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Homo Participatus
- or: another day at the office of engagement
The following text is a revisionist mixture. It consists of my power points from the
DASTS conference (Århus University, 5-6 June, 2008) interspersed with what I said,
what I tried to say, and what I would have wanted to say, had I known the responses
from the audience in advance. I thank in particular Astrid Jespersen, Maja Horst,
Anders Blok, and Klaus Høyer for their insightful comments.
Torben Elgaard Jensen
DTU Management
tej@ipl.dtu.dk
9.6.08
Homo Participatus
– On the Framing of Engagement
Annual Conference of DASTS
Institute of Information and Media Studies
Århus University, 5-6 June 2008
Torben Elgaard Jensen
Technical University of Denmark
The context of this talk is this: I am an associate proffessor at the Technical University. I teach
design engineers various topics from organization theory, innovation theory and STS. My research
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topic, broadly speaking is the question of how companies construct knowledge about their present
and future users and how they relate these constructions to the design and development of new
products. To be bit more specific, I am interested in the question of engagement – through what
arrangements are people outside the companies actively related to the construction of technological
futures. To be even more specific, I am interested in comparing different arrangements of
engagement. My present reseach work consists of a series of interviews with designers and
engineers who use engagement as a part of their toolbox.
However, the term engagement is tricky, and this is what I want to talk about. I we turn to the STS
litterature one can distinguish at two different ways of talking about engagement.
Engaging ’people’ and techno-science –
Two approaches
• Public
• Democracy,
nationstate, citizens
• Political process
• Informed debate and
decision
• Public Understanding
of Science (PUS)
• Public Engagement
with Science (PES)
•
•
•
•
•
User
Individualised
Consumption
Commerce
’Co-construction’ of
user and technology
in all phases
• SCOT
Some would say that the question of engagement is the question of how the public or the citizens in
a democratic nationstate relate to techno-science. The key question is about due political process.
How should one arrange informed debates? How should one arrive at informed decisions? How
should expert and lay be brought to together? These issues have been raised by the Public
Understanding of Science tradition, and by its later development into Public Engagement of
Sicence.
Others would say that engagement is about co-construction. It is about the mutual construction of
artefact, users and practices at all stages of development from the early configuring of the user,
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where designers experiment with the distribution of activititives, roles and responsibilites between
users and technologies – to the final situation where users domesticate technologies, reappropriate
them for other purposes, and in various ways twist and bend the scripts that designers tried to build
into the artifacts and instruction manuals a long time ago.
It fairly easy to make the case that these two forms of ‘engagement’ have very little to do with each
other. State funded big science vs. privately owned technological enterprises. Collective public
democratic deliberation (should we allow Genetically Modified Organisms in Denmark) vs private
individualised use (should I buy a mac or a PC). Public vs. user. It is also noteworthy that the belief
in engagement seems to be distinctly different. PES people are rather pessimistic, or at least
ambivalent; they note a new mood for dialogue among public officials, but they still see a huge gap
between scientic expertise and lay publics (Irwin 2006). Co-construction authors seem rather
optimistic due to the increasing number of points of contact (Oudshorn & Pinch 2003).
So perhaps we should just leave it there. No need to mix up separate things…
There is however a number of indications that the boundary is less clear than the image, I have been
drawing so far.
Leaks
• Privatization of public issues, eg. Monsanto vs.
Greenpeace. (Irwin & Michael, 2005)
• Public trust of science is related to the
competitiveness of nationstates (Irwin 2006,
Elam & Bertilsson 2003)
• Participatory Design (Asaro 2000, Suchman et
al. 2002)
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• User-driven innovation, ’Democratizing
innovation’ (von Hippel 2005)
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First of all, authors within the PUS tradition has noted that private enterprises often play crucial role
in public debates and disputes about technoscience. For instance, the question allowing Genetically
Modified Organisms is just as much a public debate between Monsanto and Greenpeace, as it is a
debate between governments and citizens. In more general terms several authors have pointed out
that question of public trust of technoscience is intertwined with the question of national
competitiveness. The public should engagement positively with science, not only because it is their
civic duty, but also because it is in their best economic interest. To put it bluntly, nationstates also
act a bit like companies.
