University of Oslo
Department of Informatics
On participatory
design in
Scandinavian
computing research
Eevi E. Beck
Research report 294
ISBN 82-7368-244-7
ISSN 0806-3036
August 2001
On Participatory Design
in Scandinavian
Computing Research
1
Eevi E. Beck
Department of Informatics
University of Oslo
There can be no innocent positions
- Donna Haraway
Abstract
User participation has become a popular phrase. This report argues, however,
that it has become an impoverished term, too broad to carry the original will to
change. A complex mix of changes in society and in computing technology has
been cited as reason why politics is no longer as current a concern for systems
developers. I consider these instead as arguments for a reconceptualisation of
participatory design (PD) towards the political.
This report argues the need for clarifying what PD is about. Taking a critical view
of challenges to the field and responses to them can help explore what could be
the project of the field as a distinct research area. As an arena for concern with
dominance or power issues in the intersections of computer systems
development and use with societal-cultural and international power relations PD
would have such a focus. As Political Design, a general direction for PD would
be clearly stated. A focus of the report is the need for finding new ways of
drawing on the underlying ideals of PD. While aspects of previous thought on
the relationship between individual and collective action still apply, there are
important ways in which it does not. New forms of politically-aware IT
development practice and theory must be developed on such insights.
A strengthening of the distinct identity of PD in the direction of the political
would demand more from those of us who wish to contribute, and clarify the
boundaries to and overlaps with other research areas. In Scandinavia,
“participation” has for many become a term with no power in it. We need change.
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
1. Introduction
How many developers of systems for industry or a governmental organisation have found their
technical/scientific/craft assessments set aside by the internal politics of the organisation?
How many have, like me, witnessed costs of an innovative development project skyrocketing
such that all financial reasons for it vanished--but potential damage to the prestige of a senior
Executive Officer meant it could not be terminated? How many have felt a bad taste in their
mouths for knowing they are contributing to a system that will put people out of work or make
living or working conditions worse (or kill someone somewhere, or threaten to)? Few
computer scientists can avoid being faced with such issues, whether or not they feel troubled
by them.
My purpose in writing this paper is to incite Scandinavian junior and senior researchers in
computer science to be a little more troubled, to consider political aspects of our/their work
as equally integral to our craft as, for example, methodology discussions. I wish to start
taking apart some of the knots in which I contend “participation”, and “the political” have
become entangled in Scandinavia, to help the issue move forward in new and perhaps
hitherto unconceived, directions. My treatment is necessarily partial, incomplete, biased;
rather than provide answers I aspire to provide openings to some new thinking.
1.1. Resting on our laurels or challenging power?
This paper joins a debate on the research area(s) currently known as Participatory Design
(PD). Loosely put, the processes through which design decisions are made have become a
target for PD research, as have aspects of their consequences in use. Some familiarity with the
field may be an advantage to the reader, as I have lumped together under the heading of PD a
diverse collection of researchers and systems developers with different agendas, working
styles and working conditions. However, for the purposes of this paper I am interested in the
‘PD-ness’ of the disperse pieces of work, and take the liberty of talking about the collective
as if a single body.
Put crudely, my key contention is that PD, in Scandinavia, and with exceptions, may be in
danger of reducing to a toothless repetition exercise what once was innovative and worldschanging. By ‘toothless’ I mean lacking what brought the laurels: the challenges to power
structures in which developers, researchers; everyone are caught.
In the mid-1990ies, PD enjoyed growing interest both commercially and within an
international research community. The success has brought new issues for researchers in the
field to adjust to. I group them, roughly, in two: what is happening in the Nordic
(“Scandinavian”) countries, and what is happening outside.2 Within Scandinavia, I argue that
international attention is not being matched by a corresponding interest in the possibilities
pointed to by PD. Thus, the renewal in PD takes its lead from outside Scandinavia. I am
concerned about what I see as little debate on, or interest in renewing key aspects of PD
within Scandinavia. I wish to add to a debate that critically looks at what lessons have been
learnt, and how to build on these in a renewed focus on political perspectives. What previous
insights seem relevant today? Which of these seem most important in a politicized analysis?
And what new issues should be added? The prime aim of this paper is to inspire readers to
address such questions on their own terms. Whether or not my answers seem convincing is
thus subordinate.
1.2. Connections: the need for a political argument
Before going into the detailed argument I think it is important discuss why we should be
concerned with politics at all in systems development. This is a question which needs
2
Out of Scandinavia...
rethinking and recontextualising (re-embedding) in current concerns. It cannot and should not
ever be finally settled. I do wish, nevertheless, to provide arguments for my perspective.
What does (can) ‘political’ mean in a systems development context? In this paper I take the
liberty of somewhat bracketing off discussion of this important question, for two reasons.
One, diversity: that innumerable potential answers exist, most of which I find quite
reasonable. Let each person read it according to their conviction; uniformity is no aim. Two,
space: The question is complex and any “explanation” raises so many subsequent questions
that a whole paper could (and perhaps should?) be devoted to the question. I choose here to
focus on other issues, primarily the need for more of whatever each might consider
“political” questions. My own use in this paper, is a meaning of ‘political’ as concern about
dominance patterns--for example, differential possibilities of influencing the shape of an “IT
society” project.
Participatory Design in Scandinavia originated from a conviction of the moral importance
that computing professionals are concerned with the implications of their shaping of
computer systems (Kristen Nygaard, personal communication, 1995). There are several
expressions of a shift in emphasis in Scandinavian research in the area loosely referred to as
Participatory Design (e.g. Bansler and Kraft 1994, Kyng 1994b, Bjerknes and Bratteteig
1995, Stolterman 1995). “Everyone”--not, of course, every person--agrees there have been
changes. Many refer to a turn towards professionalism. “No-one”--also not strictly true-agrees when, how, why; or whether it is welcome or not, and/or necessary; or of what it is
constituted.
Wishing to be constructive I point to signs that ‘things are not that bad’. This, however, relies
on letting go of a notion of the locus of politically conscious PD currently being Scandinavia.
In other words: I take the perspective that ‘resting on the laurels’ of an innovative past can be
an obstacle to new ways of engaging with well-known questions. We must let go of the idea
that because Scandinavia was something, it is something. In so doing, however, losing sight
of the origins of PD in Scandinavia would be akin to ‘throwing the baby out with the bath
water’. To strike a balance between these two I suggest some lessons to be learnt from the
original concerns and use existing work within and outside Scandinavia for potential
directions for future research.
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: Section 2 provides a brief history of PD
as a research area and outlines a move of PD interest to outside the Nordic countries
(“Scandinavia”). This review of what has gone before addresses the question: “what might
we wish to bring along?” Section 3 looks at some troubling issues currently facing PD as a
research area. Together, those two sections constitute an argument ‘from within’ for the need
to renew PD. The need ‘from without’ for such research is argued in sections 4 and 5, where
alternatives are explore, focusing on understanding and action, respectively. Together they
look ahead to the possibility for a distinct identity for PD as concerned with political aspects
of design. I conclude the paper by summarising key points and urging change.
2. Out of Scandinavia...
Ideas--mine and many others’--that the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland,
Norway, Sweden) is the centre of politically sensitive computer science are interesting in a
number of ways. They are compelling--to people in- and outside Scandinavia alike--and most
are plainly wrong in some ways and indisputably true in others. I propose that these notions
can usefully be viewed as a knot; a set of ideas and expectations which have become
intertwined such that you can hardly alter them and you cannot choose to pick a few threads;
it’s all or nothing. Many, I feel, choose not to accept the package, thereby rejecting all without
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
considering if there are aspects that might speak to them. At the same time, paradoxically--or
perhaps because of this--few anymore know much about what was actually done and why.
What might happen if we did a little unpicking of the knot? Not of what happened but of the
underlying idea(l)s behind an interest in putting political aspects on the agenda in the first
place. So although my main interest in PD is current development(s), I succumb to the
temptation to briefly indicate some PD history for readers who know nothing about the
background. Like all histories, it is incomplete and partial.
2.1. A brief history
As originating in Scandinavia, PD as a research direction is generally held to stem from the
first work that joined systems analysis with Trade Union participation. The first project is
usually cited as being the Iron and Metal Workers Union, with the publication by Kristen
Nygaard and Olav Terje Bergo of a handbook for the Trade Union movement. A concern was
to ensure that workers, seen as disadvantaged in the struggle with management and capital,
would be able to participate in shaping the means of production. Helping workers’
representatives understand new technology was important to prepare workers’ organisations
for negotiations with management about technology (Nygaard and Bergo 1973). This was an
effort to redress an imbalance of access to computing expertise between managers and
workers. Training of trade unionists in the concepts and language of the technologies was
therefore an aim (Nygaard and Bergo 1973). This contrasts somewhat with the later emphasis
on the politics of technologies and their design. Nygaard and Bergo 1973 was part of a series
of reports from researchers to the Trade Union movement, and became a forerunner of
projects focusing on worker participation in computer system design.
Subsequent projects diversified the issues, expanding and extending researchers’ attention
into issues such as skill among workers (e.g. women skilled workers, as in the Florence
project, cf. Gro Bjerknes and Tone Bratteteig 1987, and graphical industry workers, in the
DUE project), and specific techniques for involving users in design. Projects that became
known were carried out mainly in the Nordic (“Scandinavian”) countries. As interest in such
issues spread to outside Scandinavia, these lines of research became known as Scandinavian
Approaches. A milestone was the publication of Gro Bjerknes, Pelle Ehn and Morten Kyng’s
1987 collection of papers in English: “Computers and Democracy − A Scandinavian
Challenge”.
This brief outline of an iconified background in no way does justice to the projects concerned
or to the various directions of development. For a discussion of various styles that evolved
within Scandinavia−not all of which were politically concerned−see Jørgen Bansler 1989.
For recent summaries of developments in PD see Bjerknes and Bratteteig 1995 (key projects
and the conceptual development between and through them) and Finn Kensing and Jeanette
Blomberg 1998 (summary of issues).
What happened after the “famous” projects has been an issue of some contention among
Scandinavian researchers with experience from then, as well as others with a fond interest in
what is, or could be, going on here. Thus, the mid-1990ies saw a flurry of debates in the
pages of the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems.
Gro Bjerknes and Tone Bratteteig (1995) call for a renewed emphasis on democracy as an
issue in systems design. In examining the conceptual grounds for some of the key projects in
the (Scandinavian) work on PD, they argue that democracy was the motivating force.
Bjerknes and Bratteteig extend their argument to the current situation by pointing to what
they perceive as a shift in the locus of democratic concern in systems development projects:
from being seen as the realm of systems design as such, to a more individualised notion of
responsibility−in their words, a turn from professionalism to individualised ethics.3
4
Out of Scandinavia...
Professionalism was and is no saviour of the political, however, as many have reminded us.
In fact, from my ill-informed eavesdropping on others’ conversations about matters to which
I have only third hand knowledge, it seems that the topic of the turn to professionalism has
been dynamite: dangerous, explosive and divisive. No other topic of discussion in and around
PD these past years seems to ignite such passions, on and off record.
Jørgen Bansler and Philip Kraft advanced an argument relating to the history of political
work in Scandinavia: “The Collective Resource Approach has (...) successively moved
further away from the politics of the labor process and of work organization and moved
closer to the design of technology” (1994, p.98, emphasis orig.). One can take issue with
several aspects of the sentence quoted, but the question of a focus on political perspectives I
find an important one.
