David Hakken

Beyond Capital: Values, Commons, Computing, and the Search for a Viable Future

The financial/social cataclysm beginning in 2007 ended notions of a great moderation and the view that capitalism had overcome its systemic tendencies to crisis. The subsequent failure of contemporary social formations to address the causes of the crisis gives renewed impetus to better analysis in aid of the search for a better future. This book contributes to this search by reviving a broad discussion of what we humans might want a post-capitalist future to be like. It argues for a comparative anthropological critique of capital notions of value, thereby initiating the search for a new set of values, as well as identifying a number of selected computing practices that might evoke new values. It articulates a suggestive set of institutions that could support these new values, and formulates a group of measurement practices usable for evaluating the proposed institutions. The book is grounded in contemporary social science, political theory, and critical theory. It aims to leverage the possibility of alternative futures implied by some computing practices while avoiding hype and technological determinism, and uses these computing practices to explicate one possible way to think about the future.

A Robot of My Own: Participatory Design of Socially Assistive Robots for Independently Living Older Adults Diagnosed with Depression

This paper presents an ongoing project using participatory design methods to develop design concepts for socially assistive robots SARs with older adults diagnosed with depression and co-occurring physical illness. We frame SARs development in the context of preventive patient-centered healthcare, which empowers patients as the primary drivers of health and aims to delay the onset of disease rather than focusing on treatment. After describing how SARs can be of benefit in this form of healthcare, we detail our participatory design study with older adults and therapists aimed at developing preventive SARs applications for this population. We found therapists and older adults to be willing and able to participate in assistive robot design, though hands-on participation was a challenge. Our findings suggest that important areas of concern for older adults with depression are social interaction and companionship, as well as technologies that are easy to use and require minimal intervention.

Computing myths, class realities : an ethnography of technology and working people in Sheffield, England

Part 1 Studying computerization: why study computerization? studying computing ethnographically in South Yorkshire the methods used to study computing in Sheffield. Part 2 Describing computerization: computerization of work computing and jobs computerization and the reproduction of symbols. Part 3 Analyzing computing structurally: theorizing computerization the national State and computerization Sheffield computerization and world political economy computerization and the region. Part 4 Making computerization: culture-centred computing and local policy computing and gender class, culture, computing and politics.

Ethical Issues in the Ethnography of Cyberspace

Abstract: The project of developing an anticipatory anthropology of the future reveals unique ethical opportunities. For example, the increased importance of performance means there is a substantial potential for a substantive “resocialing”. of work in organizations, just as the decline of Modernism opens space for collective, situated ethics as opposed to individualized categorical imperatives. An anthropology of the future should address the question of the future of ethics in general. The very possibility of human agency, of informed individual moral action, is brought into question in new ways. The profound flexibility of the computer as a medium carries with it the dangers of hyper‐abstraction, while the consolidation of capital reproduction on a global level increases the scope for apparently permanent mystification. Also important are the new ethical challenges raised for those engaged in knowledge “production” or science broadly conceived. These include the necessary effort to acknowledge fully the role of non‐human agency, and the potentially profound possibilities in a transformation in the character of knowledge, a correlate, at least in part, of the commodification of knowledge associated with distance learning. These challenges accompany the more overt threats of transgenic entities and ecological degradation. How can one be an ethical intellectual or academic under these circumstances, let alone teach others to be? There are also some specific challenges facing anthropology in particular. Some derive from the increasing “privatization” of ethnography, both in its growing popularity in modes of social reproduction more directly implicated in the reproduction of capital and in the declining academic support for anthropology. In a very specific sense, anthropology has grounded its ethics on an appreciation of and support for the reproduction of “really existing” culture. This ethical compass is not available to the ethnographer who studies the future. How do we participate ethically in the construction of a future in whose character we are inevitably implicated?

Intercalating the social and the technical: socially robust and enduring computing

This short paper presents our research agenda for a more socially oriented software production, drawing upon the empirical evidences of failure of software organisation in providing enduring software. Constructing a socio-technical perspective on the basis of social sciences research on technology, we outline a research program aimed at building software that could be more reliable and be useful longer. Our guiding principles are the symmetry between the social and the technical, and their intercalation in the development process, and Participatory Design is one of our foundational disciplines.

