In Science and Technology Studies (STS) the emergence of scientific knowledge has been studied fr... more In Science and Technology Studies (STS) the emergence of scientific knowledge has been studied from a wealth of creative angles. One aspect which has been left relatively unexplored is how universities as work places in- and exclude their members, and how these processes are related to culture. In this article we shall discuss how a focus on cultural clusters of meaning-making practices in scientific work places at universities in different European countries open up for understanding cultural differences in what male and female scientists are interested in and how they wish their knowledge to be acquired and acknowledged. We argue that different work place cultures in- and exclude members in accordance with their different acknowledgements of creative acts, risk-taking, ‘useful science’ and competition. Moreover, these patterns seem to be connected with a gendered quest for knowledge.
Hvilken slags innovation bliver robotter til, når de bliver implementeret i vores hverdagsliv? Ro... more Hvilken slags innovation bliver robotter til, når de bliver implementeret i vores hverdagsliv? Robotteknologi udfordrer gængse begreber om innovation som noget absolut. Innovation betegner i denne artikel et relationelt forhold mellem det, at ideer, teknikker og teknologi på den ene side er nye, og på den anden side, at ideer, teknikker og teknologi bliver genkendt som værdifulde innovationer. Robotter bliver genkendt som innovation i lokale kulturøkologier forstået som menneskeskabte miljøer, hvor materialiteter og mennesker danner alliancer og kæmper om, hvad der kan ses som „innovation“ i praksis. Robotteknologi i praksis er ofte langt fra de forestillinger om, hvad robotter er og kan, der sælges af kommercielle virksomheder og præsenteres i medieindustrien. Forfatteren skelner mellem praksisdrevet innovation, hvor erkendelsen af nyskabelser udspringer af den praksis, innovationen finder anvendelse i, og Triple Helix-drevet innovation, der er en professionelt styret innovation, d...
In this article I argue that creative acts cannot be confined to the individual. Creativity can b... more In this article I argue that creative acts cannot be confined to the individual. Creativity can be seen as a meeting between an individual and a wider activity system. This argument is related to the claim that a zone of proximal development (ZPD), the concept connected to the culturalhistorical psychologist Lev Vygotsky, is both an internal and an external relation between an actual and a potential developmental zone. I shall suggest that institutions can facilitate creative potential and development if the associated members are trained or already have potential developmental zones answering to the actual development of the members of staff. The argument is supported by two case studies—one from fieldwork in an institution of higher education, and one from an institution for the mentally handicapped—and supplemented with a few historical examples.
Ant ropologen Jean Lave, der i dag er professor i paedagogik ved University of California i Berke... more Ant ropologen Jean Lave, der i dag er professor i paedagogik ved University of California i Berkeley, skriver sig ind i et naesten eksponentielt voksende felt, der under ét kan benaevnes situeret laering (cf. Bredo 1997). Det nye laeringsbegreb laegger vaegt på laeringens sociale konstruktion. Teorier om situeret laering insisterer på en opmaerksomhed på relationer mellem folk, der handler, og den materielle verden, der handles i. Derfor er deltagelse og forståelse i praksis, dvs. laering, central (Lave 1993, 5). Jeg vil i det følgende give en introducerende indføring i Laves teori om situeret laering i praksisfaellesskaber, og dernaest søge at vurdere teorien ud fra et kønsperspektiv. Situeret laering laegger sig mellem og som et svar på to andre tidligere teoretiske retninger indenfor laereprocesforskningen, behavioristerne og kognitivisterne. Hvor behaviorismen i sin mest ekstreme udformning har studeret kropsbevaegelser uden bevidsthedens tankeprocesser, har kognitivis
The author give empirical examples from her fieldwork among physicist students in Copenhagen and ... more The author give empirical examples from her fieldwork among physicist students in Copenhagen and discuss participant observation within a new methodological framework stressing that observation and participation is always positioned. Participant-observation is a generel method useful for men and alike. Even so the question raised by the author is whether this method leads to different genderdetermined research epistemologies as male and female scientists in some ways occupy two different positions in a particular social world, which leads to differences in evaluations and reactions and thereby to different epistemological processes and analyses of the object under study.