Bansler and Kraft’s paper is part of an exchange with Morten Kyng (see Kraft and Bansler
[1992] 1994; Kyng 1994a; and Bansler and Kraft 1994). While my argument is sympathetic
to the statement I cite, I would take issue with the polarisation between the positions
advanced by both the debating parties. The polarisation is itself perhaps an indication of the
sensitivity of these issues in a number of Scandinavian milieux. Having known nothing but
“professionalism” (the ideal of professionalised systems development), I find the intensity of
this debate at times hard to grasp. What the situation currently is, is clearly open to debate,
not to mention what it once was. Yet, whatever the specific roles of a turn to professionalism
and the making of careers, both sides of this particularly public incarnation of the debate
have unambiguously stated their concerns about depolitisation of what once was radical:
Bansler and Kraft in the papers cited above; Morten Kyng in the published notes for his
keynote speech for PDC’94 (Kyng 1994b). While this itself does not ensure agreement, the
shared concern suffices for my present purposes.
For my first (re)drafting of the above passage of the mid-1990ies debates, I tried to pose
myself as an “innocent observer” (Modest Witness). However, as Donna Haraway reminds us
(1991), there are no innocent positions. I do not wish to be part in what I see as a
“professionalism” debate. Yet, the participants may well see themselves as debating what is
politics in practice--the very issue I set out to address. The question for me then becomes
how to contribute to re-engaging many more (Scandinavian) researchers in looking to the
political in what they are doing, without reinvoking that specific exchange.
A slightly different tack on what seems to be a closely related concern about developments in
Scandinavia, is Erik Stolterman’s polemic for the Debate Forum of the Scandinavian Journal
about the same time. He criticises (all of) the field for a considerable over-focus on
improving the practices of designers. Instead he calls for information systems researchers to
carry out critical technology studies:
“[IS researchers] should ask questions such as: What is information
technology, where is the technology shaped, decided and produced, what are the
driving forces and the influences in this development, where is the technology
evaluated and by whom, how is it distributed and deployed, how do large scale
implementations of information systems change society and the basic structures in
organization and people’s everyday life, etc.? These are large and very difficult
question, but that is why research exists. Society should not spend money on
research resulting in knowledge that could have been produced based on a
commercial interest.” (Stolterman 1995, pp.126-7).
2.2. Going international
It has been said that PD as originally envisaged in Scandinavia was not easily exportable. Yet
it has gained interest from researchers and practitioners elsewhere. Questions arise, then, of
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
how the expansion has happened, what kinds of inspirations have influenced others under
different conditions.
There is a biannual conference devoted to PD, in 1993 a special issue of the Communications
of the ACM was devoted to PD (CACM 1993), and also, researchers devoted to PD and their
arguments did at one point acquire a small but visible presence at other conferences such as
CHI and the CSCW and ECSCW conferences. The emergence of the field of Computer
Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), lent a new audience to this emphasis on workplaces
in the second half of the 1980ies. A second milestone for the internationalisation of PD was
papers presented at the CSCW’88 conference. The CSCW Journal published a special issue
on participatory design in 1998.
Are these signs that political aspects of design have become a comme-il-faut? Not
necessarily. The above list may be just a flash of interest in something different, and the hard
work that got the idea of participatory practices into the limelight may not be over.
Participatory design has come to include practices that share only the historical link to
participation as a vehicle for empowerment. In the non-political extreme, user participation,
once politically radical, has been picked up as a slogan for marketing and other uses. For
example, in the European Commission’s 1995/96 call for proposals for the Telematics
research programme, the term ‘user participation’ was used in reference to businesses being
involved in systems development.4 Hype, indeed. Or worse.
An advantage of the focus outside Scandinavia is that to the extent our thinking is influenced
by our culture, people based in geographically different locations will presumably be
thinking a little (or a lot) differently.5 An example is the organisation of computer scientists
and related people: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR). Based in
North America, it has branches (chapters) in an increasing number of countries. While the
form of organisation is individual membership, the CPSR has been able to make considerable
contributions to important areas such as influencing public policy, and helping conferences
(including the PDC) and a research community/communities with a social responsibility
perspective to thrive. Thus CPSR substantially supports the existence of a focus for critical
voices, “somewhere to turn to”, in environments where considerably more attention is
usually devoted to commercial interests. What does this mean in Scandinavia? CPSR should
not necessarily be copied. Nevertheless, certain “old truths” in Scandinavian political
activism may have served their time by now--and might not ways of organising ‘resistance’
be one such stale truth?
Given the growing attention internationally, one might expect that Scandinavian research
institutions would be a flurry of activity, basking in the international spotlight on a politically
charged area. One might have expected−as once I did−that a history of such research in the
Nordic countries would ensure a broad visibility of politically oriented projects and
publications. The increased interest in the field outside Scandinavia has not yet, however,
been matched by a corresponding interest in politically oriented PD within Scandinavia.
With the lack of such items from Nordic researchers at the Aarhus Third Decennial
Conference in August 1995, the question begged itself why there appears to be little interest
for a political PD in the region: In Scandinavia, if ‘the old guard’ seems a little weary−their
experience may no longer be seen as relevant, other topics become more attractive−is there a
new, politically concerned ‘young guard’? A wave of researchers with energy and a healthy
disregard for old ways, brushing aside the hesitation of the settled, bringing fresh approaches
to the issues of the next decades? Taking the annual Information Systems Research in
Scandinavia (IRIS) conference as an indication, signs are that at the moment, there is not.6
Evidently, issues of interest to this research community include development of participatory
design as a technique, e.g. looking at methods for carrying out PD in various settings,
making PD techniques more robust, discussing its relation to software engineering, and re-
6
...into lesser security: shifting grounds for PD
examining simplistic assumptions behind some of the early work. However, discussions of
political perspectives as such cannot easily be claimed to be a key concern at the moment.
Nevertheless, the early work did establish political concerns as a legitimate area of systems
developers in Scandinavia to work with. Such issues can now be raised without risk to one’s
career. This is no small achievement. Additionally, the issue being raised occasionally
vouches for the continued potential of Nordic researchers as sources of raising the political
dimensions of systems development.
How well the current interest in PD outside Scandinavia is matched within the Nordic
countries therefore remains uncertain. Notable examples of Scandinavian researchers taking
a strong political stance can be found (i.e. framing research so as to make visible or to change
power differences). I contend, however, that these have the character more of individual
persuasion and small pockets inspired by these, and less of a considerable community
concerned with politics.
A notable exception, as I see it, is Nordic contributions to a growing international community
of researchers into gender, science, and technology. Examining why this has become so, may
lead to insights into challenges facing PD as a research area. Also, there are important crossovers--not to say overlaps--between the topics of this research and what has been
“Participatory Design”. For recent work that explicitly treats the overlaps, see e.g. that of
Ellen Balka (e.g. poster at PDC’98).
“Out of Scandinavia” can be read as both “arriving elsewhere” (spreading) and “leaving
Scandinavia” (moving). By ‘leaving,’ I am trying to express the sense of insecurity, of
avoidance, sense that things are not as they were and the interest has ran into the sand, that I
believe others have conveyed to me. In the next section I explore what may be some
contributory reasons for this apparent chasm of interest within the Nordic countries and the
sense that the ground has shifted.
3. ...into lesser security: shifting grounds for PD
The low interest for explicitly politically-aware research in Scandinavia is worth examining.
Discussions around coffee tables suggest a number of reasons, including it no longer being “as
simple as it was in the Seventies” to determine who to support. A host of problems referred to
seem to stem from equating political concerns with support for certain structures, such as
labour organisations, whose roles many now place under question (“TUs are not interested
anymore,” “TUs are not important anymore”). A third point mentioned by some is the locus
of systems development having moved from in-house development teams to multinational
software houses, thus apparently removing the location, and occasion, for PD. Other reasons
mentioned are linked to a generally reduced interest in anything “political” in North Europe
in the 1990ies. Against these as satisfactory explanations stand other explicit and implicit
arguments: that in-house design never was a typical feature in the first place; that occasions
for participatory design can demonstrably be created in new ‘hybrid’ design constellations (cf.
Cecilia Sjöberg 1996); that for Trade Unions, relations with computing have necessarily
changed since the 1970ies but some are showing (some) interest and (some) power; that the
claims of a generally reduced interest in the political is an analytic misunderstanding (Ulrich
Beck 1994) and that we instead should examine what is there (this is further discussed in
section 5 below). All in all, the enquirer into why there is a reduced interest in political, or
power-sensitive, or emancipatory, design in Scandinavia is left with little in the way of
satisfactory answers. The enquiry must turn to opening up some of the troubling issues.
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
In this section, then, I focus on questions that rock some of the established ground of
Participatory Design in Scandinavia, including: Where to locate design in the face of off-theshelf software and multiply distributed arrangements for producing it; who is to benefit; and
relations between TUs and computing.
3.1. Where does design take place? Where could participation take place?
Participation must take place somewhere. Closely tied in with conceptions of participation is
therefore the location of design.
The advent of off-the-shelf software has been named as a reason for reduced relevance of PD,
as in-house or other custom development of software is giving way to purchase of readymade (‘off-the-shelf’) systems. Custom development was, or was seen as, the locus of
participatory design, as system designers within an organisation (‘in-house’) or dedicated to
one were to work together with the future users of the system being developed. Relocation of
design out of user organisations (whether the change is mainly actual or perceived) poses
challenges to an assumption of collocation of users and developers. The issues have been
multiply complicated by the rhetorics and practices of multiply distributed, out-sourced,
globalised arrangements.
Attention to multiple points of design, including local customisation (e.g. Wendy Mackay
1990), lead to ambiguities of identifying a single point when the design takes place. To the
extent this implies a more realistic view of system development this may be a benefit. As
distances increase with the emphasis on global networks, so do the complexities of design
location.
Thus, while globalisation can itself be a political concern, influential writers including
Manuel Castells ([1996] 2000) argue its particular relationship to information technologies.
As such, practices of and rhetorics surrounding globalisation arguably ought to be a proper
part of the concerns of computing professionals. In particular, issues of space and place,
including rhetoric about the elimination of place, has been identified as a key area. (See Arif
Dirlik 1998 for an insightful argument about the politics of place in relation to globalism and
“development”; the argument applies, to my mind, also to “development” in the West/North.
See Ulrike Schultze and Dik Boland 2000 for a study of effects of changing space/place
rhetorics and realities for a computing profession; and Sundeep Sahay for space/place issues
and cultural values inscribed in and exported through Geographic Information Systems
(Sahay 1998), and Sahay with others for issues of Global Software Outsourcing
arrangements (forthcoming).)
In a different vein, a Master student I supervised conducted a comparative study of uses of
user participation in three consultancies in Oslo (Myhre 1997). The consultancies were
experienced in systems development projects and in the importance of requirements
elicitation and made serious efforts to involve users. Øystein Myhre found that a reason to do
so was for the consulting company to share the responsibility for the final product with their
customer.
