Troubling binary codes. Studying information technology at the intersection of science and technology studies and feminist technoscience studies

This dissertation provides a study of Information Technology (IT) as professional and technical culture by drawing together the theoretical lenses of Feminist Technoscience Studies (FTS) and Science and Technology Studies (STS). This central topic has been investigated through an empirical research that focuses on two distinct issues: the gender gap and underrepresentation of women in IT educational and professional paths (computer science, computer engineering, computing); the role of digital artifacts and materiality in the process of organizing within an Italian telecommunication company. With regard to the first field, I have carried out a historical analysis of the experience of the first female coders in early digital computing era and I have conducted a set of interviews with contemporary Italian female IT professionals and practitioners who form and participate to networks and campaigns that promote women’s presence and gender awareness in computing. Drawing on contributions from STS and feminist socio-constructivist approaches in science and technology, I shall argue that the analysis of gender divide in IT should go beyond the issues of female discrimination in order to call into question the gendered nature of computer artifacts and technical knowledge (Faulkner, 2001; Misa, 2010). In the second field site, I have gone beyond the visible issues of gender asymmetries in organization in order to challenge the alleged neutral character of technical artifacts and materiality (Latour, 1992) by drawing on contributions from STS and Workplace Studies. Starting from this body of knowledge which calls into question the very boundaries between the social and the technical (Heath & Button, 2002), I have employed analytic sensibilities from FTS and the recent debate on new materialism in feminist theory (Barad, 2007; Alaimo & Hekman, 2008; Hekman, 2010; Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012) to trace out the agential role of materiality and technical objects in producing marginal and invisible positions (Haraway, 1988; Star, 1991; Star & Bowker, 2007). In this respect, I shall argue that technical knowledge and non-human actors take part in politics and practices of boundary-making, sustaining divisions and hierarchies (Hughes & Lury, 2013)

Co-designing for common values:creating hybrid spaces to nurture autonomous cooperation

This paper concerns the development of digitally-mediated technologies that value social cooperation as a common good rather than as a source of revenue and accumulation. The paper discusses the activities that shaped a European participatory design project which aims to develop a digital space that promotes and facilitates the ‘Commonfare’, a complementary approach to social welfare. The paper provides and discusses concrete examples of design artifacts to address a key question about the role of co- and participatory design in developing hybrid spaces that nurture sharing and autonomous cooperation: how can co-design practices promote alternatives to the commodification of digitally-mediated cooperation? The paper argues for a need to focus on relational, social, political and ethical values, and highlights the potential power of co- and participatory design processes to achieve this. In summary, the paper proposes that only by re-asserting the centrality of shared values and capacities, rather than individual needs or problems, co-design can reposition itself thereby encouraging autonomous cooperation

Co-designing collaborative care work through ethnography

This paper focuses on instances of ethnographically-informed design ofcollaborative systems as they emerge from two European projects that aim to developsociotechnical infrastructures based on more just collaborative practices. We outline anumber of issues emerged related to the role of language, the relationship betweendigital and physical public engagement, and commonality, and their impact on designprocesses. Our contribution aims to uncover how ethnographically-informed design cansupport caring-based practices of social collaboration in different contexts

Co-designing convivial tools to support participation in community radio

Connectivity made possible by the diffusion of digital technologies has offered new possibilities for the public to interact with media, including radio. However, interactions are often framed by globally managed platforms, owned by companies with values based on maximizing profit, rather than prioritising Illich’s forms of conviviality. In this article, we draw on experiences from the Grassroot Wavelengths project that introduces an innovative peer-to-peer platform to support the creation and management of community radio stations. We offer insight into the practices of participation in community media, where the users influence decisions concerning the technology, the content, the actors and the organization policy of the radio station, through a participatory design approach. These collaborations between researchers and users, together with a focus on the development of relational assets in local contexts, are fundamental in an attempt to design a platform that fosters conviviality and offers an alternative way to consider participation in community media

‘The Hard Hat Problem’: Women Traveling the World of Computing

Gender and feminist STS studies have shown the benefits of using gender as an analytical category in order to problematize not only formal discriminations of women in technoscientific fields, but also gender biases encoded in technical knowledge and professional cultures. According to this view, gender and technoscience are mutually shaped, so that just as gendered beliefs and practices affect the construction of scientific knowledge, so too technoscientific organizations shape the relations between men and women. In the field of computing these processes have been scrutinized by recent studies that put under scrutiny those ‘unspoken ideas’ on gender that have shaped computing. Against this backdrop, this paper problematizes the experience of Italian women who travel the world of computing as practitioners and academics. The analysis is based on a set of in–depth interviews which aim at addressing the gender gap in computing by questioning the gender assumptions that shape the construction of disciplines, practices, and knowledge surrounding computer technologies. Therefore, rather than emphasizing those mechanisms that keep women outside or at the margins of computing, the paper examines the experience of those women who inhabit the computer world in order to question the alleged gender neutrality of the field

Fare la differenza. Stereotipi di genere e nuove pratiche di affermazione nei campi scientifici

Il volume indaga il genere e il lavoro scientifico come pratiche (materiali e discorsive) situate e interconnesse, coniugando le prospettive teoriche degli studi sulle pratiche e gli studi sociali sulla scienza e la tecnologia, con particolare riferimento agli studi femministi. Nel testo sono poste due domande: cosa succede quando le donne entrano nei campi della scienza e della tecnica? Cosa accade nelle loro storie di vita, al loro lavoro, alle loro scelte? Il volume indaga il posizionamento situato delle donne scienziate, accademiche e innovatrici, che, se da una parte riconoscono le condizioni di disparità subite, dall’altra elaborano tattiche e strategie di reazione. Non si tratta solo di infrangere “soffitti di cristallo” o di competere nelle carriere scientifiche, ma di acquisire consapevolezza dei concatenamenti sociali e materiali, situati nei diversi contesti (università, laboratorio, azienda, famiglia), che possono (ri)produrre sia disparità di genere sia dinamiche di affermazione e trasformazione

In Between Matters of Concern and Matters of Care. Rethinking the Third Mission of Higher Education

This article introduces the notions of ‘matters of concern’ and ‘matters of care’, developed in the field of social studies of science and technology, into the debate about the Third Mission (TM) of University. These notions are employed to problematize the assumption that tends to see the social and the technical as discrete and stable entities, uncovering a view on TM as a domain in which interventions are essentially separated from knowledge and research practices. Joining the growing body of literature in education that underlines the mutual entailment of human and non-human actors, the paper provides examples taken from an EU sociotechnical project on how research, knowledge, politics and public advocacy are co-constituted as matters of concern and matters of care. Ultimately, it is suggested that understanding TM as ‘matters of concern’ and ‘matters of care’ can provide novel insights on the epistemological tensions derived from the neoliberal transformations that are investing higher education, thus becoming an important field of action for the affirmation of university in society and for the remaking of the academic profession