This article argues that a multi-variation approach can be a useful supplement to existing ethnog... more This article argues that a multi-variation approach can be a useful supplement to existing ethnographic studies in the field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). The multi-variation approach builds on classical ethnographic case studies, where a researcher studies a delimited field in a microstudy of a particular robot, its makers, users, and affected stakeholders. The approach is also inspired by multi-sited studies, where researchers move across fields, adding to the complexity of the ethnographic findings. Whereas both approaches build on analysis of microstudies, the multi-variation approach is further inspired by postphenomenology, where the main aim is to deliberately seek variation – thus again adding to the complexity of the detailed findings. Here, the multivariation approach includes several researchers studying several types of robots across sites. The analytical approach seeks patterns across this complexity – and the claim is that a multi-variation approach has a strength ...
Spurred on by rapid advances of technology, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have proliferated... more Spurred on by rapid advances of technology, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have proliferated over the past decade. They pride themselves on making (higher) education available to more people at reduced (or no) cost compared to traditional university schemes and on being inclusive in terms of admitting vast numbers of students from all over the world. However, MOOCs tend to be tacitly based on the course designers' lifeworlds, which results in the sidelining of participants whose lifeworlds are different. The authors of this article highlight culture as an important but often overlooked aspect in the research on, and the design and running of MOOCs. They begin with a review of the role of culture in MOOCs research and find that it has been somewhat ignored. Next, they present a methodological framework-the culture contrast method-with which to approach the decisive role culture plays in MOOCs. Third, coming from differing cultural backgrounds, they apply the culture contrast method in a case study, contrasting experiences, interpretations and perceptions of a particular MOOC. Their varying perceptions of how, when and why they experienced a presence of authority emerge as a consistent theme in their data. Through the analysis of their data, they distinguish between the MOOC as an assemblage, consisting of the online interface, the design and hardware they inhabit as course participants, and their respective lifeworlds as their local and situated different cultures. They argue that during the run of the course, lifeworld and assemblage collide and enact a cultural authority. This authority sets the benchmark for what is deemed proper practice within a particular MOOC and it gives preferential treatment to some participants rather than others, thus actually undermining the professed inclusiveness of the MOOC format.
Uden kulturpåvirkninger ville menneskelige samfund være forudsigelige. Nye teknologier er en af d... more Uden kulturpåvirkninger ville menneskelige samfund være forudsigelige. Nye teknologier er en af det allermest indgribende kulturpåvirkninger, der skaber forandring i menneskers liv. Nye teknologier ændrer vaner, værdier, handleviden og institutionsliv generelt. På trods af denne gennemgribende indflydelse på vores hverdagsliv er teknologiforståelse ikke noget, vi lærer om i skolen. Mange får heller ikke undervisning i det på deres videregående uddannelser. I denne artikel diskuterer jeg hvilken undervisning i teknologiforståelse, der er behov for, hvis fremtidens unge skal kunne håndtere udfordringer fra teknologiens kulturpåvirkninger.