In other words, potential participants, whether seen as members of organisations or
individuals in their homes, can no longer be assumed to be available to designers either as
participants or consultants, and participation properly conducted may serve interests other
than worker emancipation. In a new turn, computer professionals themselves may
increasingly be outsourced and dislocated, raising further challenges. Consequently the
research area has faced methodological, political, and theoretical challenges from the
rhetorics-made-reality of an increased emphasis on distribution of computers, of computer
use situations, and of all those potentially taking part in a development effort.
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...into lesser security: shifting grounds for PD
3.2. When workers are consumers are home users: who is PD to benefit?
The apparent lack of interest of the Trade Unions in participatory design projects has been
mentioned variously as reason for failure of the research projects to make impact, a perceived
irrelevance of PD, etc. The image of a politically concerned participatory design project as one
benefiting workers as opposed to management, arguably carries assumptions about seeing
workers as workers as opposed to, e.g., persons who when they get home, may have access to
the internet. The latter perspective suggests more clearly that the workers’ image of computing
technology is likely to be influenced by mass media imagery of the internet−and perhaps
experiences within the family−as well as their experience with computers at work. In fact, as
the Scandinavian countries at the turn of millennium are said to have proportions of internet
connections in the world top, and high density of PCs, it is likely that many employees will be
internet users, or have been exposed to computers in such uses. If once, the prospect of
introducing a steel robot to replace a person on the factory floor was a tangible change for
Trade Unions to rally people against, introducing computers may similarly have meant
“machines instead of people”. The situation is more ambiguous today, including the use of
styles of argument in marketing drives and from management which speak to liberation etc.
of those using these systems (not only managers).
Additionally, as people as consumers may be becoming increasingly aware of the ‘back
door’ proliferation of computers in their homes (e.g. as a chip inside their washing machine)
the issue is much complicated. PCs are widespread, and it seems that computers are largely
accepted, enthusiastically or otherwise, as part of the lives of the white middle classes that
constitute much of the populations of Scandinavia, as well as indigenous people, more recent
arrivals and poor people. At the same time, the same groups of people are exposed to mass
media emphasis on the rather intangible dangers-and promises-of internet-in-the-homes.
What to think ‘about computers’ cannot be easy.
Hence, assuming a connection between people as consumers of home computing and (the
same) people as workers, an argument can be made that workers may share concerns of ‘the
public’ (whoever they may be). When changes are incremental and computers are already in
place and in use in the homes and at the workplaces, the issue is complex. It becomes harder
to see what precisely would be the rallying cry of a critical movement. The locus of the
concern (if any) of ‘the public’ is no longer the tangible placement (or purchase) of
machinery in the offices and factories. As the basis for an argument for a politically
motivated mass movement, computers as such may be outmoded.
This line of analysis, although conjecture, may provide pointers to reasons why would-be
political researchers, if wishing to identify with workers, may be experiencing a double-bind
situation unlike before. As consumers of mass media filled with marketing drives for which
few of us are prepared, workers (people) may be highly susceptible to at least insecurity
about what computer technologies, networks, etc. are about: are they for the good or the bad
(or both)? In what direction to even wish for the development to move is a difficult question,
and researchers and non-researchers alike may find it impossible to take a principled stance
on appropriate action. Insecurity about the possibilities of having any influence on the
general development if one were to take action, may further contribute to a sense of
powerlessness.
To complicate matters further, the general political picture may be, as has been said, “no
longer simple”. Influential critical voices are arguably harder to come by in the Millennium
craze at the turn of the century than they were in the 1970ies.
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
3.3. The question of Trade Unions... what questions, whose questions
While Trade Unions fulfil many invaluable functions of representation, it is harder in
Scandinavia today to carry an argument that working with established institutions of
representation such as Trade Unions ensures a critical angle on existing power structures. TUs
have shown themselves to embody a multifaceted set of concerns; and as professionals’
organisations have taken up TU style organisation and forms of industrial action, we have seen
them wielding their considerable power to promote the interests of their members. Thus, in
Norway, the association of high-ranking, often managerial, engineers (“Sivilingeniører”)
staged a strike towards the end of the 1980ies; the academics’ union did so around 1995. The
association of medical doctors was around 2000 accused of effectively blocking the expansion
of the medical schools so doctors would remain in demand--to what extent this was the case
is less of interest here than noting the expansion and blurring of the edges of Trade Unions as
safeguards of the interests of the less powerful in society.7
Other TUs do keep raising the issues of the less privileged in the workplaces (the annual
negotiations of spring 2000 included demands for: extra pay raises for workers in low-paid
work with large proportions of women, strengthening of the teaching of the Norwegian
language to workers in the cleaning sector, and longer holidays). But other conflicts emerge,
including jobs vs. protection of the environment. TUs are doing invaluable work in their
traditional and in new areas--for example, my TU regularly offers free courses including, in
2000, conflict handling; they offer favourable insurance terms. The diversification of TU
activity and issues is not necessarily a problem, but it does weaken any status they may have
had as “the” obvious partner for a would-be radical computer scientist in Norway.
To illustrate some of the complexities, I provide some stories from working in Norway
between 1994 and 2000.
In the mid-1990ies, asking around about “Where have all the 1970ies and 1980ies political
systems development gone?”, I was told of lack of interest from Trade Unions. Explanations
were along the lines of “their interest is once again keeping jobs at all; how their systems are
designed is a luxury problem”. Times were, I assume, considered hard (having just returned
from years in England I could not see that for myself). Nevertheless, Trond Øgrim wrote a
polemic in a radical paper encouraging trade unionists to engage in a debate on the use of
technologies of distribution to enable job creation in small communities, thus arguing for a
proactive role of trade unions in relation to computing technology (Øgrim 1996).
What roles are the Trade Unions (TUs) playing today? In Norway in recent years, labour
conflicts have been seen to occur between groups of employees as much as employees vs.
capital. An exception happened in 2000, during the central negotiations between the LO
(Landsorganisasjonen--the national Labour Organisation, which includes most TUs) and the
employers’ federation. LO members voted ‘no’ to the agreement recommended by LO
negotiators for private sector employees, resulting in the biggest strike for years, complete
with picketing and arguments about alleged breaches of agreements. The reasons for the vote
were multiple (and included strong opposition against the proposed lengthening of the main
negotiation cycle from two to three years). When the result of the vote became known, the
LO leadership were quick to publicly support their members. One explanation of the voting
which the LO leadership apparently found it easy to publicize was as an outcry against a
series of astonishingly high “golden handshake” agreements for leaders (i.e. extra pay upon
leaving their positions). Suddenly, then, the “old” issue of unfair difference had re-emerged
in a new incarnation, provoking a sufficiently strong reaction to make an impact. Probably it
was important that the issue was appropriate for mass media consumption and that indeed,
media support for the public concern was widespread (after all, the news media were the
originators-cum-mediators (sellers) of the original “handshake” revelations). In a complex
turn, then, these employees/TU members staged a small rebellion against both of their
“leaderships”, TU and employer. This rebellion against don’t-quite-know-what may--
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...into lesser security: shifting grounds for PD
ironically, given the role of the TU leadership--may well have strengthened the TU as a
traditional institution for a few years.
As I am writing these lines the corresponding negotiation process is taking place in the State
sector, which includes universities. “We”--for the first time in years I feel the process
involves me beyond altering some numbers on a piece of paper from my bank--were on the
brink of a conflict but an email informs me that the negotiators have reached agreement. So
I’ll get to vote. But what will it mean--how will my vote be interpreted? I have enough
money--I’d like more time, yes, but more money... I would probably spend it on more things,
so I’ll be happier without it. But I am convinced that a “no” gets translated into a demand for
more money. How, then, to express my voice? How to say “I do need collectives and
solidarity along many axes: I do want Trade Unions; I need to give and receive support; I’m
happy to pay more tax for schools, health services, etc.; I’d like those with less income than I
have to get more?”
In the four years since Øgrim’s polemic, Norway’s riches have once again risen to the surface
of the economists’ consciousnesses and people are buying and buying. The Norwegian LO, if
for a while powerless to influence computing developments, has offered all members a PC at
discount rates. The Swedish LO has apparently done likewise. What is the thinking behind
and what influences this may have, remains to be explored. The uneven access to computing
resources is an important issue for those socially concerned, and the LOs are in this way
taking action to help broaden access. But the issues are complex and it would be interesting
to see a sympathetic but critical analysis. (In fact, this axis of “democratization of
technology” using the means of the ultimate techno consumerism depresses me, because I
don’t see it being taken any further. Do we need more people to spend their moneys on their
own plastic and silicon boxes that tempt us to overstrain our eyes into the small hours of the
morning? Could we instead share the boxes; maybe have “computing corners” within cycling
distance? Could we then also discuss what changes computing is bringing into our lives?)
One intersection between computing and work that Trade Unions in Norway have done good
(I presume) work on, is ‘workplace’ computing in the home: TUs have picked up on the
increasing attention to working from home, have seen the challenge to existing ways of
delimiting working days, and have involved themselves in the work of developing new
regulations. I am not familiar with the contents of the resulting proposals, but read the serious
attention to this issue as a demonstration of willingnesses to address issues arising from
changing work arrangements.
Yet I wish for more. I would like to see serious questioning of the dominant role of economic
perspectives (narrowly understood) as source of values in questions of how to manage
national institutions, public transport, agricultural production, investment of the Norwegian
Oil Fund, and computer systems development alike.
3.4. Looking to the future by looking at the present
My above discussion argues that participatory techniques as such have historically been given
an a priori claim on political sensitivity which may be inappropriate. There is scant reason to
believe that engagement in political issues arising within and related to our profession would
have to diminish if participatory techniques were removed from this privileged position. On
the contrary, “forcing” the issue by providing a clearer focus on the “political” could
strengthen awareness of politics of system development. (It could also pose a threat, forcing
some away, as discussed below).
PD as a research field is facing changes which existing techniques fall short of answering.
Recent work in Participatory Design of IT/IS systems point to some of these and pose
potential directions for further research. Nevertheless, my argument is that the continuation
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
of PD as a distinct research area depends on the development of some new turn. Restating PD
as an arena explicitly concerned with political/power/dominance considerations could
address both concerns. From where would such a turn come, however? While taking onboard
the arguments about the demise of political concerns in Systems Development, I believe the
seeds are present for engaging researchers in Scandinavia and elsewhere in an explicit
politicising of perspectives on systems development. In this process, new allies may have to
be sought.
Debates are ongoing in Scandinavian IS systems development circles; one may wonder
whether political consciousness has deteriorated mostly to debates about itself? If so, the
present paper may merely add to the problem. Important issues are, however, reflected in the
debates. For example, ethics--which Bjerknes and Bratteteig oppose to politics in their 1995
paper--could become, in some contexts, a useful ally of politics. Ina Wagner 1993 raises the
issue of ethics as part of a methodology, arguing that: “conflicts between participants’ values
and norms of conduct often point to underlying basic differences between their positions in
the organization, their interests, and, consequently, their assessment of certain design
decisions. In this regard, ethical problems have a strong political content.” (p.94).
Extrapolating to researchers, the issue becomes not so much a problem of ethics vs. politics,
but a willingness to face the political consequences of taking an ethical stance. Furthermore,
one might extend Bjerknes and Bratteteig’s argument further: that we may see a lack of
(even) ethics as an issue in systems development.