If we look on the side of business, there are many straws in the wind that indicate a trend toward a
broader dialogue with the public. The buzzwords of Corporate Social responsibility and political
consumer indicate that companies increasingly manage and worry about their public image and
their brand. It we look more specifically at product development there is the proud Scandinavian
tradtion of participatory design. This tradtion clearly links user involvement with a democratic
agenda. The recent focus on the so-called user-driven innovation, with Eric von Hippel as the key
figure, is another example of how companies increasingly think about and relate to their publics.
The argument here is that companies must learn how to relate respectfully to local community
knowledges. The title of von Hippel’s latest book is telling. It is: Democratizing Innovation. So to
put it bluntly: Companies also act a bit like nationstates.
The point I want to make here is not, that nationstates are businesses and vice versa. I am simply
arguing that the boundaries are fuzzy. And I want to make the additional point that if we want to
study engagement it might be helpful to be able to think about both users and citizens. When a
Government organizes public debate about GMO is is also concerned with national competitiveness
and in a broad sense with the possible designs of GMO and GMO use. When a company develops a
specific product it is also thinking about its ‘public relations’.
So how do we combine a perspective on users and publics? How do we move from what seems to
be one sphere to the other. It is possible to develop a common vocabulary? Is it possible to perform
some sort of symmetry trick?
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Is it possible to speak of user and
public in the same terms?
Voting booth
Shopping cart
(Cochoy & GrandClément-Chaffy, 2005)
I can’t say that I have the answer. But I have couple of cases to work with. The first is a small and
amusing article written by the French economic sociologists Franck Cochoy and Catherine
Grandclément-Chaffy (2005). Among other things, the two authors make a comparative analysis of
two arrangements for the expression of choice: the vooting booth and the shopping cart.
The second case is about user-involvement in product design in a small design company in
Copenhagen. It is based on an interview, I conducted a few weeks ago.
Let us turn first to Cochoy and Grandclément-Chaffy and notice how they drag their feet in order to
explain their endeavour to the readers.
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...dragging their feet
• ”somewhat risky extended parallel”
• ”We dare opinate that the question is worth
posing at the risk of scandalizing those who
think that the world is divided into noble subjects
and trivial objects, important questions and
secondary matters, and who therefore deem it
unseemly to compare entities that ’cannot’ be
compared”
(Cochoy & GrandClément-Chaffy, 2005)
In the presence of two well-established ways of talking about people and techno-science it is risky
mix up the repertoires. Their take on the issue, however, is elegant. They ask how a particular
material arrangement supports and configures the expression of choice. And they analyse a series of
pointed contrasts between the booth and the cart.
The material supports for
the expression of choice
• Single isolated choice
• Mobile, several choices
• Closed, private
• Open, ’readable’
• Limited access
• Universal access
• Tight, unipersonal space
• Pluripersonal, open
space
• Like a synchrotron it
momentarily separates
the elementary particles
of society
• ’subjecting individuals’
choices to examination
and questioning by those
close to them
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The voting both supports a choice that is single and isolated, whereas the shopping cart arranges a
series of choices as the family moves down the ailes of the supermarket. The booth supports a
closed private choice behind a drawn curtain, whereas the openness of cart makes it readable from
all sides. To enter the voting booth one has be 18 and registrered voter. Furthermore the limited
access is indicated by the shelf positioned at adult elbow-height. By contrast the shopping cart
offers children seat or a place to stand. Finally, the space set up by the voting booth is tight and unipersonal, where as the space arranged by the shopping cart is pluri-personal an open. Summing up,
Cochoy and Grandclément-Chaffy remarks that the voting booth “performs a role for the social
body similar to the one played by the synchrotrone in nuclear physics: It momentarily separates the
‘elementary particles’ of society from their relations to each other and loosens social ties, realizing
for an instant a situation close to the utopia of an independent individual deciding alone, entirely
free from pressure from public opinion, friends, family” (Cochoy & Grandclément-Chaffy,
2005:651). By contrast the shopping cart assembles; It subjects “individuals’ choices to
examination and questioning by those close to them” (ibid, p.652).
In my reading, the point of this exercise is not to say that a particular material set-up determines or
proves a particular kind of choice. These games are always open. A person may enter a voting
booth and end up making the choice that befits his or her family. The whole family may go to the
supermarket only to discover that mother decides. But I would nevertheless argue that material setups shift the balance of forces, so that separation becomes easier with the voting booth (other things
being equal), and assembly becomes easier with the shooping cart (other things being equal).
With this in mind, let us turn to the case of user engagement in the Copenhagen design firm. Let us
examine the specific material arrangement, and the kind of choice, i.e. design choice, that may be
expressed and performed in them.
