The term ‘prosthetic’ is used increasingly across the social sciences and has taken on a theoretical life as a result of debates springing from contemporary studies of science and technology, medical anthropology and citizenship. This research considers whether the usage of ‘prosthetic’ and ‘prosthesis’ has however, become all too distanced from a grounded understanding of these terms, and is now in many ways synonymous with the term ‘cyborg’, therefore obscuring the specific relationships that prostheses represent. It asks if these terms have become a ‘catchall’ of technological subjectivities, without any basis in lived experience. Through ethnographic research into the manufacture, marketing and usage of medical prostheses in a Serbian inpatient rehabilitation centre, as well as interviews with prosthesis manufacturers, salespeople, as well with various citizens young and old, I present a nuanced view of the way in which citizenship itself is enacted. Citizenship is also a process of augmenting the body, both explicitly, such as in the (re)construction of socially acceptable bodies who have the capacity to labour, and implicitly, such as in the process of acquiring passports and identity documents. This process of externalising, and of the distributing of elements of the self into objects and relationships outside of the biological body forms the basis of what I term prosthetic citizenship. In my search for a grounded and ethnographically informed understanding of prostheses, and of prosthetic citizenship, key themes emerge, such as hope, normality, morality and the relationship of technology to the bodies. I find that prostheses are always sites of entanglement and paradox, but that they are also equally full of promise, and that in understanding how, why and in what capacities they are used, they emerge as capable of bridging the divide between theoretically complex abstract relationships, and the pragmatic realities of daily life.

Teknologi har blivit en viktig del i barn och ungdomars liv. Spel, kommunikation, bloggar, skolarbeten och att umgås via sociala nätverk tillhör aktiviteterna online. Syftet med den här litteraturstudien var att utifrån ett teoretiskt perspektiv där bland annat Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) ingår belysa och utforska barns och unga människors interaktioner på och med Internet och det lärande och förutsättningar för hälsa som kan skapas. Tjugotre artiklar från tidskrifter med en disciplinär bredd, som bland annat innefattar utbildningsteknologi, psykologi, socio-logi och mediakunskap, har studerats. Interaktion var ett genomgående tema i artiklarna. Barn och ungdomar interagerade med varandra och med andra på olika sätt och med olika syften. Delaktighet och gemenskap var viktiga begrepp. Kamratstöd online har visat sig vara betydelsefullt för unga med allvarliga sjukdomar. Många av de populära spelen är onlinespel som kan spelas av ett stort antal spelare samtidigt. Spelarna umgicks med sina vänner, lärde känna nya människor, hjälpte varandra genom olika uppdrag i spelet och firade uppnådda mål tillsammans. Olika roller framträdde i de olika kontexterna, både självvalda och tilldelade av andra. Det lärande som uppstod i de olika kontexterna var situerat och bestod likaväl av akademiska kunskaper och digitala färdigheter som av social kompetens, socialisering och ”livsfärdigheter”. Den teoretiska referensramen i uppsatsen var inspirerad av bland andra Latour, Bandura, Antonovsky samt Lave och Wenger. Jag kallar den ”Del i det hela” och menar att ett aktörskap i ett heterogent nätverk med en gemensam aktivitet kan bidra till en känsla av sammanhang (KASAM), en känsla av mening. Dessa delar har betydelse för vår hälsa – den psykiska, den sociala samt den existentiella hälsan. / Technology has become an important part of children and young people’s lifes. Games, communication, blogs, school work and hanging out in social networks are examples of online activities. Using a theoretical perspective including Actor-Network-Theory (ANT), the aim of this literature review was to illustrate and explore children and youth’s interactions on and with the Internet, and the learning processes and conditions for health that can emerge. Twenty-three articles from journals of different disciplines, such as educational technology, psychology, sociology, and media science, were included. Interaction was a constant theme throughout the articles. Children and young people interacted with each other and with others in different ways and with different purposes. Participation and fellowship were important concepts. Online peer support has shown to be significant for youth with severe disease. Many of the popular games are online games that can be played by many players simultaneously. The players socialized with their friends, got to know new people, helped each other through various missions in the game and celebrated achieved goals together. Different roles appeared in the different contexts, some self-selected and some assigned by others. The learning processes that occurred in the different contexts were situated and consisted of academic knowledge and digital skills, as well as of social competence, socialization and life skills. The theoretical framework used in this essay was inspired by Latour, Bandura, Antonovsky, and Lave and Wenger. I call it “Part of it all” and believe that an actorship in a heterogeneous network with a collective activity may contribute to a sense of coherence (SOC), a sense of meaning. These elements are significant for our health – the psychological, the social, and the existential health.

