The Limits of Ethnography:Combining Social Sciences for CSCW

Dan Shapiro

Sociology Department &

CSCW Research CentreLancaster University

Lancaster LA1 4YL, UKTel: +44 524594175

E-mail: shapiro@lancaster.ac.uk

ABSTRACTThis paper addresses some of the divergences between socialsciences, and proposes the development of hybrid fornns ofparticipation in CSCW. It offers a critique of the theoreticalisolationism of some ethnomethodological ethnography. Itreviews the prospects for interdisciplina~ collaboration, andseeks to motivate it with some “core propositions” whichexpose the inescapable character of the problems (althoughnot necessarily of the solutions) which are “owned” bydifferent disciplines. It illustrates hybrid forms withdiscussion of some issues in two areas: the cognitive versusthe ethnographic; it further describes the politics ofparticipation.

KEY WORD S: CSCW, interdisciplinary relations,ethnography, ethnomethodology, cognitive science,participative design, distributed cognition.

INTRODUCTIONIssues of interdisciplinary work are among the mostfundamental in CSCW research. Some almost go so far asto define it [20]. But a consequence of this interdisciplinarynature is an ever-broader range of voices offering to speak todesigners’ problems. Older paradigms have continued; inaddition, newer ones have been overlaid on these older onesto create a bewildering diversity of disciplinary perspectives.Software engineering, information systems, activity theory,participative design, cognitive ergonomics and cognitiveengineering, linguistics, linguistic philosophy, softsystems, management science, organizational studies, andethnographic sociology and anthropology can all stake asignificant claim, and there are certainly other claimantsbesides. While the relations between the social andcomputer sciences have properly received the most attention[1, 7, 8], relations within the social sciences are alsoproblematic. As Graham Button [workshop contribution]

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has aptly put it, when designers “open the box” of thesocial sciences, they find their prospective partners lockedin desperate struggles with each other, both betweendisciplines and within them.

The struggles within the social sciences concern long-standing foundational matters of philosophy, theory, andmethod, and there can be no prospect of “disposing” ofthem as a sideline along the way to a participation indesign. But the field of CSCW has matured to the pointwhere it can no longer ignore these issues. This paperargues that a practical orientation to design gives them aparticular cast, which it seeks to explore.

I start with a consideration of ethnographic approaches, andthe distinction between ethnography in general andethnomethodological ethnography in particular. The reasonthis is important is that ethnomethodology sets for itself astrict agenda which separates it in certain ways from mostmainstream social science. It insists on a rigorouslydescriptive rather than theoretical program, or anexplanato~ one (in the sense that most social scienceswould understand it). This lends it its strength in producingrich descriptions of work in context, but creates particularkinds of difficulties in meshing its work with that of otherdisciplines.

I review these approaches briefly, suggest some diftlcultieswith the “purist” approach, and advocate the development ofhybrid forms within the social sciences for CSCW design. Iargue that the time is ripe for these hybrid forms, and I tryto ground them in practical motives for collaboration bydeveloping some “core propositions” which reveal the

inescapable character of the problems (although notnecessarily of the solutions) which are “owned” in somesense by different social science disciplines. I illustrate thiswith discussion of some issues in two areas: the cognitiveversus the ethnographic, and the politics of participation—engaging, in passing, the debate on THE COORDINATORrekindled by Suchman [33].

ETHNOGRAPHY OR ETHNOMETHODOLOGY?Ethnography has achieved high visibility as a contributionto CSCW. While “ethnography” as a term strikes a usefulcontrast to traditional methods of requirements capture,

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within sociology and anthropology themselves it denotesrather little. It marks a distinction from quantitativeapproaches to social science and carries with it acommitment to a period and degree of immersion in thesocial setting being studied that is sufficient to reach aqualitative understanding of what happens there. These areimportant matters, but beyond this, ethnography can be putto the service of virtually any theoretical school: there are,for example, functionalist, structuralist, interactionist,Weberian and Marxist ethnographies [cf., 17].

