In V. Wulf, K. Schmidt, D. Randall, (Eds.), Designing Socially Embedded Technologies in the Real-World, 2015
The idea of Socially Embedded Technologies (SET) constitutes a new approach into ICT research, on... more The idea of Socially Embedded Technologies (SET) constitutes a new approach into ICT research, one which has emerged from the European communities of research on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). SET is based upon the fundamental assumption that we need new ways to conceptualize research on design, which takes into account peoples’ social practices without limiting the human interaction to an individual computer-user relation. People and practices are much more than their relationship with a technology, and thus the concept of ‘user’ is problematic. We see ourselves as researchers who embrace the new agendas of SET, and in this chapter we will the explain approach and suggest ways for thinking differently about design. When studying technologies in practice, we ground our work within the CSCW tradition for workplace studies (Luff, Hindmarch et al. 2000; Randall, Harper et al. 2007). In recent years, we have conducted research in the healthcare arena, studying patient tracking and triage systems in emergency departments (Bjørn and Balka 2007; Bjørn, Burgoyne et al. 2009; Bjørn and Hertzum 2011), investigating the introduction of electronic medical records in primary and acute care settings (Boulus 2004; Boulus and Bjørn 2007; Boulus and Bjørn 2008; Boulus 2009; Boulus 2010; Boulus-Rødje submitted) as well as studying the practices of monitoring patients with heart failure in a tele-monitoring setup (Andersen, Bjørn et al. 2010). We believe the healthcare arena to be a perspicuous setting for studying technology as socially embedded since it covers heterogeneous work practices, varying technical competencies and complex organisational arrangments. We have conducted both single-site as well as comparative studies (Boulus and Bjørn 2007; Balka, Bjørn et al. 2008), and all of this work took place in Canada, Norway, or Denmark. In each of these studies we applied ethnographic methods to examine the collaborative and complex practices of the particular site, with the aim of developing theoretical concepts useful for describing and articulating practices while informing the design of technologies that support the local and situated practices (Schmidt 1998). More recently, we have started to reflect on what these types of engagements mean for research and for practice, with the aim of continuously sharpening our research practices (Bjørn and Boulus 2011; Boulus-Rødje 2012; Boulus-Rødje and Bjørn submitted).
One key challenge is that the ‘ethnography for design’ approach embeds a sequential order to design procedure. We first study current practices and then design technology (Wulf, Rohde et al. 2011). This sequential approach does not necessarily fit well with dynamic and constantly changing real-life practices, where technologies as well as practices are continuously re-designed and re-organized. To study technologies in practice, we have to reconsider how we think about our research approach, moving from a sequential ordering toward focusing on aspects of multiplicity (Law 2004) where technology and practices are dynamic and heterogeneous assemblages.
In this chapter, we explain how we can apply the focus on multiplicity when studying technologies in practice. We explore how this approach, foundationally, does not view technology design as sequential, and thus argue that it might be a way to move away from a linear design agenda toward an emergent perspective. We propose to take multiplicity as the starting point, and to view practice and technology as intertwined. This means that when investigating the world, we must find a way to view the world as multiple, rather than consisting of dualities of practice and technology. We argue that to make sense of the world of technologies in practice, our work as researchers is to pull together and tease apart dynamic and multiple entities. We constantly create and re-create boundaries, ‘cutting’ the world in the way that Barad (1996) suggests. We refer to this work as bounding practices and argue that the entities we study are dynamic, and we play an active part in shaping the entity under investigation. The boundaries of a technology are constituted in enactment. Enactment refers to “the claim that relations, and so realities and representations of realities...are being endlessly or chronically brought into being in a continuing process of production and reproduction, and have no status, standing, or reality outside those processes” (Law 2004, p. 159). In other words, we never simply observe an external reality that exists prior to or independent of its representations; rather, thorugh engagment in representation, reality is performed—it is en-acted (Law 2004). Thus, we cannot study technology independently of practices. The notion of enacement is used to emphasize that the world is performed through sociomaterial practices. In this chapter, we illustrate how this analytic lens can help us understand technology as a dynamic and multiple entity. We propose that to study design, we must take into account the sociomaterial practices that make the technology. Sociomateriality offers an analytical lens where neither artifacts nor people are single entities with inherent pre-defined properties. Instead, people and artefacts are made through relations: “[T]o be is to be related” (Mol 2002, p. 54).