Resocialing work? Anticipatory anthropology of the labor process

Abstract My research focuses on the possible future transformations of work in the increasingly dominant computer-technology-based work environment. I surmise that one characteristic that future work might take the form of is a renewed and expanded “sociality”, in which co-operation, self-management, and qualitative social interaction are fostered to counter the potentially isolating computer-mediated environment. Since the advantage of such new technologies is also their opposite capacity to expand communication, one must encourage more communication to make use of these capabilities. Although I am somewhat skeptical about the current climate of cyberenthusiasm, I recognize that, as ethnographers, we need to take these speculations seriously and, where possible, participate actively in the creation of the kinds of futures which we prefer. I have taken a participant–observation approach to the study of “proto-cyberspace” venues which are widely seen as suggestive of the social relations of a future new social formation. I begin this essay by analyzing the argument for the resocialing hypothesis, then consider the opposite arguments which see a degradation of social relations in the work environment. Data have been derived primarily from my studies of automated information technology-mediated labor processes in the USA, the UK, and the Nordic countries.

Teaching participatory design

The goal of this full-day workshop is to create a place where people can share experiences, plans, and questions about teaching Participatory Design (PD). We aim to create a context for all of us to talk about how we design and set up courses, what challenges we face and how we solve them. The workshop is for people who are interested in the way people teach as well as in what is taught and what resources are gathered to aid the process. During the workshop, we will explore in an interactive manner how constructivist approaches to teaching can support the teaching and learning of participatory design in academic and non-academic contexts. We will also discuss experiences in using recent material such as the new (2012) PD Handbook. We hope that this dialogue can become a regular part of PDC.

Digital Inequalities in Brazil: A Weberian Analysis of Technology Use in the Favelas

Abstract Purpose In this paper, we examine the social stratification in the favelas, urban slums, both in general and how it correlates with technology. The analysis is based on Weberian stratification theory, since it provides for a broad understanding of the different factors that make up the digital inequalities. Methodology/approach Based on a 10-month critical ethnographic research dealing with LAN houses and state supported telecenters in the favelas of Vitoria, Brazil, we analyze how the use of technology by residents of such marginalized areas expands our understanding of Weber’s axes of stratification, namely class, status and political power. The data was drawn from user observations, Facebook interactions, and 76 semi-structured interviews. Findings The drug cartel members belonged to the higher class of favela residents due to their access to material resources and ability to afford smartphones and data plans. However, in terms of status groups, they did not represent the pinnacle of the community. Where status was concerned, the highest stratum of the community was composed of the “Facebook’s celebrities,” the few teenagers who knew how to produce content online, such as images and videos. An additional axis of social differentiation, related to political power, was observed during the 2013 protests in Brazil. Favela residents arrived late to the event and found themselves “fighting” for demands stipulated previously by the organizers who belonged to upper classes. Originality/value We highlight what access to ICTs can, and cannot, accomplish in a “highly disorganized,” conflict-ridden, and institution-poor environment. With that we hope to encourage academics and practitioners to do a better job in developing appropriate policies and technologies.

'Use' discourses in system development: can communication be improved?

This paper aims to provide a basis for renewed talk about ‘use’ in computing. Four current ‘discourse arenas’ are described. Different intentions manifest in each arena are linked to failures in ‘translation’, different terminologies crossing disciplinary and national boundaries non-reflexively. Analysis of transnational use discourse dynamics shows much miscommunication. Conflicts like that between the ‘Scandinavian System Development School’ and the ‘usability approach’ have less current salience. Renewing our talk about use is essential to a participatory politics of information technology and will lead to clearer perception of the implications of letting new systems becoming primary media of social interaction.

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Methods by TomBoellstorff, BonnieNardi, CeliaPearce, and T.L.Taylor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. 237 pp.

This workshop introduces participants to trace ethnography, building a network of scholars interested Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method. Home _ List of Issues _ Latest articles _ Ethnography and virtual worlds: a handbook of method, by Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce and T.L. Taylor. methods across the virtual and the actual dimensions as the most productive approach to this type Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method.