Thus, we need research and action--but based in understanding. Understanding in terms of
continued refinement of important issues within Participatory Design and contributory fields
is invaluable. Even more important to a renewal of the field in Scandinavia, however, is
developing interest in new topics that address changes in how we live in and perceive our
contemporary environment. From an understanding of these, new methods, new topics, new
thinking can emerge. The next two sections provide pointers to what might guide such new
explorations, roughly dividing the issues into those primarily concerned with furthering
understanding (section 4), and those primarily with the potential for change (section 5).
4. P for ‘Power’? Understanding the Powers of
Computing
In its current form, PD may be open for malappropriation: PD research without concern for
reproduction of power differences may pass for ‘political’ work simply because of the
tradition from which it comes. If, as I argue above, Scandinavian Trade Unions cannot as such
be assumed to be a point of leverage, PD has the potential to be a ground for exploring
complementary avenues. This could, further, provide the kind of peer support Greenbaum
(1996a) points to as important. For those who do not risk their careers by doing so, and those
who are willing to take on that risk, a clear conception of the field as an arena for political
research may encourage such a focus in Scandinavia.
‘Political’ here means: addressing power differences. That is, first, understanding
reproductions of dominance patterns in which computing, IT, and/or computing
professionals are involved. And second, taking action to change some of these. While the two
overlap, analytic differences may be worth keeping for the sake of clarity of thinking and the
development of theory. This section addresses the former, arguing that computing and power
is a common and worlds-shaping mix which PD should strive to understand.
Meta-questions about our fields of research that urgently need to be addressed, directly and
indirectly, include: How does Computer Science (or Informatics, or IT, or IS) as a research
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P for ‘Power’? Understanding the Powers of Computing
endeavour need to change for such concerns to be central? What dominance patterns--in
familiar as well as new guises--are being furthered, legitimised or de-legitimised through
links with IT? How are such links established and recreated? Who benefits? Who does not
benefit--i.e. who are marginalised, and what are the consequences?
In a previous version of this paper I suggested a renaming of the field from ‘Participatory
Design’ to ‘Political Design’. However, I came gradually to agree with objections that
‘Political’ was poorly suited as an alternative. ‘Political’ simultaneously over- and under
specifies the issues: it says too much and too little. But then how to denote the desperately
needed reorientation? How to speak of combinations of head, heart, and hands; of insights
and courages, of compassion and scientific curiosities, of sensitivity and methods
development, of the building of valid theory that helps trace ‘disappearing’ voices? What
words will convey the need to place concern about roles played by information (and
communication) technologies in reconstructions of dominance patterns at the centre of ‘solid
academic research’?
My best candidates at the moment for terms that can point to the complexes of issues include
political concerns, power differences, inequalities, patterns of dominance (dominating elites
vs. those dominated, e.g. as used by Gino Germani (1980) in discussing marginality).
Wishing to retain openness of interpretation while wanting also to name the complex of
concerns I am promoting, I use these terms interchangeably although they are not identical.
4.1. Re-establishing points of leverage
With losses, or weakening, of important points of leverage, other points of leverage need to
and may be identified. For example, much of the PD research has problematised
conceptualisations of ‘users’, as well as inequalities in the system development situations.
This needs be no less current even if a considerable weakening of the possibility of collocation
of developers with those who will be using the system has been taking place. Concerns in PD
as to who would be legitimate participants influencing a design process add to the complexity.
The question begs itself whether PD as, literally, Participatory Design, is the most appropriate
name--and hence, focus--for the research field struggling with these issues.
A term such as Political Design might be a more appropriate phrasing of the concern, leaving
it open for approaches other than direct participation to be used. Kristen Nygaard, widely
hailed as the inventor of participatory design, has commented on PD originally having been
‘merely a technique’, not the conceptual crux of the workplace democracy movement. One
could reason, therefore, that an eventual passing of Participatory Design as a term need be no
political backlash. Other arguments may exist, though, for maintaining the term, including
the protection of researchers who may be wanting to contribute to the discourse on politically
responsible system design, but who need to or want to have limited attention drawn to this
fact.
If we believe that computer systems development processes could contribute to democracy
(in some form), and that this would be desirable, the further issue arises of whether, and
what, points of leverage can be identified to this end. In other words, can we find, and
develop, research that points to lines of action (and non-action) that in some sense can be
seen to further democracy, according to current conceptualisations? (This is not to suggest
agreement on what these terms might mean, either as concepts or as bases for practical
action.)
If we consider the ‘old’ ideals worthwhile, but the approaches developed under them out-ofdate, we need to identify new approaches. Doing so may, however, necessitate delving deep
into ‘understanding’ in order to approach good answers to the analytics-pragmatics of how to
address the central questions of ‘who benefits?’, and ‘who decides who benefits?’
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
4.2. Whose problems?
Another area of concern for PD in the future should be, I contend, relocating discussions of
democracy into groups of people who may not previously have ben heard, and who may not
(or may) be workers. How may voices of people who usually are accorded no or minimal
power over their own working or living conditions be listened to? Work in the area includes
concern with the internet and its limitations as an agent of democracy.
For example, J. Sherry 1995 discusses the constituting of unequal power relations through
the design of technologies based on a Western document paradigm. His ethnography of a
group of Navaho grassroots activists demonstrates how the use of seemingly ‘ordinary’ (to a
European/North American readership) technology such as fax revealed and reproduced
cultural and political inequalities. There was a tension between documentary practices
expected from the white community (including forms of evidence of “accountability” as an
organisation), the consequential necessity to route communication through members with
access to electric power and telephone connections, and “what members considered
traditional Navaho patterns of cooperation, including an emphasis on local autonomy,
decentralized authority, and trust built through human interaction.” (p.76). In this situation,
“The fact that technology was right in the middle of this tension suggests that the
democratization and decentralization which have been held up as goals in CSCW and PD
may rely on degrees of formalization and documentary practices which are not necessarily
universally shared.” (p.76).
In Western societies such as the Nordic countries with increasing visibility of minority
peoples--whether indigenous or of non-local origins--issues of cultural bias in access to and
decisions over technology cannot be discounted. I imagine these issues are more clearly
marked by local conditions than most. For example, Norway has a history of systematic
abuses by the state of Same (“Lapp”) and other minorities. Reindeer herding Sames are
major users of snow scooters--which is controversial due to damage to the slow growth of
nature in many of the areas where reindeer roam. How has this affected and continues to
affect access to decisions about technical development? Future visions for political
sensitising must include examining issues like these.
A politicised agenda for PD would need to centrally address, then, the legitimacy of anyone
not only to propose solutions, but to suggest what are the problems. What are the influences
on the agendas for our research? And who gets to influence them? For example, when
Scandinavian researchers are involved in implementing Participatory Design in ‘Third
World’ countries (e.g. Braa 1996, Korpela et al. 1998), what ways can and will it change?
Who decides?
Another example is a perspective that has been rather absent in the practices of computing:
that of people (users, designers) as embodied. Toni Robertson’s work in this area (e.g. 1997)
challenges, among other points, that despite “situated action” having been taken onboard in
workplace studies as a critique of cognitivism, other areas remain cognitivist, such as
perception, with an input-processing-output model being prevalent. Phenomenologist
philosopher Merleau-Ponty inspires an alternative view, placing centrally experiencing and
the experiencer. Robertson thus asks (personal communication, 2000): (i) Whose version of
(bodily) experience gets equated with Truth? And (ii) What is truth if you stop assuming an
idealised natural subject? So how do you argue for right and wrong? How do you ground
your politics? These are issues with which feminist theoreticians have been treating over
years. (For a careful analysis of (ii) in relation to both simplistic science and post modernism,
see Haraway 1991. Haraway 1997 relates some of these to the technosciences of IT and
biotechnology.) They connect to the issue skirted at the beginning of the paper: What are we
to consider politics to be about?
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P for ‘Power’? Understanding the Powers of Computing
4.3. What makes PD research?
Can researchers’ methodologies once again be politics by other means?
PD as political design poses issues of justifying such work as research. As well as a political
argument about its relevance, a “scientific” argument about the validity of methods
employed, must be sustained (by relating to already legitimised methodologies or by
establishing new ones). Originating from a discipline without methods for dealing with
people (technical design), and having become highly interdisciplinary, methodological
homes are multiple. By methodology here I am referring not to a collection of methods but to
the underlying epistemology (belief about what constitutes truth, or where or how to look for
it; hence, what goals for research you consider legitimate).
PD as a research area was developed by systems developers at a time when, apparently,
interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers was not common (nor acceptable?).
Political engagement, however, may have been acceptable, at least in restricted milieus. It
seems reasonable to guess that at the time, few criteria had been developed for evaluating
what would constitute “good” research in the area. Pioneers chartered their own way.
Taking this perspective as inspiration, it is worth examining the current situation:
Technologies of distributed work, entertainment and maybe even shopping, may appear on
the face of it to have wiped away the connection with some of the foundations of PD. This
may render some of the specific techniques and methods that have been developed as PD
techniques vulnerable to being seen as, or becoming, out of date. Researchers in PD may be
in a weak position to appeal to any general methodology (i.e. system of thought on method)
in times of change.
An important part of the impact of PD research has been, I believe, the innovative
methodological work that was one of the hallmarks of the “Scandinavian approach”. Today
this means that new methodological challenges have a better chance of meeting creative
solutions in PD than in many of the related fields such as HCI, CSCW (though the influence
may go both ways, cf. section 5.4). The perhaps small, but notable, influence of PD on these
fields has entailed, among other things, a methodological enrichment of especially HCI. I
believe the reason to be the different stance from which PD work was undertaken, and the
willingness to let the aims determine means. The problem of conformance to established
norms of methodology in (computer) science must have been an issue, but was, I suspect,
partly deferred, partly addressed as a political issue in its own right. Now these
methodologies are de facto accepted (though not necessarily without debate) as one of
several ways of doing IT research.
My presentation of the past is skewed in favour of issues I want to highlight. As argued
above, much is transferable and will inspire further work to address the different challenges
facing engaged systems development today--if thought of in those terms (as opposed to a
binary ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to PD as such). Concerning methodology in particular, I am arguing two
points: One, the focus on methods (e.g. the label “Participatory”) has served its purpose as an
anchor and is now in danger in Scandinavia of becoming a “drag”. It points to answers
perceived by many as old fashioned--in the worrying sense of “irrelevant”--and the meaning
of which, additionally, has drifted since their inception. I argue that participation should
rightfully be questioned--not thrown out, but fully open to questioning. Two, this is a positive
opportunity to think anew, to let flourish novel approaches to new castings of the problems. I
can think of no better place for this than PD, with its history of breaking with the established.
One arena in need of methodological development follows from the focus on distributed
work settings and technologies for distributed work groups discussed in section 5.3. The
methodological challenges potentially concern all involved in the analysis for and design of
computer systems. Little work has been done to address the methodological issues of
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
distribution at this level, though some exists in HCI and in CSCW (Eevi Beck 1994; J.
Cooper et al. 1995). This is an issue which, to the extent there is a concern for inclusion of
multiple parties, will have to be addressed on its own terms from a PD perspective. Thus,
Toni Robertson (1998) starts from a small distributed company, asking what participatory
design means in this context.
