María Puig de la Bellacasa. 2009. “Re-tooling Subjectivities: Exploring the Possible with Feminist Science and Technology Studies.” Subjectivity 28: 227–228.
https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2009.20.
Bennertz, Rafael. 2014. “The Brazilian Ethanol Car: A Sociotechnical Analysis.” PhD Dissertation, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil.
Berkhout, Frans. 2006. “Normative Expectations in Systems Innovation.” Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 18(3–4): 299–311.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09537320600777010.
Bijker, Wiebe E. 1997. Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bijker, Wiebe E., and John Law, eds. 1992. Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Borup, Mads, Nik Brown, Kornelia Konrad, and Harro van Lente. 2006. “The Sociology of Expectations in Science and Technology.” Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 18(3–4): 285–298.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09537320600777002.
Brown, Nik, and Mike Michael. 2003. “A Sociology of Expectations: Retrospecting Prospects and Prospecting Retrospects.” Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 15(1): 3–18.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0953732032000046024.
Bruvold, William H. 1985. “Obtaining Public Support for Reuse Water.” American Water Works Association Journal 77(7): 72–77.
https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.1985.tb05570.x.
Calvert, Jane. 2006. “What’s Special about Basic Research?” Science, Technology, & Human Values 31(2): 199–220.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243905283642.
Cano, Wilson. 1977. Raízes da Concentração Industrial em São Paulo [Roots of Industrial Concentration in São Paulo]. Rio de Janeiro: Difel.
Clean Water Services. 2022. “Innovation Meets Regulation: A First-in-the-Nation Approach to Protecting Our Water.” September 19, 2022. Accessed April 23, 2025.
Clean Water Services Advisory Commission (CWSAC). 2010. “Meeting Summary and Minutes,” February 17, 2010. Accessed August 7, 2023.
https://cleanwaterservices.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/meeting-minutes-02-17-10.pdf.
⸻. 2013. Agenda, March 8, 2013. Accessed August 7, 2023.
https://cleanwaterservices.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/cwac-agenda-3-20-13.pdf.
⸻. 2014a. “Meeting Notes,” March 12, 2014. Accessed August 7, 2023.
https://cleanwaterservices.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/meeting-minutes-03-12-14.pdf.
⸻. 2014b. “Meeting Notes,” October 8, 2014. Accessed August 7, 2023.
https://cleanwaterservices.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/meeting-notes-10-8-14.pdf.
⸻. 2016. “Meeting Notes,” November 9, 2016. Accessed August 7, 2023.
https://cleanwaterservices.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/meeting-notes-11_09_16.pdf.
Christofoletti, Cintya Aparecida, Janaína Pedro Escher, Jorge Evangelista Correia, Julia Fernanda Urbano Marinho, et al. 2013. “Sugarcane Vinasse: Environmental Implications of Its Use.” Waste Management 33(12): 2752–2761.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2013.09.005.
Clifford, Frank. 1994. “Storm Brews over Prospect of Recycled Water in Beer: Sewage: Miller Co. in Irwindale is Suing to Halt $25-million Project. District Dismisses Concerns.” Los Angeles Times, September 14, 1994.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-09-14-mn-38525-story.html.
Corsín Jiménez, Alberto. 2014. “Introduction: The Prototype: More Than Many and Less Than One.” Journal of Cultural Economy 7(4): 381–98.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2013.858059.
Cotruvo, Joseph A. 2016. “Potable Water Reuse History and a new Framework for Decision Making.” International Journal of Water Resources Development 32(4): 503–513.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2015.1099520.
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. 1983. More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. New York: Basic Books.
Dagnino, Renato, and Léa Velho. 1998. “University-Industry-Government Relations on the Periphery: The University of Campinas, Brazil.” Minerva 36(3): 229–51.
https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1004335804375.
Dean, Warren. 1969. The Industrialization of São Paulo, 1880–1945. Austin: University of Texas.
Denis, Jérôme, Daniel Florentin, and David Pontille. 2023. “Maintenance and Its Knowledges: Functional Exploration, Biographical Supervision, and Behavioural Examination.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 9(3): 53–70.
https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2023.2317.