There are also ethnomethodological ones. These havedominated in CSCW at least since Suchman used thisapproach as the basis of her Plans and Situated Actions[34]. Recent ethnomethodological studies of work settingshave also been influential in the field, such as that of Heathand Luff [18], which describe the collaborative workpractices and procedures through which communication andcoordination takes place in a London Underground linecontrol room. It has become a shorthand or simplificationin CSCW to speak of ethnography when in fact what isoften involved is ethnomethodological ethnography.

Nothing which I argue in this paper constitutes a proposalto replace ethnomethodological ethnography with othervarieties. Rather, I am concerned with its borders: with theconnections that can be forged with other contributions toCSCW design, and some limits which the classicalethnomethodological program may place on theseconnections.

ETHNOMETHODOLOGICAL CHOICESThe founding works of ethnomethodology [e.g., 13] andintroductions to the field [e.g., 31] explain that mostmainstream social science sees itself as proceedingtheoretically--that is, by proposing concepts and logicalrelations between them which abstract successfully from thestate of things in the real world and help to explain them.Ethnomethodologists (in the wake of phenomenologists)claim that attempts to do this fail for a variety of reasons.One is that the theoretical approach has to assume that thesocial order is an external “given” which people “enact”(although this is not incompatible with them doing sovoluntarily). Yet attempts to explore this (by, for example,trying to provoke the breakdown of social order ininteraction) reveal that people in fact construct their socialorder in radically creative ways in the very process of actingtogether. Because of this, attempts by “conventional” socialscience to explore the empirical implications of theoreticalaccounts fall down, because they are attempting tooperationalise on the back of a set of “common-sense”entities which are, in practice, being constantly remade insignificant ways by members of the social order. Theytherefore do not exhibit the constancy and stability that isrequired for them to be investigated (e.g., measured) in waysconsistent with the theoretical approach. (This is, ofnecessity, an absurdly simplified account--for a discussionof varieties of ethnomethodology, with particular referenceto the cognitive, see [26]).

That is part of what is meant by the “indexical” character ofthe terms and concepts employed in common-sense talk andinteraction: that they are radically contextual and cannot befully specii5ed independent of the circumstances of their use.Garfinkel proposes that rather than seeing this as aweakness, it should be recognised as the practicalachievement whose properties make everyday sense-makingpossible. Indexicality is the triumph rather than the shameof ordinary language. Yet the concepts which conventionalsocial science tries to deploy in its theories--and which ittherefore requires to exhibit stability--me themselves, and/orrely for their senseful application, on irreducibly indexicalexpressions (and actions).

The ethnomethodological program proceeds by makingcertain strategic choices about how to do sociology. In therelationships between theory, research, and phenomenon, itsees two possibilities. First, it persists with attempts totheorise on the basis of concepts which cannot be adequateto their phenomena. Second, it follows the phenomena(pursuing the data) wherever they may lead [31].Mainstream social science chooses the former;ethnomethodology chooses the latter. Hence, one of themost distinctive claims of ethnomethodology: that it is notdriven by theory or explanation but by the stringentdiscipline of observation and description. In this it separatesitself from “mainstream” sociology and from the other (ineffect, from all) “Galilean” social sciences.

It is for these kinds of reasons that ethnomethodology cansometimes seem so recalcitrant to those who turn to it forenlightenment, in terms which would be familiar to them,about topics which are important to some constituency. Forany given question, the approach is to ask: What methodsdo practitioners within the domain use to give sense to,answer, and resolve that question? So, for example, thequestion, “What functions are embodied in these workpractices?’ will be answered by exploring the methodsmembers within the setting use to find functions and toattribute them to practices; and the question, “What is thecostibenefit of this technical-cum-organizational change?”will be answered by exploring the grounds on whichmembers within the setting identify, allocate, and assesscosts and benefits, In doing this, they will certainly exposemany ways in which the questions as they were posed aretrickier and more ill-formed than their posers imagined themto be--but most probably not to the point of their agreeingto drop the original form of their interest in such questionsaltogether. It is therefore fairly arbitrary how pertinent theresults will be for the problems of practitioners within thatconstituency as they see them; or, to put it slightlydifferently, how much and what kinds of further work arenecessary to make them pertinent in those ways.