We begin this chapter by introducing the ethnography for design approach and its related history. We then bring forward the sociomateriality approach, exploring how to comprehend technology and practices as multiple. Next we introduce the concept of bounding practices to describe the research activities required to study technologies in practice. We present one ongoing research project—technologies for democracy—to illustrate how bounding practices can help us to analytically understand what makes the technologies in this project. We then discuss the impact of this approach and where it might take us, and we finish by offering our conclusions.
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One key challenge is that the ‘ethnography for design’ approach embeds a sequential order to design procedure. We first study current practices and then design technology (Wulf, Rohde et al. 2011). This sequential approach does not necessarily fit well with dynamic and constantly changing real-life practices, where technologies as well as practices are continuously re-designed and re-organized. To study technologies in practice, we have to reconsider how we think about our research approach, moving from a sequential ordering toward focusing on aspects of multiplicity (Law 2004) where technology and practices are dynamic and heterogeneous assemblages.
In this chapter, we explain how we can apply the focus on multiplicity when studying technologies in practice. We explore how this approach, foundationally, does not view technology design as sequential, and thus argue that it might be a way to move away from a linear design agenda toward an emergent perspective. We propose to take multiplicity as the starting point, and to view practice and technology as intertwined. This means that when investigating the world, we must find a way to view the world as multiple, rather than consisting of dualities of practice and technology. We argue that to make sense of the world of technologies in practice, our work as researchers is to pull together and tease apart dynamic and multiple entities. We constantly create and re-create boundaries, ‘cutting’ the world in the way that Barad (1996) suggests. We refer to this work as bounding practices and argue that the entities we study are dynamic, and we play an active part in shaping the entity under investigation. The boundaries of a technology are constituted in enactment. Enactment refers to “the claim that relations, and so realities and representations of realities...are being endlessly or chronically brought into being in a continuing process of production and reproduction, and have no status, standing, or reality outside those processes” (Law 2004, p. 159). In other words, we never simply observe an external reality that exists prior to or independent of its representations; rather, thorugh engagment in representation, reality is performed—it is en-acted (Law 2004). Thus, we cannot study technology independently of practices. The notion of enacement is used to emphasize that the world is performed through sociomaterial practices. In this chapter, we illustrate how this analytic lens can help us understand technology as a dynamic and multiple entity. We propose that to study design, we must take into account the sociomaterial practices that make the technology. Sociomateriality offers an analytical lens where neither artifacts nor people are single entities with inherent pre-defined properties. Instead, people and artefacts are made through relations: “[T]o be is to be related” (Mol 2002, p. 54).
We begin this chapter by introducing the ethnography for design approach and its related history. We then bring forward the sociomateriality approach, exploring how to comprehend technology and practices as multiple. Next we introduce the concept of bounding practices to describe the research activities required to study technologies in practice. We present one ongoing research project—technologies for democracy—to illustrate how bounding practices can help us to analytically understand what makes the technologies in this project. We then discuss the impact of this approach and where it might take us, and we finish by offering our conclusions.
to describe efforts of connecting people and artefacts in a multitude of ways as part of facilitating global interaction and coordination in an engineering firm. Relation work can be seen as a parallel to the concept of articulation work. Articulation work describes efforts of
coordination necessary in cooperative work, but, arguably, focuses mainly on taskspecific
aspects of cooperative work. As a supplement, the concept of relation work
focuses on the fundamental relational aspect of cooperative work. Relation work forms
the fundamental activities of creating socio-technical connections between people and
artefacts during collaborative activities required to create and enact the human and
electronic network and engage with articulation work in cooperative engagements. The concept of relation work is applied within an ethnographic study of War Room meetings in a Global engineering firm. It is argued that relation work is a perquisite for other activities such as articulation work. Relation work is described in a number of dimensions,
including connecting people with people, people with artefacts, and artefacts with other
artefacts.