Denis, Jérôme, Alessandro Mongili, and David Pontille. 2015. “Maintenance & Repair in Science and Technology Studies.” Tecnoscienza: Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies 6(2): 5–15.
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17251.
Dias, Henrique Boriolo, and Paulo Cesar Sentelhas. 2019. “Dimensioning the Impact of Irrigation on Sugarcane Yield in Brazil.” Sugar Tech 21(1): 29–37.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12355-018-0619-x.
Dickel, Sascha, and Jan-Felix Schrape. 2017. “The Renaissance of Techno-Utopianism as a Challenge for Responsible Innovation.” Journal of Responsible Innovation 4(2): 289–94.
https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2017.1310523.
Eaglin, Jennifer. 2015. “Sweet Fuel: Ethanol’s Socio-Political Origins in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, 1933–1985.” PhD Dissertation, Michigan State University.
⸻. 2022. Sweet Fuel: A Political and Environmental History of Brazilian Ethanol. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Edgerton, David. [2007] 2011. The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Elias, Denise. 2003. Globalização e Agricultura: A Região de Ribeirão Preto—SP [Globalization and Agriculture: The Ribeirão Preto Region—SP]. São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo.
Escobar, Arturo. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Faha, Lori. 1999. “Management Agency Perspectives on the TMDL Process for the Tualatin River Basin, Oregon.” In Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial Watershed Management Council Conference, edited by Charles W. Slaughter, 21–28. Water Resources Center Report No. 98. Davis: University of California-Davis.
Felt, Ulrike, Rayvon Fouché, Clark A. Miller, and Laurel Smith-Doerr, eds. 2017. The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Fourth Edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ferguson, Dean T. 2014. “Nightsoil and the ‘Great Divergence’: Human Waste, the Urban Economy, and Economic Productivity, 1500–1900.” Journal of Global History 9(3): 379-402.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022814000175.
Ferlini, Vera Lucia Amaral. [1984] 2017. A Civilização do Açúcar [The Sugar Civilization]. São Paulo: Alameda.
Foster, Laura A. 2017. Reinventing Hoodia: Peoples, Plants, and Patents in South Africa. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Fuess, Lucas T., Isabella J. Rodrigues, and Marcelo L. Garcia. 2017. “Fertirrigation with Sugarcane Vinasse: Foreseeing Potential Impacts on Soil and Water Resources through Vinasse Characterization.” Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A 52(11): 1063–1072.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10934529.2017.1338892.
Gandy, Matthew. 1999. “The Paris Sewers and the Rationalization of Urban Space.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24(1): 23–44.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0020-2754.1999.00023.x.
Garduño García, Claudia, and İdil Gaziulusoy. 2021. “Designing Future Experiences of the Everyday: Pointers for Methodical Expansion of Sustainability Transitions Research.” Futures 127: 1–12.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2021.102702.
Geels, Frank W. 2007. “Feelings of Discontent and the Promise of Middle Range Theory for STS: Examples from Technology Dynamics.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 32(6): 627–651.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243907303597.
Geertz, Clifford. [1963] 1969. Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Godin, Benoît. 2006. “The Linear Model of Innovation: The Historical Construction of an Analytical Framework.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 31(6): 639–67.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243906291865.
⸻. 2008. “Innovation: The History of a Category.” Working Paper No. 1, Project on the Intellectual History of Innovation, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, Montréal. Accessed December 19, 2025.
https://espace.inrs.ca/id/eprint/10023/.
⸻. 2017. Models of Innovation: The History of an Idea. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Goubert, Jean-Pierre. 1986. La Conquête de l’eau: L’Avènement de la santé à l’âge industriel [The Conquest of Water: The Advent of Health in the Industrial Age]. Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont.
Graham, Stephen, and Nigel Thrift. 2007. “Out of Order: Understanding Repair and Maintenance.” Theory, Culture & Society 24(3): 1–25.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276407075954.
Greer, Robert A. 2020. “A Review of Public Water Infrastructure Financing in the United States.” WIREs Water 7(5): 1–13.
https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1472.
