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).

Denna undersökning utgår ifrån Mary Jo Bitners servicescape-modell om hur fysiska miljöegenskaper formade efter en berättelse eller tema påverkar serviceverksamheter. För att sedan implementera modellen i en digital miljö. Resultatet av att nyttja teorierna kring servicescapes på exempelvis serviceverksamheter ger besökare möjlighet att fly undan vardagen, medvetet eller omedvetet, genom en kombination av olika sinnen. I undersökningen såg vi att besökarens självmedvetenhet kunde jämföras med Mihaly Csikszentmihalyis teorier om ”flöde”, där medvetandetillståndet hos en individ blir uppslukat av individens aktivitet. Ur denna jämförelse kunde förutsättningarna och kriterierna för ”flöde” nyttjas. Undersökningen påvisar att anpassning av servicescape i en digital miljö leder till en förlust av sinneskombinationer i jämförelse med fysiska servicescapes. Detta ändrar dock inte det faktum att besökaren upplever ett mervärde av platsen då tillämpning av servicescapes i skapandet av fysiska som digitala miljöer öppnar upp för besökare att inte bara bevittna respektive berättelse utan även delta i den. / This study is based on Mary Jo Bitner’s servicescape-model of the physical environment, shaped by a story or a certain theme, towards adapting the model into a digital environment. The result of applying the theories surrounding servicescapes to where a service process takes place, gives visitors an opportunity to escape from the everyday life, consciously or unconsciously, through a combination of the human senses. The study found that the effect, a lesser amount of self-awareness, could be compared with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theories of "flow", a mental state where an individual becomes fully immersed in the process of the activity. The conditions for "flow" could therefore be used as a foundation in the creation of “digital servicescapes”. The adaptation of servicescape towards a digital environment led to a loss of possible combinations of senses in comparison with physical servicescapes. Though this did not result in removing all the added value of adapting the servicescape-model into a digital environment, for it is still expanding the opportunity for visitors to interact with the story respectively, instead of being idle observers.

This project explores the dynamics of medical innovation using the development of deep brain stimulation therapy in paediatric neurology as a case study. Ethnographic research was conducted with a multidisciplinary clinical team developing a novel clinical service that uses deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat children and young people with movement disorders. Interviews and observations were carried out to identify key challenges encountered by team members, and to explore the way in which team members attempt to manage these challenges in day-to-day clinical practice. Four key challenges were identified: coordinating multidisciplinary teamwork, identifying suitable candidates for deep brain stimulation; managing the expectations of patients and families; and measuring clinical outcomes. By exploring the strategies used by team members to overcome these challenges, this thesis develops the Complex Model of Medical Innovation which challenges prevalent, linear ‘bench-to-bedside’ understandings of innovation. While scientific ‘discovery’ is one source of medical innovation, new therapies in medicine also emerge from technology transfer (the transfer of technology from one sector into another) and clinicians’ learning-in-practice (the ability of clinician to learn ‘on the spot’). Importantly, this thesis demonstrates that technology transfer, learning-in-practice, and medical innovation in general are shaped by various socio-political trends. The activities of the multidisciplinary team and their novel DBS service, for example, have been shaped by the evidence based medicine movement, commercial interests, and a movement that promotes multidisciplinary approaches to paediatric service provision. A consequence of these influences is that the team subjects their patients to a broad clinical gaze. Adopting the Complex Model of Medical Innovation has important consequences: First, it draws attention to the innovative activities of clinicians, activities that may be worth disseminating in other contexts. Second, it highlights the role of existing social and material factors in shaping the development of new clinical services. The social impact of new technologies will be influenced by these contextual factors and cannot be attributed to the technology alone.