One key challenge is that the ‘ethnography for design’ approach embeds a sequential order to design procedure. We first study current practices and then design technology (Wulf, Rohde et al. 2011). This sequential approach does not necessarily fit well with dynamic and constantly changing real-life practices, where technologies as well as practices are continuously re-designed and re-organized. To study technologies in practice, we have to reconsider how we think about our research approach, moving from a sequential ordering toward focusing on aspects of multiplicity (Law 2004) where technology and practices are dynamic and heterogeneous assemblages.
In this chapter, we explain how we can apply the focus on multiplicity when studying technologies in practice. We explore how this approach, foundationally, does not view technology design as sequential, and thus argue that it might be a way to move away from a linear design agenda toward an emergent perspective. We propose to take multiplicity as the starting point, and to view practice and technology as intertwined. This means that when investigating the world, we must find a way to view the world as multiple, rather than consisting of dualities of practice and technology. We argue that to make sense of the world of technologies in practice, our work as researchers is to pull together and tease apart dynamic and multiple entities. We constantly create and re-create boundaries, ‘cutting’ the world in the way that Barad (1996) suggests. We refer to this work as bounding practices and argue that the entities we study are dynamic, and we play an active part in shaping the entity under investigation. The boundaries of a technology are constituted in enactment. Enactment refers to “the claim that relations, and so realities and representations of realities...are being endlessly or chronically brought into being in a continuing process of production and reproduction, and have no status, standing, or reality outside those processes” (Law 2004, p. 159). In other words, we never simply observe an external reality that exists prior to or independent of its representations; rather, thorugh engagment in representation, reality is performed—it is en-acted (Law 2004). Thus, we cannot study technology independently of practices. The notion of enacement is used to emphasize that the world is performed through sociomaterial practices. In this chapter, we illustrate how this analytic lens can help us understand technology as a dynamic and multiple entity. We propose that to study design, we must take into account the sociomaterial practices that make the technology. Sociomateriality offers an analytical lens where neither artifacts nor people are single entities with inherent pre-defined properties. Instead, people and artefacts are made through relations: “[T]o be is to be related” (Mol 2002, p. 54).
We begin this chapter by introducing the ethnography for design approach and its related history. We then bring forward the sociomateriality approach, exploring how to comprehend technology and practices as multiple. Next we introduce the concept of bounding practices to describe the research activities required to study technologies in practice. We present one ongoing research project—technologies for democracy—to illustrate how bounding practices can help us to analytically understand what makes the technologies in this project. We then discuss the impact of this approach and where it might take us, and we finish by offering our conclusions.
to describe efforts of connecting people and artefacts in a multitude of ways as part of facilitating global interaction and coordination in an engineering firm. Relation work can be seen as a parallel to the concept of articulation work. Articulation work describes efforts of
coordination necessary in cooperative work, but, arguably, focuses mainly on taskspecific
aspects of cooperative work. As a supplement, the concept of relation work
focuses on the fundamental relational aspect of cooperative work. Relation work forms
the fundamental activities of creating socio-technical connections between people and
artefacts during collaborative activities required to create and enact the human and
electronic network and engage with articulation work in cooperative engagements. The concept of relation work is applied within an ethnographic study of War Room meetings in a Global engineering firm. It is argued that relation work is a perquisite for other activities such as articulation work. Relation work is described in a number of dimensions,
including connecting people with people, people with artefacts, and artefacts with other
artefacts.