Rerouting the agency of technologyinuse

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Rerouting the agencyof technology-in-use

• Hans Glimell Daniel Normark STS section,
  Göteborg University

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Scope of presentation

• Overriding concern of project
• Studies at work and SSK
• inquiries into the EM-SSK/SST connection (e.g.
  Lynch 1993 Heritage 1984 Button (ed)1991 Human
  Studies 199922 Dourish 2001 Garfinkel/Anne W.
  Rawls (ed.) 2002)
• General perspective/discourse
• technology-in-use the epistemology of design
  interactive system design or embodied
  interaction ubiquitous or unremarkable
  computing
• Empirical focus/fieldwork
• road use, road interaction, a road side
  sociology the issues of social order and
  accountability in-between rules and situated
  agency

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Outlining the EM mode of social order inquiry

• (TP) Formal Analysis
• institutional order
• social institutions are constituted by rules and
  norms of individual behaviour
• action conceived as execution of plans,
  following rulesnorms
• variables in the population
• the contingencies of individual differences
• classic accountabilityprove something in the
  context of existing social theory
• the attitude of scientific theorising
• analytic distance/detachment
• context understood as a form of information
  essentially stable delineate, def. in advance a
  representational problem separable fr.
  action/activity

• Ethnomethodology
• -- interactional order
• -- social institutions exist/are reproduced
  through contexts of accountability
• -- action conceived as articulation work,
  situated agency
• -- variables in the scene
• -- actual recognizable reproduction of practices
• -- natural accountability design an experiment
  that would work
• -- the attitude of everyday life
• -- vulgarly competent
• -- context understood as a relational property
  an occasional property defined dynamically an
  interact. problem arising from activity.

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Designers as social scientists Elements in a
geneology of man-computer modelling

• Computer Design Dynamics (1) The cybernetic
  revolution - C3I
• the cybernetic script 1943 the Macey
  conference (an intellectual firestorm) Cold
  War discourse containment doctrine, the
  electronic battlefield, command-control-communicat
  ion-intelligence control theory-computers-cognit
  ive psychology competing man-machine
  configurations getting man out of the loop
  man-machine symbiosis, the cyborg
• (Wiener von Neumann McCullochBateson
  Licklider) (Hayles Edwards Galison)
• Computer Design Dynamics (2) Management as
  socio-technical systems design
• A Behavioral Theory of the Firm IT as a
  strategic resource, Management Information
  Systems (MIS) human relations, workers as users
  of technology, user involvement organizations
  conceived as coalitions, contingency theory,
  organisation asorganising
• (Simon March Beer Argyris Weick Emery
  Thorsrud)
• Computer Design Dynamics (3) Bringing computers
  under democratic control
• Marxian understanding of rationalization and
  control, empowering workers to combat
  de-qualification and alienation epistemological
  politics, Hegelian dialectics informing
  collaborative work-/workplace design the
  Scandinavian school of Participatory Design
• (Braverman NobleWest Churchman Nygaard Ehn)

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Designers as social scientists Elements in a
geneology of man-computer modelling

• Computer Design Dynamics (4) CSCW or
  Ethnomethodology as technomethodology
• A new foundation of design and cognition
  inspired by phenomenology and hermeneutics, a
  preontological apprehension of the world the
  mundane and the ordinary exotic (Wittgenstein
  Garfinkel) coordination, action, accountability
  as collaborative work and situated ongoing
  accomplishments an ethnomethodologically
  informed design support articulation repair
  work
• (Dreyfus Winograd Flores Suchman Leigh Star
  Hughes Luff Button Dourish)
• Computer Design Dynamics (5) Anarchic-artistic
  explorations of interactivity
• studio as an activity and locality replacing
  the RD project/unit cyberage aesthetics,
  performativity playful, youthful,
  anti-authoritarian experimenting orchestrated
  spontaneity (cf. MIT Media Lab) or bottom-up
  (cf Linux open source) avantgarde workshops
  infusing quality and taste into mundane artifacts
  (cf Bauhaus)

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Rerouting to roads

• Infrastructures
• Information Systems
• Interactive Media

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Interactive roads

• Architectural surveys (60-70)
• Appleyard et al (The View from the Road)
• Venturi et al (Learning from Las Vegas)
• The production of space
• Sociotechnical accomplishments of road-settings
  (e.g. Laurier, 2002 2004 Thrift, 2004)
• Interactive road-technologies/UbiComp
• e.g. Johansson et al 2001 Juhlin, 2001
  Esbjörnsson et al 2003

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Road-sign-communication

• Heterogeneous style
• Heterogeneous use
• Supplementing challenging formal signs
• Subtle negotiation of mounting removing signs
• Exhibits the interactivity along the road

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Petrol station interaction

• Nexus for mobility
• A place that tend to mobility
• Different durationof stay
• Subtle negotiation of
• Co-presence
• Delegation

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Malfunctioning Pump
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Roadside Interaction(work-in-progress)

• Daniel Normark
• daniel.normark_at_tii.se
• Joint project
• Section of STS-GU Mobility Studio/ Stockholm
• Hans Glimell Oskar Juhlin
• EM inspired approach
• Parallel fieldworks
• Design and Innovation with social science
• www.sts.gu.se www.tii.se/mobility

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Ethnomethodology-The Social Sciences-STS A
selection of references

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  Bringing Social Theory into Technological
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  Vol.23, 4456-490, Autumn 1998.
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• Coulter, J., Cognition cognition in an
  ethnomethodological mode, in Button, G. (ed.)
  Ethnomethodology and the human sciences, Cambr.
  Univ. Press 1991.
• Dourish, P., Where the Action Is, The MIT Press,
  2001.
• Dourish, P., What We Talk About When We Talk
  About Context, Personal and Ubiquitous
  Computing, 819-30, 2004.
• Heath, C., and Luff, P., Collaboration and
  control Crisis management and multimedia
  technology in London underground line control
  rooms, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 1
  (1-2)69-94, 1992.
• Laurier, E., The spectacular showing Houdini
  and the wonder of ethnomethodology, working
  paper, University of Glasgow, 2003.
• Lynch, M., Art and Artifacts in Laboratory
  Science A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a
  Laboratory, London Routledge Kegan Paul, 1985.

• Lynch, M., Art and Artifacts in Laboratory
  Science A Study of Shop Work and Shop Talk in a
  Laboratory, London Routledge Kegan Paul, 1985.
• Lynch, M., Scientific practice and ordinary
  action, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993.
• Lynch, M., Silence in Context, Human Studies
  22211-233, 1999.
• Garfinkel, H., Studies in Ethnomethodology,
  Cambridge Polity Press, 1967.
• Garfinkel, H., Evidence for Locally Produced,
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  No.1103-109, Spring 1988.
• Garfinkel, H., and Rawls, A.W. (ed),
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• Heritage, J., Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology,
  Polity Press 1984.
• Hilbert, R.A., The Classical Roots of
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  Carolina Press, 1992.
• Sharrock, W. and Button, G., Do the Right Thing!
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• Suchman, L., Plans and Situated Action. The
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