Ethnography in a Computer Science Centered Project

Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda

GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social SciencesData Archive for the Social Sciences

Unter Sachsenhausen 6 -8, 50667 KölnGermany

katharina.kinder-kurlanda@gesis.org

Overview

• Experiences and insights gained in an ethnography for design intervention within an interdisciplinary, computer science-led research project aiming to develop the internet of things

Ethnography means to observe people and cultures, to understand their meanings and everyday practices

Two challenges to interdisciplinary collaboration

1. Different research interests and observational standpoints2. A lack of clarity within the methodological foundations for

ethnography-based design informing which concerns the question of how to deal with an uncertain future

Challenge 1: Different observational standpoints

• Different research interests• A fundamental difference with regards to the authority of

claims made in the work– Computer scientists: able to accept assumptions about the state of the

world and to start building a system based on this assumption– Ethnographers: essential to understand the discourse, history,

ideology and make-up of such assumptions, which entailed to question them

• Very different requirements regarding valid and publishable research output

Challenge 1: Different research interests - Solutions

• Make continued efforts to find common ground and to identify particular, bounded points for collaboration

• In the long run: Individual efforts are dependent on universities and funding bodies rewarding out-of-the box thinking & acknowledging differences in what counts as publishable results

Challenge 2: Design is future-oriented

• Technologies can only be understood in use contexts • But how to observe future technologies in order to inform

design?• For an ethnographic account to become useful we needed to

solve: – How to build a new technology while still researching the target

setting– How to describe changes which will only emerge with technology use

Challenge 2: Design is future-oriented - Solutions

• Frame the technologies as already ‘there’ – in the form of actors' perceptions and expectations – in the form of technology precursors within the setting

• View technology development as part of a continuous and ongoing process of change within the setting – …rather than as a sudden cut which dramatically alters everything– Allows to see development and research of the setting as connected– Can achieve iteration/co-development of findings/theory & practice /

development

Outlook

• Look further into the role that institutionalizing interdisciplinary plays in enabling novel approaches

• Call for an ‘agile ethnography’ that makes use of concepts of iteration both from ethnography and from agile development methods in order to improve interdisciplinary collaboration

Thank you!