Documentary MethodBecause people constitute the social order in radicallycreative ways, this means that they must themselves beinvolved in a constant process of analysing and exploringit, so that they are able to act successfully--intersubjectively--in relation to others for everyday practical purposes. Two

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things follow. First, the difference between members actingin society and sociologists studying it is not so great--bothare involved in the analysis of social order, although fordifferent purposes. Second, this provides a very valuableresource for studying the constitution of social order,namely the methods which members themselves use ineveryday social action. This indeed is how the termethnomethodology was derived.

Since the whole complex patterning of social activity--its“structure’’--is seen as deriving from the practices ofmembers themselves and not from the enactment of someunderlying scheme which they have simply internalised,then they must both generate and know how to absorb therequisite information. For this to work, members mustactively make the social organization of their activities“accountable” to each other. This is a powerful resource forthe observer, since it can be followed “in the doing.” Forthose sufficiently geared into the setting, this “signaling”is a publicly available matter in which any competentmember can engage. At its most basic, this means talkingabout what is going on in ways that are specificallysenseful for the setting: “that X is late again” indicates(with astonishing economy) a familiar exception to theexpected pattern; while particular handling may be required,it will be in (some variant o~ a way that has already beenpractised. “War stories” about events may be structuredaround (and hence display) the features that make themrelevantly remarkable, in terms of the play ofunderstandings and misunderstandings, expectations met andmissed, strategies of repair, and so forth: a particularcombination of circumstances might, say, turn what wouldroutinely be easily distinguishable events into confusableones on this occasion.

Through their social organisation, activities are “corrigible”in mid-flow: an apparently tangential remark or query maybe seen to be a tactful way of calling a colleague’s attentionto something that has been overlooked an apology offered,however fleetingly, may indicate a departure from thenormal course of events that requires some additional workfor a colleague to cope with or repair. Where an activityattracts particular attention from colleagues, then this is aresource for investigating the character of its“exceptionrdity” (this is somewhat comparably to Bittner’s[2] discussion of “stylistic unity” in organizations). Thereare also “breach experiments’’--exploring the characteristicsof a setting by deliberately acting in ways which provoke abreakdown in its normal course. (h the context of our workon air trafi3c control we did not think these very desirable.)

It is on account of the documentary method that the “richdescriptions” offered by ethnomethodology can be claimedto be systematic and not arbitrzuy ones. As is well known,this is best developed and achieved in conversation analysis,where small segments of data can be recorded and richlytranscribed for exhaustive repeated study. (The analysis ofwork equivalent techniques, such as video analysis, arempidly developing [25] but are still far less secure.)

BREACHINGI find some difficulties with various steps in thesearguments. What is more to the point, however, is thatmany ethnomethodologists also seem to find problems inadhering to the program. There is no question that it yieldsmany tremendously interesting and useful insights, but howvalid is its claim to be regarded as a purely descriptiveagenda? I argue that it is “honoured in the breach” in atleast three respects. The first is that the description is “justdescriptive” only given the choice that has been made. It isequivalent to instmcting the researcher to describe those andonly those aspects of the setting which can be used todemonstrate its self-ordering properties, and to organize thedescription such that it emphasises those properties (forexample, concerning how to account for the phonecompany’s recommendation to let the phone ring ten times,see [29]). It does, therefore, specify not only how to lookbut also what to find.

The second concerns the interpretive character of what aresupposedly “first order” observations. For example, in theirtreatment, also of telephone conversations, Sharrock andAnderson [31] discuss that when a friend calls up for someparticular purpose they often do not want this to berecognised, and will introduce the reason into theconversation at some later point as though it were anafterthought. But it is surely stretching matters to hold thatthis explanation, however satisfying and plausible, isactually provided in the data. It rests, rather, ontheorisations of how people are liable to feel when they calltheir friends for instrumental reasons. Thus, it has shiftedfrom a statement about how people handle conversations toan interpretation of how they handle their relations. There isa “residual move” of explication and interpretation whichgoes beyond what is directly to be found in the materialsand effects some kind of transition to concepts, categories,and arguments which relate to sociology’s concerns as moreconventionally conceived. Hence it is arguable that rigorousadherence to the data does not fully succeed even in its mostdeveloped heardand, conversational analysis. When it comesto work, the problems are much greater due to the diftlcultyof recording work activities with comparable accuracy andaccessibility, and due to their open-ended and multi-facetedcharacter.