Gregson, Nicola, Michael A. Crang, Farid Uddin Ahamed, Nasreen Akhter, et al. 2010. “Following Things of Rubbish Value: End-of-Life Ships, ‘Chock-Chocky’ Furniture and the Bangladeshi Middle Class Consumer.” Geoforum 41(6): 846–54.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.05.007.
Guest, Jeremy S., Steven J. Skerlos, James L. Barnard, M. Bruce Beck, et al. 2009. “A New Planning and Design Paradigm to Achieve Sustainable Resource Recovery from Wastewater.” Environmental Science & Technology 43(16): 6126–30.
https://doi.org/10.1021/es9010515.
Guthman, Julie, and Charlotte Biltekoff. 2021. “Magical Disruption? Alternative Protein and the Promise of De-materialization.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 4(4): 1583–1600.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848620963125.
Güttler, Nils. 2019. “‘Hungry for Knowledge’: Towards a Meso-History of the Environmental Sciences.” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte / History of Science and Humanities 42(2–3): 235–258.
https://doi.org/10.1002/bewi.201900013.
Hakken, David. 1993. “Computing and Social Change: New Technology and Workplace Transformation, 1980–1990.” Annual Review of Anthropology 22: 107–132.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.22.100193.000543.
Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14(3): 575–599.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066.
Harding, Sandra, ed. 2011. The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader. Durham: Duke University Press.
Hartley, Troy W. 2006. “Public Perception and Participation in Water Reuse.” Desalination 187(1–3): 115–26.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2005.04.072.
Henke, Christopher R. 2008. Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power: Science and Industrial Agriculture in California. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hobart, Hi‘ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani, and Tamara Kneese. 2020. “Radical Care: Survival Strategies for Uncertain Times.” Social Text 38(1): 1–16.
https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-7971067.
Jackson, Steven J. 2014. “Rethinking Repair.” In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kirsten A. Foot, 221–239. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Jansen, Dorothea. 1995. “Convergence of Basic and Applied Research? Research Orientations in German High-Temperature Superconductor Research.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 20(2): 197–233.
https://doi.org/10.1177/016224399502000204.
Jonsson, Fredrik Albritton. 2014. “The Origins of Cornucopianism: A Preliminary Genealogy.” Critical Historical Studies 1(1): 151–168.
https://doi.org/10.1086/675081.
Jonsson, Fredrik Albritton, and Carl Wennerlind. 2023. Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Keeler, Lauren Withycombe, Michael J. Bernstein, and Cynthia Selin. 2019. “Intervening Through Futures for Sustainable Presents: Scenarios, Sustainability, and Responsible Research and Innovation.” In Socio-Technical Futures Shaping the Present: Empirical Examples and Analytical Challenges, edited by Andreas Lösch, Armin Grunwald, Martin Meister, Ingo Schulz-Schaeffer, 255–282. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Keller, Arturo A., Yiming Su, and David Jassby. 2021. “Direct Potable Reuse: Are We Ready? A Review of Technological, Economic, and Environmental Considerations.” ACS ES&T Engineering 2(3): 273–91.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestengg.1c00258.
Kneas, David. 2016. “Subsoil Abundance and Surface Absence: A Junior Mining Company and Its Performance of Prognosis in Northwestern Ecuador.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22(1): 67–86.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12394.
Kolopenuk, Jessica. 2020. “Miskâsowin: Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society.” Genealogy 4(1): 1–17.
https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4010021.
Kowal, Emma, Joanna Radin, and Jenny Reardon. 2013. “Indigenous Body Parts, Mutating Temporalities, and the Half-Lives of Postcolonial Technoscience.” Social Studies of Science 43(4): 465–483.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312713490843.
Krantz, Adam. 2001. “Wetlands Ruling Raises Host of New Litigation, Regulatory Issues.” Inside EPA’s Water Policy Report 10(9): 9–11.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26821832.
Kreimer, Pablo, and Hebe Vessuri. 2018. “Latin American Science, Technology, and Society: A Historical and Reflexive Approach.” Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society 1(1): 17–37.
https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2017.1368622.