The problem of methods for studying and influencing geographically dispersed phenomena
has gained further currency by the introduction of studies of large scale infrastructures as
arenas for political critique (e.g. Star 1992, Bowker and Star 1999, Hanseth et al. 1996). As
well as the closer-to-ground issues that overlap with the distributed work discussion above,
this raises complex questions about scalability (Neumann and Star 1996).
Leigh Star and Ole Hanseth, Eric Monteiro and others have shown ways in which standards
are produced and reproduced, thus pointing to their “humannesses”. “Humannesses” is here
my abbreviation of features which include internal non-consistency (of standards regulating
complex areas, such as the classification of diseases) and impossibility of complete
overviews; their precariousness (work is needed to maintain standards, including others’
conformance; other systems must support them); the possibility of influencing them (though
significantly, this is differentially possible for different people/bodies: this is one place power
comes in); their habit energies (by the time other systems are supporting them, they are hard
to change); their imparting of suffering on others (in the case of standards, ironically, by the
ideal of homogenous treatment of all cases; for examples see Bowker and Star 1999);
bringing positive effects also (which is the focus of ‘everyday’ acceptance of their
rationality). The politics are chiefly about the differential distributions of power and of
suffering that the standard(s) in question gives rise to (along a number of dimensions of
analysis). These authors all point to the multiple intertwinings of computer systems with
ways standards evolve.
Within research itself, current ‘standards’ for legitimate research are closely tied to notions
of science. A central consideration for the legitimation of PD work as research is therefore
the justification of its products as those of science. ‘Scientific quality’ has since the start of
experimental science in 17th Century England been predicated on the withdrawal of those
claiming status as ‘scientist’ into a position of neutral observation (Haraway 1997, ch.1)--or
‘Modest Witness’ in Donna Haraway’s terms. Modest Witnesses could not be women or
workers (ibid.: 26-32). While such attitudes have shaped science to this day (ibid.) PD,
crucially, arose from a desire to break with them. Substantial successes notwithstanding, the
underlying issues continue to pose challenges to PD method. For example, in what senses is
it legitimate for the researcher as a ‘real person’ to be visible during the conduct and
presentation of research? As embodied (e.g. T. Robertson, cf. 4.2 above)? As having
reactions which influence analysis (e.g. E. Beck 2001)? As the author and interpreter of the
work (e.g. U. Schultze 2000, Susan Scott 2000)? These issues are highly concrete, highly
productive. I have written this paper partially in a “scientific” Voice from Nowhere and
partially revealing my presence: In what ways does even this limited self-disclosure weaken
my implicit claims to the paper being “scientific”?
The above discussions illustrates within methodology the key points of my paper: First, the
dual challenge to PD of “scientificity” and of perceived irrelevance are positive stepping
stones for new thinking. Second, such ground breaking can itself be seen as integral to PD.
The continued development of (new) arguments about method is a necessary and interesting
arena which will benefit PD and probably other fields.
4.4. Relations between individual and collective action
Questions about relations between ‘individual’ and ‘collective’ action underlie, I believe,
much of the pain in debates on what PD could be. Thus, whether individual action may
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P for ‘Power’? Understanding the Powers of Computing
undermine collective action merits some consideration. I will leave the question in its
philosophical form open, focusing on pragmatics and providing examples of areas in which
people are finding themselves engaged. Because after the turn of the millennium, all is not
political dearth.
An increasing commodification of wealthy lives in the Northern/Western hemisphere
arguably (co-)produces ‘consumerism’ at a fast pace, and with it, unsustainable usages of
natural resources. There is plenty to take issue with here, and many do. In Norway, ‘land of
plenty’ in terms of “clean” (hydro-electric) power, sufficiently large numbers of people are
questioning the need for new power plants and have been willing to sign up for nonviolent
civil action that plans for a gas plant became politically impossible to implement in 1999/
2000. Thinkers on environmentalism and Deep Ecology have proposed that the best thing
you can do for the environment is the apparently humble act of taking children out in the
forests and on the mountains (to enable them to get a relationship with relatively untamed
nature). One American author suggests that conscious parenting is the greatest act of
resistance against consumerism and an attitude of “don’t care”. Voluntary Simplicity, sitting
still, refusing fast-paced entertainment are other “consumer” actions easy to do, but hard to
carry out (wherein precisely lies its potential for resistance).8 Ethical banking is perhaps an
easier step. Awareness of the power of money, even small amounts of them, have lead many
to find ways into what in the UK is known as the Alternative Economy. Rather than placing
your savings with the “Green Portfolio” of a mainstream bank, thus staying within a
maximum earnings ethos, a different, society-changing perspective is used. Even in Norway
one such financial institution has been established (Cultura sparebank) with the aim not of
maximising return on capital but, in a strict and specific sense, benefit to society; in
Denmark, too, at least one such financial institution exists. This shows that when contributing
to change is as easy as opening an account, many do. Interestingly, however, many show
various degrees of resistance. Examining why soon reveals some of the fetters that enlist
people--“ordinary taxpayers” with small amounts of money circulating--as key supporters of
a specific economic structure irrespective of whether they agree with it. Such a line of
enquiry proposes some key issues in the complexities of individualisation and ‘voluntary’
market capitalism. Where are the boundaries between individual and collective action--are
there any? Are there alternatives to ‘market individualism’--and for whom? How do you
show the fallacy of ‘don’t have time’ to be engaged? Herein lies important lessons for
examining politics in systems development: What would be analogous shifts in conceptions
of what forms “political action” might take?
My best guess is that the confusion surrounding individualism, voluntarity, and globalising
capitalism underlie much of the uncertainty discussed in section 3. The influential analyses
by Manuel Castells (e.g. [1996] 2000) and Ulrich Beck (e.g.1994) shed light on some of
these issues. For example, substantially new challenges that urgently need to be addressed
from a computing perspective include globalisation and its consequences, but little has been
done in this area beyond (technical/semi-technical) development. One consequence of
globalisation is marginalisation (Castells [1996] 2000). Castells convincingly argues the
intrinsic nature of information and communication technology to the processes that have
established a “network society”. This network society is global, but not all-encompassing;
pockets of exclusion are appearing everywhere. Castells thus speaks of “the rise of the Fourth
World” ([1998] 2000). My argument is that those parts of (globalisation and) marginalisation
processes that in various ways might be considered ‘computer-aided’ ought to be a central
concern of computer science research. Studies are needed into “4th worlds” located in
Maputo or in Manglerud, affecting whole regions or a Scandinavian small town. The global
and the local constitute each other, as do the networked and the marginalised.
U. Beck 1994 examines, among other issues, the changing politics in a contemporary Europe
marked by increased individualization. He argues that the reduced interest in the Political is a
mis-framing of the issue (1994, p.14), an inability to analytically see the successful mass
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
movements that exist. The mistake is equating political engagement with engagement in the
established institutions of politics (or Politics, as U. Beck calls it). Women’s liberation and
ecological concerns bypass the conventional boundaries of Politics and have been and
continue to constitute major, society-changing movements. U. Beck, then, can be read to
support an argument that in the contemporary climate, collective and individual action are
not separable in terms of political outcomes.
Probably the most important point in this paper is thus: There can no longer--if there ever
was--be a semi-automatic correct answer to questions of forms of action; it requires thinking
through again and again under different circumstances. Of course collective forms of action
matters. But as demonstrated above, what this is to mean is open to contestation.
4.5. Curses of conveni-ents
Consumerism--the exaggerated attention to buying, well beyond what we need for sustenance
or well-being--is a major problem for the use of resources, including our own time. We buy
equipment (cars, leaf blowers, bread machines) to save time but spend the time sitting still (in
the car, at our desk, in front of the TV). To keep fit, we could be doing more manual work-walk to the bus, rake the garden, knead a dough--but many go instead to the health studio
(paying for which requires more time spent at work--cf. parallel argument by Bodil Jönsson.)
Dino Karabeg has analysed this in terms of the current culture having as its aim convenience
rather than well-being (personal communication, 1998). ‘Convenience’ is not having to get
out of your comfortable chair to switch TV channels, and not having to pay attention to the
shop opening hours as they’re always open. ‘Well-being’ is what you experience when your
body and mind are working well together; it is about physical, mental, spiritual, emotional-and therefore political--balances.
The visible material wealth of the majority of Norwegians shows no sign of therefore curbing
people’s want for more. How come we are richer than ever but fewer seem to show solidarity
towards those in and outside Norway with less? Analysing this question requires some new
takes on what is going on. And I suspect some of the lessons from such an investigation may
be applicable more widely. Consider concerns among the Nordic middle classes at the turn of
the millennium that some people spend too much time surfing the Internet. The reasons are
poorly understood but imbricate most of society-as-we-know-it.
Continuous streams of entertainment generate their own need. So does regular stillness,
quietness--but fewer of us get to find that out. When my home PC won’t talk to the
university’s computer so I can’t read email, and the shops are closed and we have no TV,
what will I do in the evening? In fact, play with my child, tend some plants, discover I’m
more tired than I thought, read a little, do nothing. Entertainment is meant to engage you.
When it’s there most of the time, you expect it. Expect to be seduced to voluntarily give up
your focus.
Specific links between computing and the merging of entertainment with selling are worth
examining. We are seduced into spending hours watching tv and advertising, or surfing the
net. Clicking away between web pages may be a manifestation of enjoying (or not enjoying)
being pulled away from what you ‘really were doing’. Where is the politics in this? First,
there is the consumerism of computer hardware and software--the exaggerated attention to
buying new computing equipment, and the reasons for it. Second, there are the roles of
computing technology in the widest sense in the evolution of means for marketing and
selling of many kinds of products.
Marketing takes some new turns in the for many ordinary, even mundane, practices of
netsurfing. For many the main problem is a spiralling of ‘conveniencing’ into countless hours
surfing the net without satisfaction. Yet, in every country, parts of the population have costly,
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unreliable, or no internet connections (in 2001, reports are that internet connection costs are
higher for an average citizen of an African country than for one of USA even in absolute
terms9). Whatever the costs, all must learn how to manage and protect oneself from new
methods of advertising and other forms of marketing.
To expand on the first point, computers as a commodity, ever more complicated “standard”
programs such as word processors demand ever higher capacity machines. This is part of
some very interesting processes (the details of which are whispered among computer
scientists as rumours or certainties, alongside potential threats of libel from the involved
companies), one result of which is that a lot of computers are sold to people who already had
working systems at their disposal. A benign extreme example is my department, which is
perpetually short of funds for teaching staff, but where I have several times been offered
more advanced equipment than I have asked for because it only makes sense to buy top-ofthe-range (or so I’m told). Yet, computer scientists, I contend, are in a particularly strong
position to raise a warning, to ask--seriously--who needs the additional functionality being
offered. There are two reasons why we should: we, if any, understand the issues, at least
partly. And, rightly or wrongly, we have a status that accords weight to our words.
At a seminar in Oslo in May 2000 on representations of users in computers and computing,
Andrew Clement and Lucy Suchman reminded us of the multiple and intertwining roles of
computing technology in marketing (personal communication 2000; see also Suchman,
forthcoming edition of Plans and Situated Actions). An immediate issue is that of “screen
Real Estate”--who gets to decide what is on your screen, in terms e.g. of adverts on the pages
of search engines and on-line “shops”. Seeing a deepening rather than an alleviation of the
problems in the near future, Clement spoke of an increasing narrowing of ‘ports of entry,’
cautioning that it is becoming harder to access information on the net without going through
particular “gateways”, and these are increasingly coming into the hands of money interests.