Third, there is the apparent willingness on the part ofethnomethodologists to intersperse “second order”observations in their accounts, which connect them to otherkinds of sociological interests, or indeed to ethical, politicalor personal interests. For example, in her discussion of thelanguage/action perspective, Suchman [33] refers to one ofSacks’s published lectures in which he uses his analysis ofcategorization devices specifically to interpret thecategorizations produced by teenagers (“hotrodders”) asrevolutionary acts of resistance against their assignment toa place in a system of categorization that is not of theirown making. She goes on to argue, referencing the work ofFoucault, that the categorization devices of speech acttheory have been taken over, in THE COORDINATOR, as adiscipline for organizational communications (more on this

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below), In these and many other instances, the work ofethnomethodology is recruited into the explanatory “sense-mdcing” self-indulgences of sociology; it would lose asubstantial part of its interest, for many of the researchersthemselves as well as for their readers, if it was not. Clearlythis sows some confusion about exactly what lies insideand what outside the paradigm. It makes it much harder forthose advocating a “purist” ethnomethodology to reject, orcontinue indefinitely to postpone, an engagement with themore conventional concerns of social science.

PURITY OR DANGER?It would seem that ethnomethodology now has on offer afork of two possible routes. The “purist” route is to try everharder for a proper, painstakingly empirical sociologywhich is fully grounded in the phenomena that it studies.For this reason (and not because of any counterpoising of“micro” and “macro” perspectives), it will have a veryconcentrated focus of attention, and may fail even there. Thealternative is to combine in some form with the messy,contestable, provisional, iterative scene in which theformation and deployment of concepts struggles to carveworkable entities and relations out of the seamless flow,and to cope with its simplifications, indexicalities,inconstancies, and a priori theorising; all for the prize ofhaving something to say across a wide range of social andsociological concerns.

Most observational methods have (or claim) a circular ordialectical relation to theory, in that it is the relation ofobservation to theory (not necessarily a relation of simpleconsistency) that lends a pattern of observations itsplausibility and rescues it from the arbitrary.Ethnomethodology seeks to deny itself this recourse orcomfort, arguing that nothing prevents this from resultingin a collusion between theory and observation in arbitraryfictions. If, as I have suggested, this strategy does notwholly succeed, then it may be helpful forethnomethodologists and others to consider explicitly itsrelation to other purposes within social science, and toother bases of observation.

It is evidence of the clarity and sophistication ofethnomethodology that it directly foregrounds its exercise ofchoice in philosophical and methodological direction. It istypically accepted that other choices are possible, and that areturn in some form to the classical theoretical concerns ofsociology is a reasonable long-term objective, once anadequate foundation has been put in place. Much hangs onthe integrity with which ethnomethodology can maintainthis distinction: its refusal to tender “advice” about itsobjects of study in the ways that its practitioners mightexpect, its refusal to generalise or abstract from its findings,its refusal to engage in theoretical speculations, its refusalto miscegenate with other forms of social science.

Although the problems raised about the relationshipbetween theory, method and data, and about the constancyof the “object” of study are very real and important ones,the consequences of accepting this as a total bar on the

possibility of any further inquiry of this character are--toborrow a term from legal discourse--’’too onerous.” Itdisqualifies us from being able to speak directly about“preserving” the activities in new forms of work, or aboutthe ethical or political character of actual or proposedchanges. There must be some middle way, although it willindeed involve accepting that there is a clear drop instandards in the relation between evidence and argument,together with a shift in the nature of the objectives, when acertain point is passed.

Sharrock and Anderson claim [31] that it is ironic thatsociologists sometimes try to incorporateethnomethodological studies into conventional sociology,since this completely misses the motivation whichunderlies the work. The question, however, is whether onemay fully understand the motivation but choosenevertheless to recruit the results for “conventional”theonsing (to say nothing of the equivalent irony that manywho afilliate with ethnomethodology themselves choose todo so). To what extent and in what ways are the fruits ofethnomethodological inquiry available to orincommensurate with work of other kinds?