Kumar, Hemant, and Gautam Sharma. 2024. Grassroots Innovation: Discourse, Policy and Practice in the Global South. Oxon: Routledge.
Larrance, Art. 2018. “Art Larrance Oral History Interview,” interview by Tiah Edmunson-Morton. Special Collections & Archives Research Center. March 26, 2018. Accessed August 7, 2023.
https://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/omeka/items/show/35422.
Leone, Hannah. 2014. “Clean Water Services Takes Viewers Behind the Scenes of Pure Water Brew (video),” The Oregonian/OregonLive, September 30, 2014. Accessed December 19, 2025.
https://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/2014/09/clean_water_services_takes_vie.html.
Lepawsky, Josh. 2018. Reassembling Rubbish: Worlding Electronic Waste. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Liboiron, Max. 2021. Pollution Is Colonialism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Liboiron, Max, and Josh Lepawsky. 2022. Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Livingston, Daniel. 2020. “Water Should Be Judged by Its Quality, not Its History.” LinkedIn.com. February 13, 2020. Accessed June 3, 2025.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/water-should-judged-its-quality-history-daniel-livingston/.
Lomnitz, Larissa Adler, and Laura Cházaro. 1999. “Basic, Applied and Technological Research: Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.” Social Studies of Science 29(1): 113–34.
https://doi.org/10.1177/030631299029001005.
Los Angeles Times. 1994. “Irwindale: Brewer May Have to Reply on Recycled Waste Water,” August 3, 1994. Accessed December 18, 2025.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-08-03-me-23040-story.html.
Manheim, Marisa K. 2024. “Embodied and Enactive Cognition in Practice: Planning for the Direct Potable Reuse of Wastewater in Arizona.” PhD Dissertation, Arizona State University.
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.191498.
Manheim, Marisa K., and Christy Spackman. 2022. “Embodied Rationality: A Framework of Human Action in Water Infrastructure Governance.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 56: 1–6.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101170.
Mattern, Shannon. 2018. “Maintenance and Care.” Places Journal, November 2018.
https://doi.org/10.22269/181120.
Mavhunga, Clapperton Chakanetsa. 2014. Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
⸻, ed. 2017. What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Medina, Eden, Ivan da Costa Marques, and Christina Holmes, eds. 2014. Beyond Imported Magic: Essays on Science, Technology, and Society in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Melosi, Martin V. [2000] 2008. The Sanitary City: Environmental Services in Urban America from Colonial Times to the Present. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Mintz, Sidney W. 1985. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin.
Muckerheide, Kristin. 2012. “Moving Forward,” Wastewater Digest, August 10, 2012. Accessed December 19, 2025.
https://www.wwdmag.com/wastewater-treatment/article/10926386/moving-forward.
Murphy, Michelle. 2017. The Economization of Life. Durham: Duke University Press.
Nucho, Joanne Randa. 2022. “Post-grid Imaginaries: Electricity, Generators, and the Future of Energy.” Public Culture 34(2), 265–290.
https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-9584764.
Nunberg, Barbara. 1986. “Structural Change and State Policy: The Politics of Sugar in Brazil Since 1964.” Latin American Research Review 21(2): 53–92.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0023879100015971.
Olivieri, Adam W., Brian Pecson, James Crook, and Robert Hultquist. 2020. “Chapter Two – California Water Reuse—Past, Present and Future Perspectives.” In Wastewater Treatment and Reuse – Present and Future Perspectives in Technological Developments and Management Issues, edited by Paola Verlicchi, 65–111. Cambridge, MA: Elsevier.
Ormerod, Kerri Jean, and Christopher A. Scott. 2013. “Drinking Wastewater: Public Trust in Potable Reuse.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 38(3): 351–73.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243912444736.
Pardo Pedraza, Diana. 2020. “Artefacto Explosivo Improvisado: Landmines and Rebel Expertise in Colombian Warfare.” Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society 3(1): 472–492.
https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2020.1804225.
Parr, Joy. 1997. “What Makes Washday Less Blue? Gender, Nation, and Technology Choice in Postwar Canada.” Technology and Culture 38(1): 153–86.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3106787.
