Content uploaded by Lucy Suchman
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Lucy Suchman on Mar 25, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Do Categories Have Politics? The Language/Action Perspective Reconsidered
Abstract
Drawing on writings within the CSCW community and on recent social theory, this paper proposes that the adoption of speech act theory as a foundation for system design carries with it an agenda of discipline and control over organization members' actions. I begin with a brief review of the language/action perspective introduced by Winograd, Flores and their colleagues, focusing in particular on the categorization of speakers' intent. I then turn to some observations on the politics of categorization and, with that framework as back-ground, consider the attempt, throughthe coordinator, to implement a technological system for intention-accounting within organizations. Finally, I suggest the implications of the analysis presented in the paper for the politics of CSCW systems design.
... Toplumsal cinsiyet, toplumsal deneyimimizi düzenleme ve sınıflandırma şeklimizin temelidir, çünkü, Suchman (1994) tarafından belirtildiği gibi, kategorilerin politikası vardır. Özellikle cinsiyet, son derece politik bir sınıflandırma yöntemidir. ...
... Çalışmanın ortaya koyduğu ana temalardan biri, erkek egemen ortamlarda kadınların karşılaştığı eksik temsil ve aşırı görünürlük arasındaki diyalektiktir (Suchman, 1994). Katılımcılar tarafından tarif edilen görünürlük ve savunmasızlık sarmalı bunu özetlemektedir. ...
This study, conducted within the framework of the EQUALSEU project funded by the UFUK 2020 Program, aims to understand and explore the gender-based challenges faced by women working in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector and how they experience gender inequality in the industry. Despite high salaries, prestige, access to the latest technology, and international career opportunities, gender bias, limited career development, and work-life balance continue to pose obstacles for women. Furthermore, gender imbalance in the sector is reinforced by a male-dominated corporate culture, leading to unfair treatment, poor decision-making practices, and negative workplace environments. Although there is a technical skills shortage in Turkey's ICT sector, many studies have shown potential for women to find opportunities in the sector. The shortage of skilled labor puts employers in a paradoxical “techno-patriarchal bargaining” position, even though employers' concerns about factors such as maternity leave costs, marriage compensation, or social norms may make them hesitant to employ women.
... Toplumsal cinsiyet, toplumsal deneyimimizi düzenleme ve sınıflandırma şeklimizin temelidir, çünkü, Suchman (1994) tarafından belirtildiği gibi, kategorilerin politikası vardır. Özellikle cinsiyet, son derece politik bir sınıflandırma yöntemidir. ...
... Çalışmanın ortaya koyduğu ana temalardan biri, erkek egemen ortamlarda kadınların karşılaştığı eksik temsil ve aşırı görünürlük arasındaki diyalektiktir (Suchman, 1994). Katılımcılar tarafından tarif edilen görünürlük ve savunmasızlık sarmalı bunu özetlemektedir. ...
UFUK 2020 Programı tarafından finanse edilen EQUALS-EU projesi çerçevesinde yürütülen bu çalışma, Bilgi ve İletişim Teknolojileri (BİT) sektöründe çalışan kadınların karşılaştıkları toplumsal cinsiyete dayalı zorlukları ve sektördeki toplumsal cinsiyet eşitsizliğini nasıl yaşadıklarını anlamayı ve araştırmayı amaçlamaktadır. Yüksek maaşlar, prestij, en son teknolojiye erişim ve uluslararası kariyer fırsatlarına rağmen, toplumsal cinsiyet önyargısı, sınırlı kariyer gelişimi ve iş-yaşam dengesi kadınlar için engel teşkil etmeye devam etmektedir. Ayrıca, sektördeki dengesizlik erkek egemen bir şirket kültürü tarafından pekiştirilmekte, bu da haksız muameleye, eşitsiz karar alma uygulamalarına ve olumsuz işyeri ortamlarına yol açmaktadır. Doğum izni maliyetleri, evlilik tazminatı veya sosyal normlar gibi faktörlere ilişkin kaygılar işverenlerin kadınları istihdam etmekte tereddüt etmelerine neden olsa da vasıflı işgücü eksikliği işverenleri paradoksal bir “teknoerkil pazarlık” konumuna sokmaktadır. Diğer bir deyişle, sektördeki vasıflı işgücü eksikliği toplumsal cinsiyet temelli kalıp yargıların varlığına rağmen kadınların BİT sektöründe istihdamını kolaylaştırmaktadır.
... Philosopher John Langshaw Austin proposed how words can be seen as deeds [11]. Researchers from HCI and related fields such as Winograd [143] and Suchman [132] also suggest that language functions as tools for people to take actions in the real world. Aligning with this perspective, we suggest that the very fact that the WSB community has attracted millions of subscribers and represent tremendous effort into developing a sophisticated language system, such as what we found about the coherent language practices to legitimate trading as gambling, may have a material effect in the real world. ...
... Accounting does not simply describe reality but actively constructs it (Morgan 1988). The categories used in accounting are not neutral but rather the result of political negotiation (Suchman 1993). ...
