Technodiversity and Bibliodiversity in Book and Publishing Studies

Abstract

The notion of technodiversity has been proposed and discussed by the Chinese philosopher Yuk Hui and concerns what he also treats as fragmentation, in a positive sense, that is, the importance of having technological diversity in our repertoires of practices with technologies, the so that we can avoid excessive standardization and even the homogenization of resources, as we already see happening in the relationship with big techs and digital platforms. Hui defends technodiversity (name of his book in Brazil), including its predecessor technologies, in a fundamentally diverse range that can be managed by people who make also different uses of resources, according to different contexts, opportunities and contingencies. The idea that there needs to be a counterflow to standardization is not new and can be associated, in the case of book studies, with the notion of bibliodiversity, discussed from that of multiversity, by Susan Hawthorne, a few decades ago (in her book with the same title). This article, of a theoretical and essayistic nature, seeks an articulation between the notions of cosmotechnics, technodiversity, fragmentation, multiversity and bibliodiversity, outlining possible approaches for the book studies, reading and their technological, material and practical diversity.