There can be no doubt that brilliant work will be done bycontinuing to pursue to its uttermost possibility the objectand doctrine of faithfulness to the materials. Theethnomethodological “strong program” is one of the mostimpressive in current sociology, but no one should look toit for quick results, in the sense of quickly building out asound empirical basis for the [reconstructed] concerns ofother areas of the social sciences. But there is also, Ibelieve, worthy and important work to be done in pursuingand exploring hybrid forms, and I try to develop in thesecond part of the paper something of what this wouldmean. For this “fudge” to work, however, there must indeedbe compromise on both sides, whereas at presentethnomethodologists are fully justified in their critique thatmost mainstream social science simply ignores theseproblems.

The Distinctiveness of DesignThese questions of methodological choice receive aparticular twist when taken in the context of systemsdesign. For academic purposes, one is entirely free topursue theoretical and methodological choices rigorouslyand to their logical conclusion: endless qualification andelaboration is possible, and indeed appropriate, as is themaintenance of a rigid boundary demarcating one’sconcerns. But one of the virtues and interests of systemsdesign as a practical endeavour is that it creates aconstrained arena within which some set of compromisesmust be worked out. While it should not be taken as anexcuse for relaxing, nor allowed to obscure the stunningadvances that are sometimes achieved, it is helpful torecognise that design is not an exact or an absolute matter,but is about simply “doing one’s best” on a range ofdimensions--functionality, time, cost, etc.--and in relationto large numbers of divergent and conflicting objectives[14]. In a messy and imperfect world which is already full

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of tragedies and ironies on every side, systems developersbuild on the past in the hope of coming up with something

better (for a reasonable expenditure of resources) than wasavailable before. Borrowing from H. A. Simon [32] we

could say that design, as with almost every other practice in

the real world, is to do with “satisficing’’--not withachieving perfection, but with attaining a set ofcompromises and outcomes which are “good enough” forthe purposes and “the best that can be done” in the givencontext. All kinds of systems are going to be designedwill y-nilly, with all kinds of imperfections and

compromises. But the reverse is also true: when we areconcerned with matters in the real world, theoretically-basedcritiques are simply not a sound enough basis for rejectingcontributions which might be useful. Too many of ourconfldent]y-held essentialism have fallen away in recentyears for anyone to be satisfied, on a theoretical basis alone,that they have either vindicated an approach or deftitivelydemolished a competing one.

I believe this raises an interesting dilemma for

ethnomethodology. Sociology’s purposes are self-definingand self-pacing (which is not, of course, to say that thereare no external influences on them). The fact of a systemand its time frame (if not its detailed content) are externallygiven, in a “satisficing” context, in which the contributionsof many different parties must be made to work together.What then is the purpose of treating the

ethnomethodological analysis of work for system design asa hermetically sealed endeavour which brooks nocompromise? What one chooses not to do for sociological

purposes, one may be forced to do for design.

There are obvious differences between an ‘adequate account’for the purposes of social science and one for the purposesof design. Sociologists’ purposes will typically be suchthings as to evidence or refine a general principle (e.g., thatthe orderliness of activities is produced in and through theactions of members, or that labor process changes are drivenby imperatives of capital accumulation). Alternatively, itmay be to identify a particular kind of process ormechanism in the work setting (e .g,, intersections of class,gender and ethnicity in the allocation and definition of jobs,

or the place of trust in enabling the flow of work). Buthaving once “captured” such instances (provided, if youlike, an “existence proof’ for them), it is not a natural partof sociology’s interest to catalogue them exhaustively for agiven work setting and to identify minutely and in theirtotality the flows of activities which they make up. Yetthis may be precisely what the software engineer needs as abasis for requirements capture. Hence a “natural” expressionof ethnomethodology’s interest is to show, for any givenwork setting, its self-organizing character, and the ways inwhich parties to that setting will collectively “bend” theresources to their purposes as best they can. It is far lessnatural an expression to seek to judge the adequacy ofalternative sets of resources, even less to “invent” a better-suited one.