The digitization of financial activities in consumers' lives is increasing, and the digitalization of invoicing processes is expected to play a significant role, although this area is not well understood regarding the private sector. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) research have a long history of analyzing the socio-material and temporal aspects of work practices that are relevant for the domestic domain. The socio-material structuring of invoicing work and the working styles of consumers must be considered when designing effective consumer support systems. In this ethnomethodologically-informed, design-oriented interview study, we followed 17 consumers in their daily practices of dealing with invoices to make the invisible administrative work involved in this process visible. We identified and described the meaningful artifacts that were used in a spatial-temporal process within various storage locations such as input, reminding, intermediate (for postponing cases) buffers, and archive systems. Furthermore, we identified three different working styles that consumers exhibited: direct completion, at the next opportunity, and postpone as far as possible. This study contributes to our understanding of household economics and domestic workplace studies in the tradition of CSCW and has implications for the design of electronic invoicing systems.
People participating in online groups often co-construct knowledge of what they believe and, sometimes, co-construct their understanding of who they are . Through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 13 members of the online forum r/bisexual on Reddit, we found participants collaboratively constructing an understanding of bisexuality. We found this knowledge-building fills an epistemic gap resulting from bisexuality often being poorly understood. When individuals do not possess knowledge key to understanding their own lives, this can be seen as hermeneutical injustice – a type of epistemic injustice. We use the lens of hermeneutical injustice to shed light on participants’ experiences on r/bisexual. Our work contributes to recent research on epistemic injustice in HCI by looking at how members of r/bisexual mitigate epistemic injustice by reclaiming residuality – the space outside the gay-straight binary. We also discuss considerations for hermeneutical injustice to inform the design of online communities and HCI research practice.
In this chapter, we sketch the outlines of the tool agnostic as figuration, a cultural trope for techno-social agency, that is particularly suited to contemporary cultural production. We develop this sketch through an analysis based on fieldwork of a graduate digital media training program. After a brief introduction, we begin the chapter by discussing our conceptual framework for the tool agnostic as figuration. We argue that it affords its actors with the ability to circumvent the antinomy between formalism and its critique as technological determinism by presenting the creative subject as perennially ambivalent—both lured and skeptic—toward the affordances and possibilities of softwarization. It gives the subject a sense of creative control through software by striving to be free from any commitment to software.
The empirical investigation provides a historical background for programs like the one encountered in the fieldwork, demonstrating how these institutions impart creative practice as something that is interdisciplinary, industry-oriented, and organizationally flexible. We then relate three vignettes of encounters with the tool agnostic over the course of the 16 months of fieldwork. We conclude by comparing the tool agnostic with another figure of contemporary creative practice, the craftsperson, and ask whether some traits of the former might present the contemporary creative subject with a suitable alternative to the latter’s nostalgic alignment with autonomous technical mastery.
Big tech companies have had increasing control over how we work with technologies and how technologies define the work we do. In this paper, I identify the sociotechnical futures that Amazon-one of the big tech companies-envisions and the future of work that the company is moving toward. I explore the future of fulfillment centers through an analysis of the patents on fulfillment center technologies which Amazon may turn into reality one day. In my analysis, I focus on humans by asking how they are configured in the future of fulfillment centers and, more specifically, how Amazon envisions the role of human labor within work automation and AI systems. The analysis reveals where and how humans are expected to "step in" to operate the future of fulfillment centers. I discuss my findings within and beyond CSCW, highlighting the importance of studying tech companies' imaginaries. I argue that by understanding tech companies' imaginaries, it becomes possible for us to launch effective sociotechnical interventions to negotiate or even resist their specific imaginaries and/or design ways for a more democratic uptake of companies' future technologies. Finally, I articulate practical ways in which patents can be utilized in CSCW research.
With rapid advances in computing, we are beginning to see the expansion of technology into domains far afield from traditional office settings historically at the center of CSCW research. Manufacturing is one industry undergoing a new phase of digital transformation. Shop-floor workers are being equipped with tools to deliver efficiency and support data-driven decision making. To understand how these kinds of technologies are affecting the nature of work, we conducted a 15-month qualitative study of the digitalization of the shipping and receiving department at a small manufacturer located in the Southeastern United States. Our findings provide an in-depth understanding of how the norms and values of factory floor workers shape their perception and adoption of computing services designed to augment their work. We highlight how emerging technologies are creating a new class of hybrid workers and point to the social and human elements that need to be considered to preserve meaningful work for blue-collar professionals.
In the first two chapters we teased out the basis for a theory of information and meaning. In this chapter we advance theorising by arguing the case for embodying information systems (IS), that is, for recognising the fundamental position that the body plays in human cognition. We then explores the implications of embodied cognition for information systems and artificial intelligence (AI).
Cambridge Core - Semantics and Pragmatics - Pragmatics - by Stephen C. Levinson
This paper builds upon ethnomethodological and social constructivist studies of representation in the natural sciences to examine sociological theory, a field that is much closer to home. An analysis of diagrams and related illustrations in theory texts shows that labels, geometric boundaries, vectors, and symmetries often are used to convey a sense of orderly flows of causal influences in a homogeneous field. These graphic elements make up what I call a "rhetorical mathematics" that conveys an impression of rationality. Although theory pictures rarely show much beyond what a text already says in its writing, they simulate a hermeneutic passage from written ideas to an independent representational or mathematical space. The paper discusses two modes of textual disruption of the rhetorical mathematics of theory pictures: parody and deconstruction. Parody makes ironic use of graphic devices in order to expose the rationalistic associations that come with the territory. Deconstruction displaces (and, if taken far enough, dissolves entirely) the Flatland of pictorial rationality. These negative maneuvers raise the possibility of using figural space for alternative modes of sociological inquiry.