I have explored spaces, where negotiations of border transgressions take place and where issues of technology and politics mingle. We meet a diversity of actors in the world of information technology (IT): political texts, people and technology participating in numerous sociomaterial relations. Time is the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium, 2000. Years, when IT occupied the western world and created its own fuzzy discourse. Years, when IT stole the biggest newspaper headlines and years, when IT became a mundane everyday part of our work practices. Years, when we learned to live in heterogeneous worlds. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Actor-Network Theory and After (ANTa) provide analytical and methodological perspectives when working with the empirical material. I present a chronological exposé of some of the key concepts of ANT and ANTa. I also discuss how the classical ANT perspective has changed during the last few years from being a theory of networks to become a methodological and analytical approach to other kinds of spaces such as fluid and fire. The heart of the thesis consists of six empirical cases. My aim of writing stories of information technology has been to investigate the black box of information technology. Investigating includes also efforts of opening. Concepts that are taken for granted, such as the very notion of information technology in my case, can be explored, questioned, transgressed, blurred and opened up. Each of the diffracted stories is specific and unique, with its own actors, context, location and situatedness. But the stories are also connected through ANT, and feminist technology and technoscience studies. Case number one, ‘Discourses and Cracks – A Case Study of Information Technology and Writing Women in a Regional Context ’, is about a project, where questions concerning discourses of information society with a special focus on citizenship are discussed and where global and national politics are translated to local and situated practices. Case number two, ‘Translating and Negotiating Information Technology ’, consists of two main parts. The fi rst one is about a regional library project. The analysis of the project is based on the classical Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach that invites the study of the heterogeneous and negotiable shaping of IT. The second part is about librarians developing web-based services. The analysis is inspired by the later development of ANT (called ANTa in the thesis) in order to include more invisible actors, relations and negotiations. Case number three, ‘Negotiating Information Technology: Politics and Practices of The Public Sector Web Production’, is about work practices of a municipal web developer, through which creation of sociotechnical relations of everyday information technology practices is analysed and also mirrored to national and local IT politics. Case number four, ‘Making e-Government Happen – Everyday Co-Development of Services, Citizenship and Technology’, is presenting the same web developer as in the third case, but now his everyday practices are connected with an expanded and wider circuit of co-constructors of information technology. The text is a co-production of a multidisciplinary research group aiming to describe, analyse and problematise connections when creating practices, where technology and society collaborate. Case number fi ve, ‘Citizenship at the Crossroads of Multiple Layers of Sociotechnical Relations’, enrols technology as an active actor in the construction of citizenship in an IT context in Sweden. The perspective emphasising the active agency of non-humans both enhances and challenges the Scandinavian approach of systems development by suggesting a direction towards a cyborgian approach towards technology design. Case number six, ‘Between Stability and Instability – a Project about e-Democracy ’, takes its point of departure from a small-scale project having as its goal the development of e-democracy in a municipal context. In the text the focus is on the stabilisation processes in shaping the technology (‘e’) and democracy parts of the project. I also discuss what kinds of spaces exist in between (the hyphen in e-democracy) and ask if integration between technology and democracy is possible as a whole. Finally, my intention is to step further into stories and practices not yet existing. Inspired by the French philosopher Michel Serres, I introduce the fi guration of an angel as a cartographer, intermediator and (co-) constructor of sociomaterial relations. Angels are needed to sew the separate fi elds of technology, politics and everyday practices to a rich seamless tapestry. They are the ‘artful integrators’ (Suchman).

