Do Categories Have Politics

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Do Categories Have Politics?

• A critical re-examination of the place of
  coordination techniques in CSCW RD
• How THE COORDINATOR is based on Austins Speech
  Act theory
• How the coordination of communication is used as
  a form of social control
• Warning Abstract concepts

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Speech Act Theory

• Locutionary acts
• Illocutionary force
• Perlocutionary effect

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Illocutionary Speech Acts

• The power of speech to effect change on the world
• A promise I promise to take out the trash
• An order I order you to report back!
• A baptism In nomine
• c.

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THE COORDINATOR

• Purpose More efficient communication
• How By making implicit intent explicit
• Why Careless and vague language
• Motivation The users self-improvement
• Problem The use of a descriptive theory for
  normative purposes

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Categorisation As Discipline

• Categorisation as basic device for the analytic
  sciences
• Categories as ordering devices
• The danger of over-simplification
• The categorisation and counter-categorisation of
  the hotrodders

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Categorisation As Discipline

• The forced explicitness of speech acts becomes a
  method of disciplinary practice and thus of
  control and subjugation (Foucault)
• Technology based on speech act theory can enforce
  order on communication by training organisation
  members to communicate within the limits of the
  system.

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Do categories have politics?Lucy Suchman

• Speech act theory as a foundation for system
  design implies discipline and control over
  organization members actions.
• Review of language/action perspective by Winograd
  and Flores

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ADeclare
ARequest
BPromise
ADeclare
BAssert
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3
4
5
2
BCounter
BRenege
AAccept
ACounter
BReject AWithdraw
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AWithdraw
AWithdraw
AReject BWithdraw
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Do categories have politics?Lucy Suchman

• Transforms expressions into a formal system of
  categorization
• Fits well with The Coordinator
• Wish to control organizational life

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Do categories have politics?Lucy Suchman

• By teaching people an ontology of linguistic
  action, grounded in simple, universal
  distinctions such as those of requesting and
  promising, we find that they become more aware of
  these distinctions in their everyday work and
  life situations. They can simplify their dealings
  with others, reduce time and effort spent in
  conversations that do not result in action, and
  generally manage actions in a less panicked,
  confused atmosphere.(WF, 1988)

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Do categories have politics?Lucy Suchman

• Contradiction between introducing order, and
  being most successful in a stable organization
• Is successful because it has a practical
  adaptability, not because of its theory driven
  coherence

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Do categories have politics?Lucy Suchman

• Technology is the design of practices and
  possibilities to be realized through artifacts
  (Flores et al. 1988)
• the computer scientist is designing organizations

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Do categories have politics?Lucy Suchman

• When we accept the fact that computer technology
  will radically change management and the nature
  of office work, we can move toward designing that
  change as an improvement in organizational life
  (Flores et al., 1988)

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Do categories have politics?Lucy Suchman

• Speech act theory offers a model of speech that
  promises a basis for design of technologies of
  accountability
• A contest over how our relations to each other
  are ordered and by whom
• Reproduction of an established institutional
  order using categories through desktop technology