Parthasarathy, Shobita. 2022. “Innovation as a Force for Equity.” Issues in Science and Technology 38(2): 30–36.
Paul, Nilson Maciel de, Marcos Paulo Fuck, and Rafael Barreto Dalcin. 2012. “Trajetórias Tecnológicas do Etanol: Do Proálcool à Alcoolquímica” [Technological Trajectories of Ethanal: From Proálcool to Alcohol Chemistry] Revista Espacios [Spaces Journal] 33(9): 7–21.
Philip, Kavita. 2004. Civilizing Natures: Race, Resources, and Modernity in Colonial South India. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004.
Pollock, Anne. 2019. Synthesizing Hope: Matter, Knowledge, and Place in South African Drug Discovery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pollock, Neil, and Robin Williams. 2010. “The Business of Expectations: How Promissory Organizations Shape Technology and Innovation.” Social Studies of Science 40(4): 525–548.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312710362275.
Premo, Bianca. 2017. The Enlightenment on Trial: Ordinary Litigants and Colonialism in the Spanish Empire. New York: Oxford University Press.
Qu, Jiuhui, Hongchen Wang, Kaijun Wang, Gang Yu, et al. 2019. “Municipal Wastewater Treatment in China: Development History and Future Perspectives.” Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering 13(88).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-019-1172-x.
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg. 1998. “Experimental Systems, Graphematic Spaces.” In Inscribing Science: Scientific Texts and the Materiality of Communication, edited by Timothy Lenoir, 285–303. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Riles, Annelise. 2013. “Market Collaboration: Finance, Culture, and Ethnography after Neoliberalism.” American Anthropologist 115(4): 555–569.
https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12052.
Rodríguez, Tyanif Rico, Adriana Ressiore C., Jéssica Malinalli Coyotecatl Contreras, Alberto E. Morales, et al. 2024. “Un/repairing Through More-than-Human Care in Latin America: Conversatorio.” Engagement Blog, August 29, 2024. Accessed December 19, 2025.
Rogers, Everett M. [1995] 2003. Diffusion of Innovations. Fifth Edition. New York: Free Press.
Rosenberg, Nathan. 1994. Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics, and History. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Russell, Andrew L., and Lee Vinsel. 2018. “After Innovation, Turn to Maintenance.” Technology and Culture 59(1): 1–25.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/tech.2018.0004.
Sadowski, Jathan, and Roy Bendor. 2019. “Selling Smartness: Corporate Narratives and the Smart City as a Sociotechnical Imaginary.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 44(3): 540–63.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243918806061.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Scruggs, Caroline E., Claudia B. Pratesi, and John R. Fleck. 2020. “Direct Potable Water Reuse in Five Arid Inland Communities: An Analysis of Factors Influencing Public Acceptance.” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 63(8): 1470–1500.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2019.1671815.
Shapiro, Nicholas, Nasser Zakariya, and Jody A. Roberts. 2017. “A Wary Alliance: From Enumerating the Environment to Inviting Apprehension.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 3(2017): 575–602.
https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2017.133.
Sigaud, Lygia. 1979. Os Clandestinos e os Direitos: Estudo sobre Trabalhadores de Cana-de-açúcar de Pernambuco [The Clandestine Workers and Rights: Study on Sugarcane Workers in Pernambuco]. Pernambuco: Livraria Duas Cidades.
Sklar, Anna. 2015. “Toilet-to-Tap.” Los Angeles City Historical Society Newsletter 48(3): 1 and 8–10.
Smith, Heather M., Stijn Brouwer, Paul Jeffrey, and Jos Frijns. 2018. “Public Responses to Water Reuse – Understanding the Evidence.” Journal of Environmental Management 207: 43–50.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.11.021.
Smith, Merritt Roe, and Leo Marx, eds. 1994. Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Soto Laveaga, Gabriela. 2020. Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill. Durham: Duke University Press.
Spackman, Christy. 2024. The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Suárez-Díaz, Edna, Vivette García-Deister, and Emily E Vasquez. 2017. “Populations of Cognition: Practices of Inquiry into Human Populations in Latin America.” Perspectives on Science 25(5): 551-563.
https://doi.org/10.1162/POSC_a_00256.