Will robots ever be able to learn like humans? To answer that question, one first needs to ask: w... more Will robots ever be able to learn like humans? To answer that question, one first needs to ask: what is learning? Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus had a point when they claimed that computers and robots would never be able to learn like humans because human learning, after an initial phase of rule-based learning, is uncertain, context sensitive and intuitive (Dreyfus and Dreyfus in A five stage model of the mental activities involved in directed skill acquisition.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or s... more This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
In this article I propose that a postphenomenological approach to science and technology can open... more In this article I propose that a postphenomenological approach to science and technology can open new analytical understandings of how material artifacts, embodiment and social agency co-produce learned perceptions of objects. In particle physics, physicists work in huge groups of scientists from many cultural backgrounds. Communication to some extent depends on material hermeneutics of flowcharts, models and other visual presentations. As it appears in an examination of physicists' scrutiny of visual renderings of different parts of a detector, perceptions vary in relation to social and bodily experiences. Vision in physics has seemingly allowed an objective perception at a convenient distance of the body. This article challenges this view and proposes that the variations can be analysed as cultural at two echelons with the help of a postphenomenological approach combined with cultural psychological theory of artifacts. A third echelon presumably constitutes the phenomenological limit to culture in science. Even this last resort of subjectivity can be embraced by a postphenomenological approach. The process of culturalization in physics can be defined as a process of situating knowledge in a body whose continuous learning of micro-and macro perceptions makes scientific renderings unstable. Taken together postphenomenology, following the distinctions between body one and body two, and combined with cultural psychological learning theory, enables new insight into what constitutes culture in science. Keywords Postphenomenology Á Science and technology studies Á Cultural psychology Á Situated knowledge Á Cultural learning processes
The study of physicists play in childhood has been made possible through a grant from the Danish ... more The study of physicists play in childhood has been made possible through a grant from the Danish Research Counsil.
In this article I argue that creative acts cannot be confined to the individual. Creativity can b... more In this article I argue that creative acts cannot be confined to the individual. Creativity can be seen as a meeting between an individual and a wider activity system. This argument is related to the claim that a zone of proximal development (ZPD), the concept connected to the culturalhistorical psychologist Lev Vygotsky, is both an internal and an external relation between an actual and a potential developmental zone. I shall suggest that institutions can facilitate creative potential and development if the associated members are trained or already have potential developmental zones answering to the actual development of the members of staff. The argument is supported by two case studies—one from fieldwork in an institution of higher education, and one from an institution for the mentally handicapped—and supplemented with a few historical examples.
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 2015
What is the strength of anthropological fieldwork when we want to understand human technologies? ... more What is the strength of anthropological fieldwork when we want to understand human technologies? In this article we argue that anthropological fieldwork can be understood as a process of gaining insight into different contextualisations in practiced places that will open up new understandings of technologies in use, e.g., technologies as multistable ontologies. The argument builds on an empirical study of robots at a Danish rehabilitation centre. Ethnographic methods combined with anthropological learning processes open up new way for exploring how robots enter into professional practices and change values, social relations and materialities. Though substantial funding has been invested in developing health service robots, few studies have been undertaken that explore human-robot interactions as they play out in everyday practice. We argue that the complex learning processes involve not only so-called end-users but also staff, management, doings and discourse in a complex amalgamati...
The lack of women engaging themselves in science has been thoroughly discussed in feminist and no... more The lack of women engaging themselves in science has been thoroughly discussed in feminist and nonfeminist science studies. It has remained a mystery why so few female students take professional careers as scientists. Though more and more female students enroll in physics studies, for example, they seem to disappear before they reach academic positions. Instead of discussing this as a query of gender inequality in this article, I discuss the more general issues of inclusion and exclusion in communities of practices. I argue that selection mechanisms in a group of students can be connected to their premises for engaging themselves in an activity. As students have different embodied experiences, they also have different premises for engaging themselves. What seems like the same practice can, in fact, be analyzed as practices belonging to different activities. This approach might bring us a small step further in the discussions of the relations between gender and science. THE PIPELINE Women in physics seem to disappear in larger and larger numbers as they get closer to tenure-what has been called "the leaking pipeline" (Schiebinger, 1999). Female students in physics do not seem to pursue careers as physicists to the same degree as their male colleagues. I assume that an analysis of the different activities the students engage in daily within university physics programs might contribute some insight to the discussions of this phenomenon. My fieldwork with students of the Department of Physics, University of Copenhagen, aims to take a closer look into possible gender barriers in the daily life activities of an education in physics. 1 This issue raises the methodological question of how people gain access to everyday activities. I have used participatory fieldwork as a road to identify the "socially significant" (Hastrup, 1994, p. 227). My data, obtained by participating in the daily practices at the physics institute, are
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