The thesis explores the role of inscription in the management of social work and the effect of this on front-line practice. Inscription is a response to current trends in public sector management, in particular the focus on transparency, accountability and performance management, which drive an increasing demand for the documentation of work in areas of professional practice, traditionally assumed to be at odds with codification. The research investigates the effect of new documenting procedures in social work, specifically, the introduction of a ‘standard assessment format’ and responses to this by social work practitioners. The thesis uses a constructivist theoretical framework drawn from Actor Network Theory, which understands inscription as a performative technology, which is used to manage the process and content of practice through representation and translation. The thesis is based upon an exploratory, critical case study in a Local Authority Children and Families Social Work Service between November 2004 and May 2006. The thesis explores the translations between practice (doing), articulation (describing) and textual representation (documenting). For front-line practitioners, practice is understood as the ‘doing’ of work whilst the ‘describing’ and ‘documenting’ of work are categorised as secondary, bureaucratic concerns, with no material effect on the core processes and outcomes of social work practice. The research indicates that social work practice is in fact is a series of practices, which include the doing, describing and documenting of work. The research suggests that the conceptualisation of practice as ‘doing’, rather than ‘describing’ and ‘documenting’ work determines practitioner responses to the use of inscription in managing social work practice.

This thesis investigates the role of accounting information in the automotive industry restructuring of 2008 and 2009 in Canada. The crisis in the automotive industry led to government-funded restructurings for two of the top manufacturers in North America, effectively adding the government as a third party to the negotiations. Following a series of negotiations that occurred between AutoCo and UnionA, I conduct a case study that examines the individual actors’ use of accounting inscriptions in negotiations, as well as explore the dynamic interaction between accounting and trust at the negotiation table. The use of actor network theory highlights the individual actors, their actor-networks, accounting inscriptions and the continuous translation process inherent in labour-management negotiations. Accounting inscriptions are shown to play a central role in negotiations, particularly as a forum for bringing the actor-networks together. Furthermore, I explicate the notion of tactical trust, as it emphasizes the assessment, monitoring, and adjustment inherent in decisions to trust actors within dynamic business contexts. I also investigate the roles that the Canadian government played throughout the restructuring of the automotive industry. Through an in-depth case study of the restructuring from its antecedents through to outcomes, the research focuses on the roles of the government officials in the negotiations between the company and the unions, and their use of accounting information. The empirics highlight that the government not only acted at a distance but utilized sovereign power and direct intervention to achieve their objectives in the automotive industry restructuring. I find that the accounting served as the flexible substitute for the government’s presence at the negotiations table while they were acting at a distance and is used as an immutable parameter when the government directly intervened. This paper extends the governmentality literature by highlighting the coercive character of government actions, technologies and programs, and the notion of government in action. I consider the implications of these research findings on the labour-management negotiations, accounting, actor network theory and governmentality literature. In conclusion I also highlight various avenues of future research. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2013-10-09 20:46:13.009

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.

Corporate codes of ethics (CCEs) have become increasingly prevalent as overarching ethical guidelines for multinational corporations doing business around the globe. As formal documents, governing corporations’ work, policies, and ways of doing business, CCEs are meant to guide all business activities and apply to all of the corporation’s employees, suppliers, and business partners. In multinational corporations, this means that diverse countries, cultures, and a myriad of heterogeneous actors are expected to abide by the same standards and guidelines, as stipulated in the CCE. Despite this empirical reality, CCEs have previously been approached by academics mainly as passive company documents or as marketing or management tools, in the contexts of their country of origin. Building on Actor-Network Theory this thesis applies an interactionist ontology, and relational epistemology, seeing the code as a sociomaterial object with both material and immaterial characteristics, and moving in a global arena. Furthermore, the CCEs are assumed to be susceptible to change, i.e. translations. With these assumptions, the CCE of a multinational corporation is followed as it travels between its country of origin (Sweden) and another country (China) and goes to work in different contexts. Heterogeneous empirical materials such as interviews, company documents, observations, shadowing, and emails are used to present stories from different contexts where the CCE is at work. The overall purpose of the thesis is to contribute to the theorizing of CCEs, thereby providing further understanding of the possible consequences of CCEs in contextually diverse settings. By following traces of a CCE, this study posits the need for a simultaneous understanding of three dimensions of CCEs for CCEs to be understood in contextually dispersed settings. The three dimensions are a) material translations of the code, b) enactments of these translations, and c) ideas associated with the material and enacted code.  The study contributes to the understanding of CCEs by highlighting a specific country-context (China), by putting together knowledge from codes in various contexts, and the overarching contribution lies in highlighting codes as different kinds of objects and adding to the existing literature – specifically, contextualizing the CCE as a vaporous object.

