In Search of Sensitive Ethnography of Change: Tracing the Invisible HandOffs from Technology Developers to Users
A paper presented in the symposium “Dealing with marginality: Tracing the partial and the fragile
in coordinating the social practices of diverse collaborators”, held in the ISCRAT Fifth Congress
of the International Society for Cultural Research and Activity Theory, ‘Dealing with Diversity –
Tools and Resources for Human Development in Social Practices, 18-22, June, 2002,
Amsterdam
Mervi Hasu
University of Helsinki
Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research
P.O.Box 47, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: mervi.hasu@helsinki.fi
Extended abstract
It is suggested that to understand the processes of exclusion of women from
technical practice, feminist scholars need to get inside the “black box” of
technology production. This paper draws on the work of Susan Leigh Star (Star &
Strauss, 1999; Star, 1991) and Lucy Suchman (2001) proposing that the
prevailing form of technology adoption and stabilization through the “handing-off”
of technologies across multiple, discontinuous worlds relies upon articulation
work that is largely invisible. The paper discusses the problem of opening the
black box, that is, how the “invisible” in technology production and use can be
traced in practice. I introduce a research methodology that is sensitive not only to
the processes of exclusion but also to the emerging interactions and innovative
efforts among technology developers and users regardless of their gender.
The challenge of such dynamic methodology is to trace on-line the emerging new
pattern of activity when it does not have as yet any discernible center or clear
material entity. The context of my doctoral research, the early implementation of
an innovation, is a prominent example of such an activity. It is a collaborative and
potentially expansive endeavor in which both the innovation and the user activity
are transformed in the process of adopting the innovation into use. Such a setting
is a theoretical and methodological challenge for research. It has emerged as
one of the major interests among activity theorists in the field of work and
organization (Engeström, 2000; Engeström & al., 1998) and has also attracted
growing interest among organizational research (e.g., Weick, 2000; Orlikowski,
1999).
Compared to more conventional research approaches that use such methods as
performance measures before and after implementation or “intended change”,
the activity-theoretical approach that I applied uses ethnography for tracing the
embryonic and bottom-up change efforts in the actual local processes of the
given work practice. Thus, I focused my ethnography on those local, mundane
processes of implementation and use of the new medical device, following within
an innovation network how the new pattern of clinical use emerged within the
established pattern of basic research use. Compared to traditional laboratory
studies (e.g., Knorr-Cetina, 1981), my ethnography covered multiple rather than
a single site, and it was focused on transformation and diffusion rather than
stabilization and closure. I call this research practice, informed by activity theory,
as the “ethnography of change”.
I found it problematic that simultaneously with the intense application of activitytheoretically informed ethnography to explore transformative organizational
processes and their discoordinations, the methodological reflection of
ethnography in terms of interactive process between the researcher and those
researched has remained limited. In this respect, I wonder whether activitytheoretical ethnography is sensitive enough to certain kinds of qualities of
participation that are related to the subjective position of the people involved in
collaborative endeavors, including the researcher.
Traditionally, in activity-theoretical research on work and organizations
(Engeström, 1987, 1993), ethnography has been directed from the historical
analysis of the given work activity. Special analytical means have been
developed to discover, record and analyze the systemic disturbances within a
single activity system (e.g., a general practitioners’ activity system in the health
care center) as manifestations of inherent contradictions embedded in the
activity. The development and application of the theory, rather than the
ethnographer’s practice or position, emerged as the key issue in the pioneering
phase of this research specialization. In activity-theoretically informed
ethnography, reflection on the researcher role has been somewhat weak when
compared to other ethnographic traditions that have addressed the reflection of
the interactive research relationship (e.g. Wylie, 1994). Accordingly, in most
activity-theoretical studies, the ethnographer remains invisible (see also
Forsythe, 1999).
Although the question of methodological sensitivity may have appeared a
challenge for activity-theoretical research before, I have found it increasingly
important in such new contexts of research of which my own research is an
illustrative example: a trajectory, an emerging new pattern of work and interaction
without a clear center or location.
More recently, when the focus of activity-theoretical ethnography has been
moved from single activity systems to cover several interacting activity systems
and their networks (e.g., Engeström & al., 1999; Hasu, 2001; Saari, forthcoming),
a need to reassess the use of ethnography and ethnographer’s practice has
emerged. One indication of this need is that while the outcomes of intense, multisite ethnography are increasingly valued, at the same time, the reflection on the
researcher’s experiences and subjectivity has not been encouraged or practiced
systematically. I will argue that directing ethnography solely on the basis of
historical hypothesis of contradictions, and focusing it exclusively on visible
breakdowns and their straightforward recording may not capture in essence the
multiple identities and voices of diverse participants and their fragile, intersecting
trajectories that are also instrumental in bringing about effects.
I suggest that if the activity-theoretical analysis is further developed as an
ethnography of change able to reveal multi-voicedness that exceeds the
expected or hypothetical categories, more attention needs to be paid to the
sensitivity of ethnography and the interactive processes of data collection among
those researched. I will elaborate upon part of my doctoral research in which the
ethnographer’s sensitivity about the subjects’ marginality helped enrich the
activity-theoretical analysis and demonstrated a need for further elaboration on a
few key activity-theoretical concepts used in the study.
Assumed neutrality to such marginalities as gender, age or ethnicity, can make
the ethnographer blind to the initiatives and voices of those people. Also the
other dimension, fragility and vulnerability of their potentially expansive efforts,
may never come to the eyes and ears of the researcher. It seems to me that the
activity-theoretical analysis would benefit from the opening for inclusion of this
subjective partiality and marginality inherent in every collective activity (Star,
1991).
This is not a matter of intensifying the practices of ethnography by adding more
field workers or video-recorders. Inspired by the recent work of Vera JohnSteiner, I propose that more sensitivity to peoples’ lives and voices - not only as
workers/practitioners but also as persons, including position and the identity that
they attribute to themselves - are called for (John-Steiner, 2000; Dreier, 1999). I
will discuss the emerging of shared identities, intersubjectivity between the
researcher and the research subjects as a source for mutual trust and dialogue in
delicate field situations.
My study showed that while expansive endeavors are empowering, they can also
be fragile. It seems, on the basis of the empirical evidence of my study, that
expansive, collaborative efforts require not only mastery of the cognitive and
material sphere but also coping with the complex, emotional and relational
dynamics in which the construction of identities plays a crucial role.
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