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Supporting a design
choice
?
Broad
p
behalf roblems o
n
of s ur
and s
g
urgeo ery
ns
Prototypes
wed
narro
y
ll
a
Radic
focus
Notes
 Define a limited design issue
 Gather possible problems
 Translate problems to objectified solutions (prototypes)
 Ask the user to ’vote’ for or against each prototypes
The key situation, I want to adress, is indicated by the drawing at the center. It shows two designers,
who visit a surgeon in his office at a hospital. What the two designers bring to the table, so to speak,
is indicated on the right. A medical device company has developed a kind of wire, which can be
used to block blood vessels and hence bleeding during neck surgery. This first company has asked
the designers’ company to develop a suitable packaging. Since the designers know nothing about
the context of use, they decide to contact a hospital and find a surgeon who is experienced with
neck operations. The surgeon invites them to his office. What the surgeon brings to the table is his
personal experience with neck surgery, and he presumably also speaks on behalf of other surgeons
who perform a similar job. At the meeting, the two designers ask a series of broad questions about
what happens during a neck surgery. The surgeon explains how different materials are arranged and
used in sequence. The one question that the designes carefully avoids to ask is how they should do
design the packaging. Instead they carefully note and draw the different problems and challenges
related to the use of the wire during surgery. One of them, which turns out to be important, is the
fact that surgeons’ fingers are often slippery, which makes it diffifult to get a grib on a thin wire.
After the meeting the designers return to their company with their notes, and they eventually design
a box and special clip that is attached to the wire. With the clip is easy to grib the wire and take it
out of the box. A prototype of this design is then made and one of the designers’ return to the
surgeons to ask his opion. The surgeon agrees that this particular packaging will be functional. To
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sum up, this version of ‘engagement’ follows a four step procedure. (1) Define a limited design
issue. In this case it is packaging and only packaging which is designed. (2) Gather possible
problems. In this case, a particular surgeon in a particular hopital is chosed as a spokesman. (3).
Translate problems to objectified solutions. In this case the designers’ note one problem in
particular, which they translate into the idea of adding a clip, and which they materialise in the form
of a prototype. (4). Ask the user to vote. In the case, the surgeon revisited and asked to give his
opinion on the prototype.
What should one make of this case? It is small in the sense that is doesn’t require a lot of manhours. It is uncontroversial in the sense that no one debated before or after whether this was a
sensible way to proceed. It is unconspicious in the sense that it doesn’t attach a whole lot of
attention from anyone. Nothing, for instance, is written about it on the company’s homepage, except
that ‘we take a market oriented approach”. And yet, in the interview the designer indicated that this
is how they normally do it. Not every day, not in every project, but quite often. This is how
technoscience often meets the people.
But what kind of choice is supported here? Are the designers arranging and engaging a user or a
public? Is it like voting or is it like shopping?
Let us try to relate our little case to the dimensions defined by Cochoy & Grandclément-Chaffy.
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Between voting and shopping?
•
Single, isolated
choice
•
Single isolated issue – several possible
problems
•
Mobile, several
choices
•
Closed, private
•
The design decisions are private but exposed
to subsequent evaluation
•
Open, ’readable’
•
Limited access
•
Access is negotiated between trading and
gifting.
•
Universal
access
•
Tight, unipersonal
space
•
Closed meeting between two sets of expert
representatives.
•
Pluripersonal,
open space
•
•
Like a synchrotron
is momentarily
separates the
elementary particles
of society
•
Engagement is the ’art’ of: Separating design
issues and subjecting them to broad
examination and questioning.
•
’subjecting
individuals’
choices to
examination and
questioning by
those close to
them
Or: The choice is expressed in a setup that
allows the designers to go shopping for
problems and that allow the users to give their
vote.
Single or several choices? First, it appears that the choice taken in the ‘packaging case’ is an
isolated one; The design firm has been hired to design the package and only the package. It is as if
all the relations that make up the product has been synchrotroned in order to separate out one small
issue that the designers can bring along to the surgeon’s office. At this place however, the reverse
process of gathering or assembling begins. The surgeon is asked to decribe his or his colleagues’
problems in broad terms. Anything that might relate to packaging is interesting. And in the weeks
that following the first meeting, one must assume that the designers search or ‘shop’ through a
number of possible package designs. So the design issue is isolated but the space of problems and
solutions is made broad.
