Appropriate Technology

At the most basic level, proponents of appropriate technology attempt to clarify which technologies are appropriate to a given context. What is appropriate is, of course, a highly problematic issue about which it is difficult to form consensus. What is generally characteristic about appropriate technology is an effort to mold technologies to be context sensitive; that is, rather than developing a technology without regard to the cultural and environmental situations in which the technology will be used, an advocate of appropriate technology strives to develop technologies that can be enmeshed into a specific place with due consideration given to the impact on the cultural traditions and ecology of those people and ecosystems where the technology will be implemented.

When the term appropriate technology is currently invoked ...