A further topic interestingly brings the “old-fashioned” interest of participation back into the
centre of concerns. The theme was the representations of the user/customer as consumer
generated by traces of electronically detectable activity, such as previous history of ordering
books through an on-line bookshop. What kind of “you” gets represented? How can we
guard against errors--and more generally, how can we ensure that we, about whom the
information is gathered, get a say about what is represented, when there is no single agency
that can be held responsible? The apparent voluntariness makes it a complex question to
open up: we click away, following the links we choose. But in the strong push-and-pull of a
highly entertaining convenience --conveni-ents--how ‘freely’ are we clicking?
Such work of critical analysis to me holds better promise for the future than PCs for
everyone. A politically sensitive computer science could do well to include for consideration
cultural-individual-collective-technical-financial processes that sustain and promote
structures (including “personal” habits of convenience) that promote self interest in the short
term rather than concern for others.
4.6. Computing and money
For the second point above it is almost hard to know where to start: Around the turn of the
millennium, computing and money making are so intimately intertwined that a vocabulary of
non-separation has been constructed: The [global] Network Economy (Castells [1996] 2000);
techno-economics (Bjørg Aase Sørensen 1982, and applied to IT in E. Beck 1997).
Computing history since the 1950ies--meaning the events that later get recalled as ‘historical’
in the development of computing as we know it (e.g. as in Castells ibid.)--has relied on the
reality and expectation that computing makes money (for someone).
The apparently necessary linkage of computing systems development with generating wealth
has, however, been contested within computing. A key focus has been that which produced
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
and sustained PD. While important as a reaction against specific consequences of this link,
PD’s longer term contribution has been weaker on the conceptualising of the connection. A
recent example of widespread contesting of a specific consequence of the money-computing
link is the movement against the patenting of software. Software patents have multinationalglobal and specific effects on specific people (including computer scientists and small
companies) and has roused considerable dissent among programmers.10 Other contesting
expressed in practical action includes many community computing initiatives. Contests that
explicitly place the link between computing and economics as analytically central include
Castells [1996] 2000 (the integral role of networked computing in the establishment of a
world wide but not all-encompassing global economy), and, in computing, Joan Greenbaum
1995 (analysis of the interests served by computing systems over several decades) and my
own (E. Beck 1997: ‘techno-responsibility’ as an alternative rationality for computing).
How might our understanding of the contemporary roles of computing be advanced by
making links between patents arguments as political activism and a renewed ‘politically
sensitive computing’ field? Or between well-being and the usage of computing to nourish
consumerism? Between the turbulent financial valuations of internet companies, lack of
organisation among computer professionals, and their burnout? Between differentials in
internet access prices and the reproduction of familiar dominance patterns?
4.7. A theoretical concern: determinism technological and otherwise
One can argue that much of the argument in the media about the internet has a flavour of
technological determinism. This is commonly thought of as taking one of two forms:
technology optimism, when the internet is being seen as inherently democratic, and technology
pessimism, when the internet is seen mainly as an agent of control, a provider of pornography,
etc. Learning from the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), technological
determinism may render people passive recipients of the technology. Work that points to
people’s appropriation of technology (e.g. Mackay 1990), is part of PD’s concern (Michael
Muller and Sarah Kuhn 1993). This alerts us to the multiple avenues many have, and use, to
change the technologies they are in contact with. By extension, such examples strengthen the
sense that technology is shaped and can be shaped by people. Although the theoretical concern
may seem far from practice, it is highly relevant to the current debate in mass media on the
internet. With a sense of having possibilities for influencing the future society critical voices
may be more readily listened to. Opinions may differ on what ideal to strive for, and whether
the possibilities of influence are great or small. Either way, a view that we are not merely
passive subjects of the technological development renders people active and leaves a chance
of engagement. This is and needs to remain a central concern of PD.
In a 1998 paper, Marc Berg discusses underlying notions of politics in several research areas
placed on the (conceptual) intersections between technology and society. He is concerned
with not only various forms of technological determinism, but also a human determinism that
he sees appearing in a variety of ‘technology critical’ research areas (including PD).
Emanuel Schegloff provides some more accessible, practical examples of ‘human
determinism’ in his 1997 paper focused on an analysis of parts of a telephone call between a
divorced couple. He champions focusing on meaning for the participants, as opposed to
analysts’ theories/preconceptions about importance of notions (such as gender). Towards the
end of his paper, Schegloff includes a brief analysis of a conversation in which gender is
made relevant by a participant in a conversation in a way that does not obviously follow from
the preceding discourse. This raises a question of how and why the member chose to do so.
Schegloff, then, in a terse form starts raising for explicit discussion relations between
“modernist politics” (Berg 1998: roughly, attention to more or less pre-defined patterns of
relations between pre-defined categories of people) and newer (dare I say post-modern?)
sensitivities to complexities of everyday living. Schegloff points to one way of in practice
combining what he champions with what he criticises: a “modernist” category (such as
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P for ‘Political action’? Changing the Powers of Computing
gender) can provide theoretical sensitivity (Grounded Theory: Strauss 1987) in analysing
exchanges as they observably take place.
More thorough discussions (though at times less explicit) of these and related themes can be
found in the works of many writers on technology (and of feminism). These include the
writings of Leigh Star, who more than any writer I know, consistently demonstrates the
multiplicities and heterogeneities of which our lives consist; Lucy Suchman’s work on the
interfaces between expectations of systems designers and actual use (1987, 1993); Marc
Berg’s work (discussed above); and that of Donna Haraway (1991, 1997). The multiple
sensitivities suggested and demanded by authors such as these pose a considerable challenge
not only to systems design, but to what ‘politics’ and ‘participation’ can mean.
Understanding the multiple ties that link ‘computer’ (in its variety of senses) with ‘power’ (in
its variety of senses) would be one of two pillars of a recreated PD. Developing approaches
for decoupling some of those links--the focus of the next section--would be the other.
5. P for ‘Political action’? Changing the Powers of
Computing
Building on some understanding of how computers unevenly distribute power, we can start
exploring appropriate forms of action to redress, counteract, or prevent this, within some
limited domain. My focus in this paper is the need for a deep reorientation from which what
may be appropriate topics and approaches will emerge from the combined work of a number
of people, over a number of years. This section, however, takes the discussion one step closer
to the pragmatics of doing so, addressing some potential barriers as well as suggesting topic
examples. There seems to be plenty to take issue with for a politics (or ethics) of computer
science, wherever one’s specific preferences may lie. For example, Norway appears to have
joined others in increasing the differences between the haves and the have-nots (with regard
to access to jobs, levels of income, access to computing resources, colour of skin, etc.).
“Downsizing” (job losses) is frequently blamed−rightly or wrongly−on computing
technologies. Issues of a blurring of the line between military funded research and other are
as current as ever. Teleworking and surveillance are issues that concern many. For schools, one
could imagine taking a lead in debating issues of access of poorly resourced schools and small
communities to the internet, in a situation much complicated by scarcity of resources. These
are all political-technical-social-cultural issues that could benefit from politically-sensitive IT/
IS research.
5.1. Taking action
The uncertainties facing the PD field (cf. section 3) as well as the substantial challenges
requiring a new understanding (cf. section 4) need not render us passive. Issues of scale loom
large (e.g. local/contained/place-based vs. global/supernational/infrastructural interventions),
as do trust--or lack of such--in our abilities to affect changes at all. In shaping appropriate
action, the following three points are worth considering: the realisation that we need not start
from scratch but can build on previous work; that whatever we can do, matters; and that we
will know what to do.
In more detail: First, critical analyses do exist that show alternative views. Notably, Joan
Greenbaum (1996a, b) argues that cutting through the marketing language of ‘empowerment’
through the computers requires a deeper understanding of the underlying economics.
Researchers with a political and ethical conscience could do well to examine such work, and
do what we can to translate into action those lessons that are convincing to us.
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
Second, regarding concrete action, the sense of powerlessness seems to depend at least in
part on the fallacy of believing that only large statements matter (hence a small statement is
not worth making). News media continuously proclaim the importance of big events. Behind,
however, are numerous unremarkable ones. Our lives mostly consist of ordinary events.
Changing these is what can bring about big changes. The power of examples in the everyday
should therefore not be underestimated. (This is further discussed below.)
The third point, uncertainty about where to put in effort, requires trust in our own capacities
to react as responsible persons. With all our differences of opinion, interests, etc., each of us
will, in a given situation, have a sense of what we think would be for the better and what
would not. In a concrete situation, we mostly do have a sense when something is not right,
even if we are unable to formulate principled stances in the abstract. The key is not to ignore
such feelings, but look at what we can do to improve the situation. It may require raising
unpopular issues for debate, or even, as Joan Greenbaum points out (personal
communication), walking away from a project. (Even if someone else takes over, the
example has been set and ripples will spread.) When we are in a situation, we will know what
needs to be done. Not necessarily in terms of universal ‘truths’−in fact, in the same situation
most of us would probably not agree on when the limit has been reached, or what is most
appropriate to do about it. Each of us then needs to dare to take action, with the trust,
discussed above, that eventually our ‘small’ actions will have some effect. This requires
experience, imagination, and above all: patience.
Questions for research might include: Could we researchers do more to promote small pools
of computer equipment where people live? Good, workable solutions could reduce costs for
each family not only to buy the equipment itself, but even the space--no extra bedroom is
needed, and of course less travel means less time away from home and less environmentally
expensive transport. Could public transport, e.g. trains, become more attractive by giving
thought and development effort to more and less facilitation of technology use onboard?
Bodil Jönsson, the Swedish Professor of Physics and writer on time, has managed to
persuade the Swedish Railroads to have mobile phone-free carriages (interview on NRK
Radio, spring 2000). Excellent. Could we also go the other way: could we use the current fast
developments in mobile computing to provide integrated (public and/or individual)
computing resources in the other carriages? Whoever said offering bulk-rate PCs to each
member was the best way of “democratising” IT? And here lies another crucial point, the
area where “society” whatever that may be unquestionably is composed of/affected by
“individual” choices--and some more than others: Choices matter, and those made by
computer scientist in our daily work, whether in academia or industry, have a chance of
mattering relatively much.
Successful movements exist. At the time of writing, it seems that public (“consumer”)
demands for at least labelling of genetically modified foodstuffs can no longer be ignored-because the protest has affected share prices (I read in 2000 that a German bank was advising
customers no longer to invest in the big “gene” companies). Ironically, many of the protesters
presumably pay into pension funds that have been contributing to the rise of these gene
companies in the first place. In what ways are information and communication technologies
co-creating such situations as status quos, and how could this be different? (Could pension
fund usages be more accountable to members?)