Det finns ett missnöje och en kritik riktad mot hur Karolinska Institutet (KI) rekrytering av Paolo Macchiarini gick till och kritiker menar att det var personliga, informella kontakter som styrde istället för de formella kraven. Mot denna bakgrund väcktes ett intresse om hur nätverk inom Karolinska Institutet och forskningsvärlden i stort byggs och vad som skiljer ett professionellt nätverk från ett personligt. För att undersöka detta har denna etnografiska studie gjorts genom deltagande observationer av en forskargrupp på KI. Syftet med studien har varit att undersöka hur forskare på KI bygger professionella och personliga nätverk och hur dessa samspelar med varandra. De frågeställningar som studien utgår ifrån är; Hur bygger forskare på KI nätverk? Hur skiljer sig forskarnas professionella och personliga nätverk åt? På vilket sätt påverkar relationen mellan handledare och doktorand dessa nätverk? För att besvara dessa frågor har Actor Network Theory (ANT) och diskursanalys använts som teoretiskt ramverk. Teorierna ger en förklaring till hur forskare samspelar med varandra och dess omvärld inom en given kontext, samt vilka faktorer som påverkar deras agerande. Resultatet av studien visar på att forskare på KI bygger nätverk på flera olika sätt och är en del av olika nätverk samtidigt. Förutom de personliga och professionella nätverken kunde ytterligare tre nätverk identifieras och skillnaderna mellan dessa belysas. Resultatet visar även på hur relationen mellan handledare och doktorand skiljer sig från andra relationer. Vår slutsats är att det bland forskares vanligtvis rörliga nätverk finns ett mer bestående nätverk av familjär karaktär. Nyckelord: Actor Network Theory (ANT), subjektsposition, nätverk, akademiskt släktskap

Research on existing actor-networks has focused traditionally on outcomes, achievements and success at the expense of a detailed consideration of their formation and ability to function. In recognition of this lacuna, this study examined the formation and functioning of tourism-related actor-networks involved in environmental protection and the management of tourism in the coastal city of Hurghada, Egypt. More specifically, it applied the actor-network theory (ANT). In particular, the study applied its four moments of translation – problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization – and used Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to analyse the influencing factors, whether positively or negatively, and the degree to which the creation and operations of such collaborations were successful. This study employed a sequential, explanatory mixed-methods design, integrating both quantitative and qualitative data. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 510 employees of tourism-related organizations involved in managing tourism’s environmental impacts on Hurghada. Also, the researcher conducted fourteen semi-structured interviews with the managers and assistant managers of tourism-related organizations involved in environmental protection and the management of tourism. The SEM’s findings revealed the existence of a number of tourism-related actor-networks which were attempting to safeguard local community livelihoods through environmental protection, and of four key factors – trust, coordination, commitment, and communication – which were damaging their formation, functioning and outcomes. This study contributed to theory since it enhanced our knowledge and understanding of the relationships between four previously unconnected bodies of literature. These were, namely, ANT, tourism-related organizations, environmental governance, collaboration, and environmental protection. The study highlighted, also, the factors, both positive and negative, which influenced the formation and functioning of tourism actor-networks involved in managing tourism’s environmental impacts on Hurghada. In practical terms, this study analysed the role of tourism-related organizations in order to identify their main strengths and weaknesses In addition, the researcher considered how partnership networks could consolidate the strengths and overcome the weaknesses of the tourism-related organizations involved in environmental protection and the management of tourism in Hurghada. Also, this study will help these tourism-related organizations, through such networks, to adopt suitable activities, policies, strategies and laws for protecting the assets relating to the local community’s livelihoods. Therefore, knowing the key success factors of collaborative networks and good governance will help these networks of tourism-related organizations to improve their performance in terms of assisting Hurghada’s local community and the poor people in particular.

