Conveners:
Dr Robin Boast (Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge)
Dr James Leach (Anthropology, University of Aberdeen)
Dr Lee Wilson (CRASSH, University of Cambridge)
As part of the 'New forms of knowledge for the 21st Century' research agenda at Cambridge University, the workshop explored why designers and developers of new technologies should be interested in producing objects that users can modify, redeploy or redevelop. This exploration demanded an examination of presuppositions that underpin the knowledge practices associated with the various productions of information communication technologies (ICT). A central question was that of diversity: diversity of use, of purpose, and of value(s). Does diversity matter, in the production and use of ICT, and if so, why?
The aims of the workshop were:
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To promote the development of ICT media that ensures diverse and local public constituencies and interests.
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To encourage an approach to ICT development - in education and civic society - that will adopt and enable diversity of use, local modification and creativity.
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To encourage cultural and educational institutions to disseminate their vast bodies of information for the use of diverse communities, with diverse interests and knowledges, in a way that will enable and empower reuse, modification and local significance.
To address these questions, the workshop explored two overlapping themes: modification of use, and modifications of social processes facilitated by, or inspired by, engagements with ICT. How have new technologies come to be incorporated in existing social practices? In what ways have peoples use of ICTs facilitated greater agency and capacity for political engagement? In making issues public, or through making publics, how has the use of ICT given or amplified the voice of particular communities? How might models of collaborative work, of effective organization or action be facilitated by ICT? Could the resultant models be used as an inspiration for developing appropriate and usable social interventions, or further technological objects? What are the implications that these instances might have for a 'user centered' or 'user owned' ICT agenda.
The workshop aimed to make concrete a subversion of the idea of single kind of user, or for that matter designer, and the desire to predict or meet the needs of the end user through products which all too rapidly become obsolete. Furthermore, to question the assumption that obsolescence is inevitable, and that value creation must rely on professional development of new objects rather than public innovations and redesign of existing objects.
Thus, our use of 'subversion' did not imply socially undesirable action, but rather meant to use, or re-use, in unintentional or unforeseen ways. Our point of departure was that knowledge, and hence knowing, is not singular, nor is it determined from an authoritative center, but is multiple, local and diverse. Furthermore, that knowledges might be thought of as those practices, certainties, stories and understandings that are held and maintained by groups of people. All forms of knowledge, defined as deeply embedded and profound expertise, are, in principle, valuable and deserve a voice. We did not however assume a commensurability of knowledge practices. Rather, through a focus on the politics of production, and the ways in which knowledge practices are modified or transformed, the workshop explored, shared and developed means of expressing, archiving and sharing accounts of knowledges through cultural objects.
This workshop then brought together in dialogue developers of ICT technologies, indigenous people and community representatives who use and form social networks around ICTs in interesting or subversive ways, and academics who are both users of, developers of and commentators on these processes. While the workshop encouraged those who interrogate the current faith in the digital as the answer to social, educational and archival problems, the intention of this workshop was to offer developers a chance to begin to engage with the perspective of particular, socially innovative end users in order to foster diversity of use.
Sponsored by:
Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge
For administrative enquiries contact apm50@cam.ac.uk
Programme
| 24th April |
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17.15 - 17.45 |
Registration |
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17.45 - 18.30 |
Opening Ceremony (by web-link) |
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18.30-19.00 |
Open Objects Initiative Presentation |
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19.00 - 19.30 |
Welcoming Address |
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19.30 |
Drinks Reception and buffet |
| 25th April | |
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9.00 - 9.30 |
Registration and coffee |
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Theme 1 Modifications and extensions of Use |
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9.30 - 11.00 |
Session 1 Poline Bala (University of Malaysia, Sarawak) Jim Enote (A:shiwi Map Art Project) David Turnbull (Australian Centre for Science, Innovation andSociety (ACSIS), University of Melbourne) Jerome Lewis (Anthropology, UCL)Re-presenting the world - the production of maps by non-literate hunter-gatherers as a way of communicating their world to outsiders |
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11.00 - 11.30 |
Coffee |
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11.30 - 13.00 |
Session 2 Matt Jones (Future Interaction Technology Lab, Swansea University) Juan Salazar (Anthropology, University of Western Sydney) Helen Verran (School of Philosophy, University of Melbourne) and Michael Christie (School of Education, Charles Darwin University) Joline Blais and gkisedtanamoogk (University of Maine) |
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13.00 - 14.00 |
Lunch |
| 14.00 - 14.30 |
Keynote Intervention: Dawn Nafus (Intel Research) |
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Theme 2 Modifications of Social Process |
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Session 3 James Leach (University of Aberdeen) and Wendy Seltzer (Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School) Beth Kolko (Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School) Govindan Parayil (Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo) |
| 16.30 - 17.00 | Coffee |
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17.00 - 17.30 |
Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen) |
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17.30 - 18.00 |
Open Floor |
| 18.30 (for 19.15) | Conference dinner, Saltmarsh Rooms, King's College |
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| 26th April | |
| 9.00 - 9.30 | Coffee |
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9.30 - 11.30 |
Panel 1 Exploration: Decentring Design |
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Matt Ratto (University of Toronto) Laura Watts (Lancaster University) Jennifer Baird (Virtual Museums of Canada Investment Program) John Bowers (Goldsmiths, University of London, |
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11.30 - 12.00 |
Coffee |
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12.00 - 13.00 |
Discussion: Open technologies and new possibilities for development? John Norman (Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies, University of Cambridge), Alan Blackwell (Computer Lab, University of Cambridge) and Wendy Selzer (Harvard Law School) and Nina Wakeford (Goldsmiths) |
| 13.00 - 14.00 | Lunch |
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14.00 - 16.30 |
Panel 2 Subversion, conversion or development? Giles Lane (Proboscis)Public authoring, scavenging and agency |
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16.30 - 17.00 |
Closing Ceremony |
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End of conference |