In Norway, an interesting example is Cultura sparebank, which combines ordinary, basic
financial services with responsible social action. This is done within a framework of coownership, transparency of investments, an interest policy implying a partial transfer of costs
from borrowers to investors, and a statement of purpose which fairly unambiguously delimits
the bank’s areas of interest to specific kinds seen as contributing to a better society. The bank
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operates in the ordinary banking market as far as attracting customers are concerned and
offers less favourable terms (in narrow economic terms) to account holders (who agree to
reduced interest on their savings)--yet has grown considerably since its establishment as a
bank in 1997. What is computer science to learn from this? First, as political action this is a
hybrid coming out of a vision to change a key site of lives-changing power--the circulation of
money--combined with a sense of pragmatics, of convenience. While conventional in its
alignment with banking, it is radical in how it does so. Second, the bank seeks to engage
customers in more general (deep) debates on money and society. Specific (hybrid) action is
combined with continuous, open discussion about why and how to operate this way. Third,
realising the bank’s vision relies wholly on people’s willingness to commit to reduced
‘convenience’ (interest) to help someone else. This faith in people’s willingness to contribute
to change is the to me single most radical aspect of the bank. And the trust is being
reciprocated.
In more theoretical terms, insights such as those of Castells and U. Beck, discussed above,
can contribute to renewed, more sophisticated analyses of the illusions and realities of
individualism and movements for change. By “illusions of individualism” I mean the idea
that we make choices freely as individuals. By its “realities” I mean that in specific ways this
fallacy is true. So, individual action(s) cannot replace collective action because they are
entwined and partly the same. To the extent they are different, I am arguing that while effort
may be needed to develop new collective forms, taking “small” measures will help us do so.
The reasons are, first, “if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem”: Doing
“nothing” means supporting status quo, what is. Small, manageable resistance is infinitely
more than none. Second, even unsuccessful attempts at doing “something” educates us on
forms of action that may work and forms that may not. And we badly need training in the
practical politics of being a citizen. As Kristen Nygaard put it (personal communication,
ca.1996), the challenge now is to make TU members see that their pension funds are
maintaining exactly that economy which hurts them (a 2001 version might be what causes
are Norwegian oil revenues supporting while being ‘invested abroad’?).
The above indicate a further point of leverage, an area for socially engaged researchers to
work with and potentially make a great difference in: to record, point to, analyse, discuss etc.
ways in which people can, and do, affect the courses of technologies, including those of
genetics and of money movements.
5.2. Users stroppy and otherwise
Theorising computer scientists’ too narrow perceptions of users has been a concern of
Participatory Design at least since the Florence project (Bjerknes and Bratteteig 1987), which
insisted on using terms denoting the professional competencies of the participants (nurses).
Sociologist Steve Woolgar raised the theme from a different angle in his widely-cited paper
“Configuring the User” (Woolgar 1991), an ethnographic analysis of the multiple practices of
some systems developers in creating a user for their system.
This is an issue that stays with us. Toni Robertson (personal communication, 2000) has
talked about it in terms of how can we develop “stroppy users”? In other words, why are not
more people who have poor experiences with their systems being “difficult”, “demanding”
better tools? What are the roles of (us) computer scientists as Experts in recreating this
situation? This is a new take on questions that were part of PD from early on, cf. work to
reduce distance between researcher and the researched. The means from then (such as
participation itself, then meaning codetermination; novel approaches such as new--object
oriented--computer languages) do not automatically transfer. The important lesson does,
however, that appropriate means can be developed although it can be hard and takes
sustained commitment. (How) could computer scientists give way to ‘stroppy users’? Would
we be willing to weaken our comfortably privileged position?
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
5.3. Facing the net: PD, community, and geographically dispersed relationships
Work and other relationships that rely on technical mediation have been brought into focus by
a trail of expectations, fears, etc. (and not least: promises of ‘efficiency’ for some). This has
had an impact on the apparent relevance of Participatory Design in a number of ways. The
argument is frequently heard in research papers and in mass media that time and space are
becoming less important. This may be the case in specific settings and in limited senses, but
evidence is that time and space are not eliminated although distance collaboration technology
is introduced. Challenges arise from the emphasis on distribution and the potential for loss of,
alternatively redistribution of, workplaces, collaboration arrangements, etc. The research area
of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) addresses some of the issues in terms of
providing improved design of the new workplaces, whereas key issues to those affected are
job losses and increased pressures without adequate compensation (Greenbaum 1996b).
One challenge to a research community that aims to be sensitive to societal impact of
computing, is what may be alternatives, how to support those facing the challenges. This may
take the form of collaboration with organised labour, but other avenues may also have to be
explored. For example, I am undertaking a longitudinal case study (over years) in a small
town which has set out to become an “IT community” (E. Beck 1997). One deliberate focus
is on people who are reached by this initiative without having had a say in it and without
necessarily wanting it. My study has so far prompted me to view as a key question relations
between computing technology and care taking, computing and economics: why is it that
computing technology time and again is the bedfellow of narrow economic concerns? What
new, technically and otherwise exciting projects could computer scientists and students work
on if it were otherwise? Imagining alternative directions is hard; that in itself is a point to
ponder (how did it get this way?). It also makes it urgent to start trying.
And some are. Concern with community networks (e.g. Doug Schuler 1994) is an example of
work outside Scandinavia which constitutes a reconceptualising of the legitimate concern of
PD as including non-work issues of democracy (an examples of interest in community-computing relations within the Nordic countries include Agneta Ranerup’s studies in
Gothenburg (1999).) I would argue for the necessity of such an expansion, and contend that
only by accepting such changes to the identity of the field, will it be possible for PD to
continue in the role as an arena for political debate. What questions might we ask about
power relations, about the reproduction of dominance patterns in and through the net? How
can the questioning encouraged by Clement and Suchman (cf. 4.5) be furthered? How do the
analyses of Castells and U. Beck (briefly discussed in 4.4) on changing relationships
between the economy, computer networks, inclusion and exclusion change our theorising of
computer systems?
5.4. PD and CSCW
PD, like any research “area,” can only exist in relation--mostly, perhaps, in contrast--to others.
In this section I consider aspects of one such relation which it may be particularly interesting
to examine. This is the research area known as Computer Supported Cooperative Work, or
CSCW; a research area with notable overlaps with PD. Does CSCW therefore make PD
superfluous?
Starting from a 1984 workshop, CSCW grew rapidly into a fairly distinct, interdisciplinary
research area. An issue much in evidence in parts of CSCW research is a concern to
understand how work takes place between and with people. This has facilitated a mix of
disciplines to be represented in CSCW research. Concern with situated action entered CSCW
with the interest in Lucy Suchman’s “Plans and Situated Action” (Suchman 1987), now an
icon of the line of argument. Authors including myself have argued that although the focus
on the situatedness of action provides an invaluable approach to understanding action in
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practice, there is an inherent tension between taking a strong stance on situated research and
the requirements of systems development. Interestingly, the issue was raised already in the
Florence project (Bjerknes and Bratteteig 1987), in the guise of the systems designers’
struggles to ‘pin down’ the work organisation so they may design to it. This issue is highly
evident in a number of CSCW papers, where it has been made more analytically explicit (e.g.
Richard Bentley et al. 1992, John Hughes et al. 1993). Grounding political research in local
conditions may be fraught with difficulties in persuading one’s colleagues of the validity of
the work, either on methodological or political grounds. Yet it is hard to imagine an
alternative route. Thus, researchers doing such work can benefit from recourse to a
community in which these are considered legitimate concerns.
Some of the concerns raised in a PD context have become evident in CSCW, such as
demonstrating skills of workers, involving users in design, and to some extent concern for
making evident the link to societal developments. In this sense, CSCW, with its greater
audience, has become an outlet for parts of the PD argument. Contributions to CSCW
include the notion of cooperative design of systems for cooperation (e.g. Morten Kyng 1991;
Tone Bratteteig, in preparation) and exchanges of influence in a number of areas (Kensing
and Blomberg’s (1998) review of PD issues relates them also to CSCW).
One respect in which I believe PD is benefiting from an exchange with CSCW, is the
extensive effort in CSCW to address methodological issues. While many of the issues
overlap (cf. section 4.3) answers would be framed differently in PD. If the strength of PD
lies in the idea of a political focus, the weakness of CSCW is, arguably, a lack of such. PD
techniques may have been adopted, but not PD politics. Greenbaum, e.g. 1994, argues that
CSCW research in focusing on improving systems for the individual team misses the greater
picture of political changes. “The media-crafted scenario that paints a high-skill, high-wage
future has little to do with the way work is being restructured. [...] work is being spread out
over time and space, with more and more of it being done outside the boundaries of
traditional employment contracts and, indeed, outside of organizational walls.” (p.62). This
can be taken as a strong note of caution about the scope of issues addressed in CSCW.
As CSCW papers rarely address political issues, CSCW does not seem to be filling a role as
the ‘home’ of concern with the political implications of computer systems design. There is a
case for another arena for researchers to raise and debate such issues.
5.5. Political risks for those involved
We are not free to choose whether our actions carry political meaning. Conforming to a
commonly held norm--”not raising your head”--also sends a signal; also co-constructs society.
What we may choose is whether to pay attention to these meanings, and whether to let that
influence our future actions. This is as true in 2001 as it was in 1971.
Presumably focusing on the political in systems development was once a hard stance to
defend also in Scandinavia, although the idea is now fairly well established in these
countries. Many researchers and practitioners would have had to face considerable personal
career risks in choosing no longer to ignore the political implications of their work. Personal
communications indicate that similar situations are currently being faced by researchers
elsewhere, whose work in the area is putting their careers at risk.
For researchers engaged in PD, a strengthened focusing of the field on the political may
therefore have different consequences depending on e.g. the culture in which they work. To a
Scandinavian academic, it may reduce the possibilities of having non-political work
published as PD. This may be an encouragement to (re-)turn to the more political (or to
publish elsewhere). To an American employed in a company concerned to finance research
through internal “business value” a turn to the overtly political may be career suicide.
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On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
Non-research participants in politically oriented research projects, whether as workers,
workers’ representatives, or others, also may be taking on risks. Issues such as these have
been themes from the start of PD, and are still with us. Much can be learned from previous
PD efforts, but no easy or complete answers exist. There is thus no cause for complacency in
taking on a political turn. The question is, however, what would be alternatives?
5.6. New directions.
Innovative design projects might contribute to desperately needed alternatives --in particular,
taking onboard the argument for the importance of the everyday. This could include
identifying new ways for researchers to enter the public debate. Western notions of democracy
are being not only developed but challenged, in and outside computer networks. Looking for
topics to work on that would bring about change may not be sufficient; we need to work on
improving the ways we do what we do.
In education, developments towards on-line distance education are taking turns that concern
many. The African Virtual University is providing broadcast courses lectured in the USA on
issues of importance to American students, to students in a number of countries in Africa,
with no or minimal possibilities for the students to influence topics or angle of presentation
(Sahay 2001). An article in the newsletter of the University of Oslo (Reinertsen 2001) warns
that World Trade Organisation agreements may force the Higher Education sector to become
part of a “market”, to be traded in internationally.
A deceptively conventional technical-political change, the rapid convergence of
technologies, promises to pose a host of new challenges for socially responsible research,
including computing(-telephony-whatever) in the home. Another change of the culturalpolitical kind, how are computing (mobile etc.) technologies contributing to speeding up life,
demands questions such as: At what costs, and for whom?
6. Conclusions: what’s in a name?
Political and power issues are part-and-parcel of what we do as researchers and practitioners.