Subramaniam, Banu. 2014. Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Suchman, Lucy. 2002. “Located Accountabilities in Technology Production.” Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems 14(2): 91–105.
⸻. 2007. “Feminist STS and the Sciences of the Artificial.” In The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, edited by Edward J. Hackett, Olga Amsterdamska, Michael Lynch, and Judy Wajcman, 139–164. Third Edition. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
⸻. 2011. “Anthropological Relocations and the Limits of Design.” Annual Review of Anthropology 40: 1–18.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.041608.105640.
Suchman, Lucy, and Libby Bishop. 2000. “Problematizing ‘Innovation’ as a Critical Project.” Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 12(3): 327–333.
https://doi.org/10.1080/713698477.
TallBear, Kim. 2013. Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Tarr, Joel A. 1979. “The Separate vs. Combined Sewer Problem: A Case Study in Urban Technology Design Choice.” Journal of Urban History 5(3): 308–339.
https://doi.org/10.1177/009614427900500303.
⸻. 1996. The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective. Akron: University of Akron Press.
Tennyson, Patricia A., Mark Millan, and David Metz. 2015. “Getting Past the ‘Yuck Factor’: Public Opinion Research Provides Guidance for Successful Potable Reuse Outreach.” American Water Works Association Journal 107(11): 58–62.
https://doi.org/10.5942/jawwa.2015.107.0163.
The Oregonian. 2024. “Arthur Larrance Obituary 1944–2024.” July 19, 2024. Accessed December 19, 2025.
https://obits.oregonlive.com/us/obituaries/oregon/name/arthur-larrance-obituary?id=55648983.
Tims, Dana. 2015. “Transforming Sewage into Beer? Science Behind Oregon Brewers’ Plan,” The Oregonian/OregonLive, February 11, 2015. Accessed December 19, 2025.
https://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/2015/02/transforming_sewage_into_craft.html
Tuser, Cristina. 2021. “What Is One Water?” Wastewater Digest, September 9, 2021. Accessed December 19, 2025.
https://www.wwdmag.com/editorial-topical/one-water/article/10940010/what-is-one-water.
Tutton, Richard. 2011. “Promising Pessimism: Reading the Futures to be Avoided in Biotech.” Social Studies of Science 41(3): 411–429.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312710397398.
Ulrich, Katie. 2025. “Flexibility as Theory of Change in the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry.” Anthropological Quarterly 98(2): 359–386.
https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2025.a964971.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 1982. Report of Workshop Proceedings: Protocol Development: Criteria and Standards for Potable Reuse and Feasible Alternatives. Conference Chairs: Joseph A. Cotruvo and Frank A. Bell, Jr. Warrenton, VA, July 29–31, 1980. EPA 570/9-82-005. NTIS PB 83-173-112. Reston: SCS Engineers.
Vinsel, Lee, and Andrew L. Russell. 2020. The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work that Matters Most. Random House.
Vymazal, Jan. 2011. “Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment: Five Decades of Experience.” Environmental Science & Technology 45(1): 61–69.
https://doi.org/10.1021/es101403q.
⸻. 2022. “The Historical Development of Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment.” Land 11(2): 174.
https://doi.org/10.3390/land11020174.
WateReuse.org. 2024. California Takes Next Key Step: Implementing Direct Potable Reuse. August 12, 2024, accessed December 26, 2025.
https://watereuse.org/california-takes-next-key-step-implementing-direct-potable-reuse/.
Weyrauch, Timo, and Cornelius Herstatt. 2017. What is Frugal Innovation? Three Defining Criteria. Journal of Frugal Innovation 2(1).
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40669-016-0005-y.
Williams, Rosalind. 2002. Retooling: A Historian Confronts Technological Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Work, Stephen W., Michael R. Rothberg, and Kenneth J. Miller. 1980. “Denver’s Potable Reuse Project: Pathway to Public Acceptance.” American Water Works Association Journal 72(8): 435–440.