Private or open? Although the surgeon is asked to describe possible problems, he is not a part of
the discussion, when the designers choose a design solution. This work is carried out in the privacy
of the design company. However, after the choice of a solution, the curtains are drawn back. The
designers ‘come out’ and ask the surgeon to evaluate the prototype. At this moment the previous
process has been translated into a prototype which makes the design choice both open and reable.
Access? Who is allowed to participate in the process that leads to the choice of a packaging design?
Clearly, the answer is neither a single individual nor a family group. The access in this case is
limited to a three people. And they are all there because the design firm recognizes them as experts.
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The surgeon is approached because he performs neck operations on a daily basis. The two other
participants are hired by the design firm as professional designers, and they are formally put in
charge of the project. The meeting in the office, then, is like a meeting in an expert committee. The
surgeon speaks on behalf of his field and his colleagues. The designers speak (or ask) on behalf of
the design field and their company.
Collective choice or not? Finally, one could ask if the choice in this case is articulated with a tight,
unipersonal space or if the designers arrange a rather open and pluripersonal process. This is a
difficult question, which brings us back to the question of what the ‘assembly of representatives’
actually does. One could argue that the three men make a closed circle and that nothing guaranties
that they represent anything but themselves. But one could also argue that the meeting in the
surgeons office constitutes an space, which is open to all sorts of arguments, gestures, stories, and
materials, through with external ‘others’ may be represented and related to each other.
In sum, the packaging case falls strangely in between the ‘voting’ and the ‘shopping’. It combines a
separation move with an assembly move; first it separates out a design issue, later it assembles
possible problems and solutions that relate to this issue. It combines private design decisions within
the firm with a subsequent and more open prototype evaluation. It restricts access to appointed
experts, yet it attempts to use these experts as representatives of broader populations.
There are three sets of conclusion that I would like to draw from this small analysis.
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Conclusions
• Homo Participatus can be framed and
materially supported in many ways.
• Some versions of this figure do not fall
neatly under the rubrics of ’user’ or
’public’
•Engagement need not be problematic
•Cold situation: well-contained issue,
spokesperson, and objectification.
•Potential for warming up … (cf. Callon
1999)
•Attention to framing / material supports
may be used to trace and compare cases
of engagement (I hope).
The first and most immediate conclusion is that engagement can be framed and materially
supported in many different ways. If we attend to the practical and material circumstances, such as
the ones discussed in this paper, it becomes apparent that some versions of ‘homo participatus’ do
not fall neatly under the rubrics of ‘user’ or ‘public’. What the design firm arranges and supports is
a potent participant, who is allowed to speak as an expert, to represent other experts, and to ‘vote’
for or against the designers’ prototype. But it is also a ‘homo participatus’ whose attention is only
directed to a strickly limited design issue, who is one the other side of the ‘curtain’, when design
decisions are made, and who has no control over what happens when his final ‘vote’ has been cast.
One could say that the designs firm has found a way to subject itself to external challenges and
evaluation, and one could say that it has found a procedure to effectively limit and direct the dosis
of public opinion. Or one could simply say that the design firm has arranged a workable version of
‘homo participatus’, which is neither merely a user, nor a public.
The second conclusion is about the stability of the arrangement. As I have indicated, the design
company’s approach is workable, and rather mundane. It is, as it were, another day at the office for
the design engineers. From the case it is possible to point out some of the sources of this stability.
The arrangement hinges on the ability to limit the design issue (only packaging), to pick a good
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spokesperson (an experienced and helpful surgeon) and to translate the articulated problems into a
material solution (a clip). With this list, it is also easy to imagine what might go wrong, or what
might turn this cold situation into a hot one (to use a couple of terms borrowed from Callon, 1999).
The packaging may interfere with other aspects of the product. The choice of spokesperson may
lead the designers astray. And the articulated problems may be impossible to translate into a
prototype that the users will accept. The conclusion here is similar to Callon’s analysis of market
framing: The very same elements that constitute framing and stability are the potential entry points
of overflows, disputes, unpredictability and ultimately chaos.
The third point in this conclusion is merely a reiteration of what I hope this sort of analysis can do.
My ambition is to study and compare a variety of arrangements through which ‘people’ are
‘engaged’ in technoscience. From the packaging case I feel justified in believing that close attention
to the practices and materialities of engagement will contribute to a broad and realistic discussion
on how engagement is and can be done.
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