The consistent (though not exclusive) association of the technical-rhetorical powers of
computing with the short-term interests of dominating elites worldwide, places particular
responsibility on ‘computing experts’ of all flavours. We need to give thought to this topic
occasionally or frequently, to be aware of strengths and weaknesses of our chosen approaches
(including a choice not to be concerned). And we need a more widespread integration of
politically relevant aspects of our work in our academic writings.
A research area necessarily changes over time, as furthered understanding, new fashions, and
changed circumstances lead to new twists (or big breaks) in what researchers and funders
consider interesting or appropriate research questions. Much of these processes I would call
political. In wanting to understand better the role of Participatory Design in Scandinavia
from the mid-1990ies onwards, I have been told “accusations” against PD that in various
ways centre on it being not current, or outmoded. It is perplexing (or unsurprising, depending
on your point of view) that the “Scandinavian” or “Participatory” research approach, which
so unusually addressed issues from analysis of political/power imbalances to practical
applications in a technical discipline not used to seeing its part in society, should be prone to
such fast banishment into the Old Fashioned. The “analysis” that ‘PD does not speak to
current concerns’ can usefully be taken as a starting point for looking at the challenges faced
by PD, thus shedding light on changes in the technological, epistemological and political
circumstances of computing. I am suggesting, then, that while PD as Participatory Design
has changed, a main problem is that it has not changed enough.
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Conclusions: what’s in a name?
I have argued in this paper that as the concept of involving users in design has spread to
outside Scandinavia, a gradual reconceptualisation has been taking place. Partly, the field has
become depoliticised in Scandinavia, and partly ideas have been appropriated and applied in
new contexts outside Scandinavia. Much of the ground breaking work in PD has moved
outside the Nordic countries. People in Scandinavia have, I contend, reason to worry about
this considerably more than we seem to: worry not about the “arrival” of PD elsewhere, but
about the dearth of new thinking here, and about perceptions of participatory design as outmoded. Maybe it is--when frozen in a 1980ies form. But in a world with ever increasing,
multiple and complex dependencies of individuals and collectives on computers, the project
of PD is needed more than ever. This project--as I see it--is to understand, support and
encourage IT development and use projects that in big or small ways aim to counter the
reproduction of marginalisation. The interest from outside the Nordic region, then, is to be
not only accepted as “joining us”, or providing others with pointers to examine political
issues in their own home countries or cultures. While this is important, the conceptual lead of
providing fresh points of view--some of which will be provocative to the Scandinavian
tradition--are to be welcomed in Scandinavia as rescuing us from complete stealth in this
area.
We need for a forum for research oriented to the politics of computer system design, and PD
has potential to be such an arena. To avoid the danger of Scandinavians believing our work is
political work because “it always was”, I have--at the risk of contributing merely to debates
about politically-sensitive systems development--pointed to weaknesses of PD in
Scandinavia as I see them, and the danger of complacency about the political focus. Concern
for a turn away from the political is evident from authors with a range of backgrounds. While
objections can be raised against individual points of argument, this concern needs to be taken
seriously in Scandinavia. Realising PD’s potential requires a renewed conceptualisation of
areas and means of impact of politically motivated systems design research.
Participatory Design, then, is a term whose time is all but past in Scandinavia; as a
description it is inaccurate and as a symbol it has lost power because changed circumstances
make it either dangerously naive and open to co-option, or a little outmoded. In short, if the
name remains unchanged, considerable effort will be needed to renew the associations it
evokes. (Such an undertaking could be fun!)
So what’s in a name? I am using the rhetorical-political device of questioning the name of the
research field as a turning axis for capturing the dual need to change and the fact of changes.
Pointing out the insufficiency of the name and its downright misguiding associations turns
out to be easy, almost trivial, as experience after it was coined has shown participation to be
insufficient as a condition for society-changing activity (whether it is a necessary one is an
open question). Returning to the title, participation is not enough. That is, for an individual
study, or for a person’s life work, it may be more than enough--when and if the aim is
counteracting dominance patterns. ‘Participation’ without qualifiers, however, has become
‘not enough’ to foster politically sensitive systems development/computer systems studies.
As some excellent PD research has shown, “participation” (in its current, broad meaning) is
not a sufficient condition for changing power relations. In other words, not enough to
contribute to societies with a more equal distribution of access to material and other
resources (e.g. good health or stillness). As a pointer to a practical technique, it is a useful
reminder but too narrow. As a description of society-changing activity it is inaccurate to the
extent we want to allow new forms of action to be potentially relevant.11 How to specify all
this in a name? And how to allow for the continuous and poorly predictable changes in (and
evaporations of) accustomed boundaries between technologies? Socially responsible design
(encompassing computing, telecom or otherwise), technical design for the dominated, power
sensitive development, political design... the field is open.
27
On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
This paper has merely skimmed some of the issues of the potential for the future. Topics of
politically-oriented PD research include identifying points of leverage for a political activism
in and through systems design. We could do well to examine and politicise--i.e. bring out the
existing politics in what we do--our own roles in contributing to constructing computing
technology. What roles are we taking on and given as “pushers,” “representatives,”
“defenders,” and “critics” of computing? Arguing the integral relevance of the political
aspects of computer system design needs to be renewed and repeated as circumstances and
concerns evolve. We must dare to risk a less smooth career for ourselves. A rhetorics of
renaming makes sense if and when real consequences ensue in supporting the real task:
‘P for Political’ must be made a credible alternative--irrespective of the labels. And the job is
on us, the researchers in Scandinavia, even more than elsewhere.
Notes
1
A previous version of this paper appeared in Proceedings of PDC’96, the Participatory
Design Conference: “P for Political? Some Challenges to PD Towards 2000.”
2 By “outside Scandinavia” I am referring primarily to the UK, the US, and other areas where
such issues seem a new concern as a notable part of computing. This seems to contrast with
Germany, for example, where participatory design became an established, if minority, part of
computer science from early on (Yvonne Dittrich, personal communication, 1998), and where
the political context of PD may not have been as much an explicit argument in the discussion.
I would be interested to know more about the views on PD of politically interested German
computer scientists.
3 Bjerknes
and Bratteteig see ethics as synonymous with non-politics, hence an effort needs
to be made to reverse this trend. An argument can be made, however, that ethics and politics
need to go together (cf. the implications of a politics without ethics: pure power play?). The
key point to my argument is their observation of a turning away by Scandinavian researchers
from the collective political perspective.
4 Presumably the purpose of wishing to involve businesses was to ensure their needs would be
met by the research conducted under the programme. In fact, around that time I met with a
Special Advisor to the University of Oslo on EU research proposals; a British consultant who
apparently had well-developed links to EU research decision makers. During the course of our
meeting, I was helped to see that my interpretation of phrases such as “User involvement at
every stage of the proposed project” (European Commission DG XIII 1994, p.vi) probably
differed markedly from that intended. The kind of users referred to in this call for proposals
were not the kinds I had in mind, but big businesses (he mentioned Unilever as an example of
the size and kind of business the Commissioners may have had in mind). Whether or not his
reading was correct for this specific programme is of less interest than the fact that a
professional “lobbyist” with close ties to Brussels thought this the most likely interpretation.
Consider, further, that in question are the constraints for EU funded research.
5 Although
some much publicised sub-cultures do truly transgress geographical boundaries,
and e.g. notions of ‘society’ as a stable entity have been convincingly contested (e.g. John
Urry 2000), place still matters. Place, in fact, matters differentially--therein the new politics
of place: Claims to the irrelevance of ‘place’ (as replaced by ‘space’) can only be made from
a position of the “unmarked category;” the dominants.
6
At IRIS 17 (1994) some such contributions are evident, while the year after, few, if any,
papers raised ‘political’ issues. At IRIS 19, there were politically oriented keynote speeches
and one paper contribution. These, however, were all from well-established researchers and
among them only one Scandinavian. In the Proceedings of IRIS 20, named “Social
Informatics,” I am heartened to find 4-6 papers (of 56) that seem to directly or indirectly make
use of the ‘political’ sensitising of early PD. IRIS 21 (1998), again, saw a keynote, from a nonScandinavian, that unambiguously encouraged seeing political aspects of our work. Counting
one of my own, I find 3-4 papers out of the 68 in the IRIS 21 Proceedings that might be
28
Acknowledgments
inspired by such perspectives. (This, of course, is a highly subjective survey.)
7 Although
‘society’ as a reality and unit of sociological analysis is arguably tied to a notion
of nation state that itself is being questioned by the realities of contemporary trans- and
international relations (John Urry 2000), the term is appropriate here as TUs belong within
and help constitute such national frameworks. Elsewhere I do use the term in the imprecise
sense questioned by Urry, or in the network sense given it by Castells.
8 Many who have chosen more modest accommodation and letting go of the car find their time
and energy freed up to do more of whatever they find nourishing once they are no longer tied
to working long hours to pay for their mortgage and car loan. More subtly, if you have not tried
it, imagine life without TV, say for a week or a month. What would you do? Might you read
more, talk more with family or neighbours, or get more real rest so you had more energy for
other activities? Would you spend more time on a hobby that nourishes you, or joining that
local organisation, political or otherwise, that you never got around to engaging with? And
might your choices about what and how much to buy be a little bit different with less adverts
in the house and more quiet space to let your own idea(l)s grow?
9 An article in Folkevett, 2001, gave average access prices from African cities (year not stated)
as above US$50 per month for 5 hrs. access, and from the USA, US$29 per month (20 hrs.
access). [Source provided: Mike Jensen.]
10 Good sources for the key arguments against the patenting of software are the Free Software
Foundation and the League for Programming Freedom, see http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/
patents.html (current as of April 2001). See Haraway 1997 for some of the broader political
context.
11
An extreme example may be “Hacktivists” who use their skills to damage the computer
systems of environmentally or otherwise “bad” regimes. Hacktivists were interviewed for the
April 2000 issue of Putsj, newsletter of the Norwegian environmental youth group Natur og
ungdom, who thought individual action was sufficient if effective (why gather 200 people for
a demo when you can achieve as much with a few). Other activists interviewed strongly
disagreed, emphasising the empowering experience of taking action together. The prospects
of individuals with disproportionate power over others’ computing systems taking action
raises complex issues well beyond “privacy and security” debates or how to coordinate
international legislation and police action against hackers. Some touching on political action
are: ownership (is the legal financial ownership of computing resources sufficient grounds to
protect that ownership using collective resources, irrespective of the uses to which they are
put? Or is ‘unfair use’--by whose standards?--moral grounds for subverting their use?),
participation (cf. above), epistemology (what--or how small/large--groups of people should
decide who are the “bad” regimes, the rightful targets of counteraction), morals/ethics (what
are relations between the practical ethics developed for and in small, net-mediated
communities such as hackers, and those developed through older media but also in small
communities? Are these media ‘less public’ and if so, how, and what does this matter?), fame/
identity (through what actions does one get attention, for what or whom, and why?).
Acknowledgments
Discussions at and after the Third Decennial Aarhus conference in 1995 sparked off my wish
to engage in a debate on systems development and politics. Feedback on the PDC version
provided much useful input. The current version has benefited from time for ideas to settle,
becoming a parent, and from comments from Margunn Aanestad and Svein Myreng. Thanks
to Svein for looking after Kyrre, and for being an enthusiastic folder of cloth nappies.
Funding: grant no. 116072/432 from the Norwegian Research Council.
29
On PD in Scandinavian Computing Research
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