This thesis seeks to answer the ‘key question’: ‘how is the border worked at an international airport?’ To answer this key question the author, who is employed as a Customs officer, uses participant observation to provide material for an anthropological analysis of this question. The primary anthropological focus that will permeate throughout this thesis is interconnectedness of human and non human actors. This focus on interconnectedness will be linked to the ability of the workers of the border to communicate about risk to one another. Risk at the border is highly political following the terrorist attacks of September 11 (9/11). The attacks are not a focus of this thesis but a study of the border network will shed some light on how the workers of the border make sense of external factors such as these attacks (9/11) in their work world. The thesis accounts for links between the border workers of different government agencies and uses the idea of an occupational community to do so. The thesis will attempt to account for technologies within the border network. The account of technologies will demonstrate through an actor network approach their hybrid nature, and their ability to negotiate and renegotiate the border network. Power is analysed at the border through the ideas of Foucault. Though the idea of occupational community, actor network theory and the ideas of Foucault on power are not linked outside of this thesis in any way, they provide an honest account of the border network as expressed through the case study of risk and interagency communication at an international airport.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-08T16:35:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 123545.pdf: 2511659 bytes, checksum: cfc2eb7606567795929d5757b457fe19 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-12 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Astronomy is a field of science in constant association with the arts, poetry, literature and education. It arouses curiosity and enchantment and is responsible for many scientific and technological advances. The school is also immersed in this sphere of knowledge, through curricula, textbooks and / or teaching initiative. In this bias, this qualitative research aims to identify the pedagogical situations where the Planetarium is characterized as a mediator or as an intermediary in the teaching and learning of astronomy, in the perspective of teachers in the early years of elementary school. For this, we use the methodological and theoretical perspective of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) by Bruno Latour. Initially we conducted a theoretical review of the main concepts of ANT and analysis of official documents of education that regulate the astronomy education in Brazil. And next, we analyzed 97 questionnaires filled by teachers who visited the Planetarium of the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina - UFSC, with students in 2014. And as a last empirical step, five teachers were selected for in-depth interviews. The results indicated that for teachers using the Planetarium in addition to the teaching of astronomy or even field trip, this space makes up a mediator of the process of teaching and learning, both for students and for teachers themselves. And in these situations, the teacher assumes the role of intermediary of the actions effected by the students. / A astronomia é um campo da ciência em constante associação com as artes, a poesia, a literatura e a educação. Desperta curiosidade e encantamento e é responsável por muitos avanços científicos e tecnológicos. A escola também está imersa nesta esfera de conhecimento, por meio dos currículos, livros didáticos e/ou iniciativa docente. Neste viés, esta pesquisa de natureza qualitativa tem o objetivo de identificar as situações pedagógicas em que o Planetário se caracteriza como mediador ou como intermediário nos processos de ensinar e de aprender astronomia de professores dos anos iniciais do ensino fundamental. Para isso, utilizamos a perspectiva teórica e metodológica da Teoria Ator-Rede (TAR) de Bruno Latour. Inicialmente realizamos uma revisão teórica sobre os principais conceitos da TAR e análise dos documentos oficiais da educação que normatizam o ensino de astronomia no Brasil. A seguir, foram analisados 97 questionários respondidos por professores que visitaram o Planetário da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina UFSC, com estudantes, em 2014. E como última etapa empírica, foram selecionados cinco professores para a realização de entrevistas em profundidade. Os resultados indicaram que para os professores que utilizam o Planetário como complemento para o ensino de astronomia ou mesmo para saída de campo, este espaço se constitui em mediador do processo de ensinar e de aprender, tanto para os estudantes quanto para os próprios professores. E, nestas situações, o professor assume o papel de intermediário das ações efetivadas pelos estudantes.