Despite the broad discourse on fragile states and the threat they pose to the contemporary world order, the literature on the subject does to a large extent ignore the material factors behind the causes of state fragility. Scholars and organizations in the field have almost exclusively adopted the Social Contract Theory (SCT) in order to explain state fragility as a problem caused by social factors. This study broadens the discourse by applying SCT as well as the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) on the case study of Sudan, in order to do a deductive theory testing of the added value of each theory. The results of this study show that while the Social Contract Theory does explain many factors behind state fragility, the application of the Actor-Network Theory adds to this by also incorporating the networks between the social and material determinants in societies. This research contributes to the debate on fragile states by adding to the scarce research on the materiality of fragility through the use of the Actor-Network Theory. The positive results of this thesis encourage future use of this theory in the field as it has the potential to give new insights in how to deal with fragile states.

Biofuels have caught the attention of the world as a source of renewable energy which can provide energy security, advance rural development, mitigate climate change, and foster international trade. India developed the National Mission on Biodiesel (NMB) as a rural development policy option to produce biodiesel from Jatropha curcas and promoted it as a pro-poor and pro-growth initiative. This thesis examines the emergence, trajectory, and the consequences of the NMB to assess how the NMB worked as a test development policy programme in India. The thesis focuses on the policy-making process in India, particularly the role of narratives in development policy-making and how it leads to blueprint development. It argues that the narratives supporting the NMB were based on shaky scientific facts and did not represent the needs of the rural people. The thesis takes into account that policy processes involve various actors, networks, their interactions and their knowledge, communication of knowledge and politics. It traces the role of various actors such as policy-makers, bureaucrats, researchers, professionals from private companies and NGOs, farmers, and landless labourers involved in the biodiesel mission. This thesis is anchored in the discipline of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and it draws from Actor Network Theory (ANT) and Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) to analyse how the NMB progressed as a test policy model and whether it really was a ‘pro-poor’, ‘pro-growth’ development initiative. Hence this thesis studies how development narratives were used to promote the biodiesel initiative, how networks were created to establish the biodiesel mission as a policy option and advocate its adoption, and in turn how the NMB progressed as a development initiative. As the thesis draws from SCOT the discussion will emphasise on the practices of a society adopting a technology/development initiative, the importance of users (scientists, policy-makers, farmers, labourers, representatives from the industry and NGOs), how users are represented, and in turn how the NMB had an impact on the people adopting it. This thesis contributes to the understanding of the policy-making process of development renewable policies in India and it also examines the apparent inevitability of technological solutions to development challenges. It also contributes to the literature of narratives serving as ‘blueprints’ for development policy-making. Additionally it adds to the literature on biofuels and reveals the complex nature of regional and national networks that comprise a part of the rising Global Biofuel Network.

The sociotechnical system of print-on-paper for the dissemination of textual information prevails despite widespread concerns about its sustainability. On the basis of sociotechnical transitions theory the print-on-paper system is perceived as a regime. Information technology is identified as one of the generic technologies that has the potential to address the unsustainability of the incumbent regime. Its potential effects are examined through the development of the electronic book, which is defined as those IT applications providing an alternative form of textual display to printed paper. Yet, such applications have remained marginal. According to sociotechnical transitions theory the electronic book can be seen as a niche in relation to the print-on-paper regime. An alternative conceptualisation of transitions as a process of network reconfiguration is suggested. On that basis, the electronic book is depicted as a number of emergent innovation networks. Social Network Analysis methods informed by network approaches to innovation theory are applied to visualise and discuss these emergent networks. In one of the representations, the electronic book is mapped as a sociotechnical network including organisations, users and technologies. It emerges that network formation often transgresses a distinct niche-regime divide. Patterns of network interaction are explored and assessed as to whether they represent a sociotechnical transition in progress. The analysis reveals different patterns of network formation which are indicative of prospective sociotechnical trajectories where different concepts of the electronic book are emphasised. It emerges that the discussion of sustainability and the emergence of the electronic book remain largely unlinked.