Analysing IT, organisation and agency

The basic assumption of this course is that information technology (IT) and human agency is thoroughly intertwined. We are as human beings affected, shaped and constituted by IT throughout daily life and constantly engaged in processes of managing and organizing these technologies, our selves and the relation between the two, in obvious as well as subtle and invisible ways.

The course seeks to provide the students with knowledge about and methods for analysing the mutual transformative and co-constitutive relations between information technology and humans in organizational practices and everyday life. By drawing on recent developments in the field of STS, especially post actor network theory, cyborg theory and post phenomenology, the course aims at enabling the students to analyse human-technology relations as emergent dynamic processes and in novel and creative ways that challenge common sense assumptions about humans and technology and their relation. The course introduces methodological tools for gathering and analysing empirical data and the processes of researching and writing in the field of STS.

Central themes of the course are: Post-ANT, posthumanism, post-phenomenology, infrastructures, surveillance, design, user involvement and configuration, ethnography.

The course is organized as an intense one-month course consisting of half-day seminars two times a week and the preparation for the seminars includes both reading and writing processes. The seminars are taught by a variety of researchers affiliated with the Centre of STS-studies, Aarhus University lecturing in their specific fields of expertise which result in stimulating, research based teaching with great variation.

The course presupposes thorough understanding of STS methods, theories and approaches.

Examples of literature

Cambell-Kelly, M. & W. Asprey (1996) Inventing the Computer, in Computer – A History of the Information Machine. (New York, BasicBooks): 78-104.

Bowker, G. C. and S. L. Star (1999): Sorting Things Out. Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge (Mass) & London: MIT Press.

Latour, B (1999): Pandora’s hope, Harvard University Press.

Ihde, D. (2002) Perceptual Reasoning. Bodies in Technology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 50-63

Verbeek, P.-P. (2005) A Material hermeneutic. What Things Do. Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency and Design. Penn State Press

Akrich, M. (1992). The De-Scription of Technical Objects. Shaping Technology/Building Society. W. E. Bijker and J. Law. (Cambridge, Mass. & London: MIT Press): 205-24

Oudshoorn, N. and T. J. Pinch (2003). How Users Matter. The Co-Construction of Users and Technologies. (Cambridge, Mass. & London: MIT Press)

Berg, M. (1998), “The Politics of Technology: On Bringing Social Theory into Technological Design”. Science, Technology & Human Values, Vol. 23(4): 456-490

Suchman, L. (2002), “Located accountabilities in technology production”, Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, vol. 14(2): 91-105

Albrechtslund, A. and L. Dubbeld (2005). “The Plays and Arts of Surveillance: Studying Surveillance as Entertainment.” Surveillance & Society 3(2/3): 216-221.

Boyne, R. (2000). “Post-Panopticism.” Economy and Society 29(2): 285-307.

Gad, C. and P. Lauritsen (2009). “Situated Surveillance. An ethnographic study of fisheries inspection in Denmark.” Surveillance and Society 7(1): 49-57.

Lyon, D. (2006) (Ed.) Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond. Portland, Willan Publishing.

Hine, C. (2007). “Multi-sited Ethnography as a Middle Range Methodology for Contemporary STS.” Science,

 

Examples of previous theses

Chemotherapeutic Medicine Information in Science, Technology & Society: A Qualitative Study of the Shared Medicine Record in Haematological Clinic 1 Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark – Andreas Feuerbach

A Dislocated Gut Feeling: An Analysis of Cyborg Relations in Diabetes Self-Care – Askild M. Aasarød

Aesthetics in Gaming: Postphenomenological Approaches to Understanding the Player-Avatar Relation in the Video Game Series Mass Effect – Ruben A. Soler

Eating Processes – Jon Meisner Jensen

Robotising dementia care? A qualitative analysis on technological mediations of a therapeutic robot entering the lifeworld of Danish nursing homes – Sarah Weingartz

Caring for ‘good’?: Reflections on how good care practice can be identified in contemporary technological culture – Alexander Feldhaus

Users and MyOpera – Opera’s use of social media as tools in technology development – Kaja Christine Boska

On evaluation systems as Actor-Networks – Jacob Martin Barlach & Christian Fischer

 

Teaching language: English

Programme Coordinator
Peter Danholt: pdanholt@hum.au.dk

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