This thesis aims to focus on relational controversy about the causes behind the inconsistency in number of students who use a Web 2.0 application named "LibGuide" inside the Linnaeus University and the attempts of program coordinator to develop certain strategies to perform a better use of it in a particular department of Healthcare. The nature of the problem will be discussed, suggesting that how the these strategies maintained a high significant of use in that department. The research foregoes, as it uses a process of translation which are the moments of struggles by a program coordinator to impose itself by its role to the definition of the situation. The research suggests a network within which the series of processes and interrelation of the sociotechnical role of each member is drawn and allocated.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The rationale for the topic flows out of education policy and societal pressures worldwide which are calling for an ever greater responsiveness from higher education to the workplace in the twenty-first century. Responsiveness to Work (i.e. the world of work) requires collaborative and integrative work between communities of academic and non-academic practitioners. Differences between knowledge and practices at Work and within the academy are broadly acknowledged in the literature, yet the ensuing nature and complexity of interactions between these two communities in curriculum design 'on the ground' is poorly understood. A key point is to recognize that integration as such cannot be the goal: the differences remain, but have to be turned into productive collaboration and joint development, for example, of a curriculum. Productivity here is not used in the sense of the ratio between output achieved and inputs needed, but rather refers to the activity theorists' concept of zones of potential development between two different, interacting activity systems (their way of conceptualizing communities of practice). Productivity is then a measure of the extent to which new hybrid knowledge emerges in the interactive zone with positive outcomes for both systems. Ideally, the integrated curriculum elements look to both Work and academic knowledge. Such productivity involves the acknowledgement of pre-existing boundaries and differences between types of knowledge and the subsequent actions of actors in crossing these boundaries. After sketching the policy backdrop to the issues of responsiveness to Work "on the ground", the first part of the thesis discusses theories of curriculum development, and of boundaries, differences, boundary crossing and maintenance. Inspired by the work of Nooteboom, a model is outlined for optimal difference allowing for innovative and productive curriculum development. The processes and patterns of responsiveness of higher education to the needs of 2 re studied empirically at two interconnected levels: The meso-level of the design of curriculum units; and the micro-level of face-to-face interactions between representatives from Work and the academy as they negotiate how to implement responsiveness. The curriculum units examined are those in which universities have attempted to design units which include aspects of Work. The face-to-face interactions are those between lecturers and Work representatives as they attempt to negotiate what sort of knowledge should be taught in the academy to meet both Work needs and those of the academics. At the meso-level, different cases (in different countries) were studied which together spanned the spectrum of differences between academic knowledge and workplace knowledge. At the micro-level, the focus was on the actual boundary work, and how it might set productive developments in motion. The processes involved are those of the mutual presentation of knowledge difference between work and the academy followed by knowledge transformations. These transformations are in tum enabled by the representatives' actions and their mobilisation of structures to enable bridging between the different types of knowledge. Difference between work and academic knowledge matters. Firstly, difference needs to be recognised and identified, not as a stumbling block to further developments, but as a resource. Secondly, an optimal degree of initial difference, rather than no difference at all, is an enabling factor, in concert with actor strategies, in the development of hybrid work/academic curriculum objects. The insights in micro-interactions can be combined with the analysis of meso-level curriculum development to create a model for productive work towards integration of Work and higher education. This model is supported by the literature discussed in the first part of the thesis, and can actually be used more broadly, for example for productive development and implementation of policy (in this case, for responsiveness to Work).

Public space functions are essential for society to function because they can support social exchanges and building public life. This master thesis is a study of public life that unfolds in the setting of three redesigned public spaces in Rosengård, including Bokalerna, Rosens Röda Matta, and Rosengård Centrum. Drawing on a conceptual toolbox developed from a territorial actor-network theory (ANT) I examine the socio-material exchanges that take place because of the redesigned materialities of space and explore their impact on the quality of the selected public places. I employ qualitative methods - visual ethnography and interviews - to address the questions of 1) how material topographies mediate social exchange and 2) What actors or events are important for assembling everyday sociality in the selected three public spaces.I made use of six operative concepts of anchors, base camps, multicore and monocore spaces, tickets and rides, ladders, and finally punctiform, linear and field seating to explore their impact on the quality of the selected public places in terms of affording or hindering social exchanges. My field observations of the three sites and interviews indicate that the Rosengård Centrum accommodate a more pronounced public life compared the other, and perhaps the most popular one in the district. The programmed materialities and multiple points of organised activities allow space to facilitate heterogeneous clusterings of humans and non-human entities and the formation of a diverse collective. Moreover, the organization of a mixture of monocore and multicore space in combination with sheltered anchor spots appears to be essential for assembling and stabilising human collectives and everyday sociality in Rosengård.My findings suggest that, while many of the discussions in the literature concentrate on centres of cities or large metropolitan areas, much could still be learned from a thorough study of public spaces at a finer scale and neighbourhood level.