SPIDER, Man and new technologies

Several authors consider the relationship between Man and technology in contemporary society as a “regressive” one. This is because, probably influenced by the work of André Leroi-Gourham, they describe a tendency towards a “regression of the hand” in terms of the crisis of skills, dexterity, direct experience of the environment, etc. This presentation has the main aim to discuss whether it is correct to describe “regressively” the "hand electronically assisted" (but today we would say "digital hand") of modern Man as radically uprooted and disembedded by the direct, skilled and destrous contact with external reality. We propose this critical reflection in the light of the paradigm elaborated by the British social anthropologist Tim Ingold, named SPIDER, that is Skilled Practice Involves Developmentally Embodied Responsiveness, to contrast the ANT (Actor-Network Theory) paradigm by Bruno Latour