One recourse is to abandon any such questions to the

designer, having contributed to the “pot” key additional (and

previously invisible) knowledge of what is salient to theorganization of the work setting. The designer, or the

design team, is saddled with the responsibility for the

system and so this must undoubtedly be where all finalresolutions are achieved. Designers bring to the processdiverse kinds of technical knowledge, a range of techniques,and a wealth of experience. But they have no magic meansavailable to them for reconciling orthogonal perspectives orworking through the detailed consequences of socialscientific studies. It seems odd to impose the entireresponsibility for the redesign of work on systems designerswhile those whose speciality is supposed to be the analysisof work run for cover.

In practice, ethnographies of work in CSCW are nowsometimes concluded with a discussion of designimplications, but these are typically reticent and show amarked, if understandable, change of level by comparisonwith the rest of the research. One might describe this as a

kind of “covert theonsing.” Because it is not supposed toexist, it cannot be acknowledged, and so cannot surfaceamid the fray of other theoretical contestation and debate. Ibelieve this is evidence of the need for further hybrid formsof interdisciplinary work for design, Of course, this equallyapplies to other disciplines. If they allow themselves togive the “satisficing” of a successful design priority over

particular disciplinary concerns, then they too will need tosuspend various of the “necessary fictions” through whichtheir boundaries are maintained and imperative calls on their

attention are contained. I suggest in the conclusion that the

gains from this are not merely pragmatic ones,

HYBRID FORMSThere are various reasons why it may now be quite asuitable period to try to forge such connections. For thesocial science researchers who are engaged in questionsrelated to CSCW design, the usual perception from theheartland of their respective disciplines would be that theyare engaged in an applied field of work. Despite the dubiousvalidity of the distinction, a classic view of theserelationships is that bodies of theory and of well-establishedknowledge in the core of disciplines will strongly determinethe way that these are applied in various practically-orientedfields. In practice the relation is far more complex (withrespect to HCI see, for example, the contributions to [6]).In particular, I want to suggest that the relationshipbetween core theory and application in different disciplinesis variable over time.

In periods of theoretical confidence and coherence, therelationship is a strong] y directional one, and applicationfields tend to be subordinate within a discipline. Indeed theywill always tend to be subordinate, but in these conditionsthat subordination will be much more effectively policed. Inperiods of theoretical disintegration and hesitancy, this tie ismuch weakened, and it can even be the case that applicationfields move to the heart of development within a discipline,and disciplinary boundaries are much more open--not only

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with regard to “applied” work, but to empirical research andto theoretical influence from other disciplines. I suggestthat in a number of areas of social science we have recentlymade such a transition, and that this is having substantialeffects on the nature and prospects of applied,interdisciplinary work.

Over roughly the past two decades, many of the socialsciences now contributing to CSCW have enjoyed periodsof theoretical contldence and coherence. So, for example,cognitive psychology was harnessed to the modelling ofuser requirements. Systems theory and cyberneticsdeveloped optimised models of processes. The triumphs ofstructural linguistics in the 1970s helped to bolster theview that “structured communication” could be modelledand supported. In sociology (although without at that timeany thought of contributing to systems design), Marxist-derived labor process theory offered to explain both the usesto which computer systems were put, and developments inthe division of labor within systems development, such assoftware engineering; restructuring theory and worldsystems theory, at the same time, offered to explain thechanges in the global economy brought about by theharnessing of informatics.

While that confidence reigns, there is a strong directionalityto the relationship between core theory and the field ofapplication. Under these circumstances, applying anapproach in an interdisciplinary field means bringing thosetheoretical strengths and certainties to bear on it, andseeking homologies with the orientations and certainties ofother contributors. Where such confirmation cannot befound, the inclination will be to contest whatever contraryperspectives are encountered. On the whole, then, thismakes for a program either of corroboration or disciplinaryimperialism.

But what happens when these certainties fall away? In eachof these fields, their “strong programs” could be said tohave encountered some deep-rooted problems andlimitations which cast them into doubt. I have alreadysuggested something of this kind for ethnomethodolog y,but it is certainly not alone. Cognitive modelling of userrequirements has encountered the indeterminacy and lack ofhierarchical decomposability of activities, and is now tryingto come to terms with the “sociality” of work. Systemstheory has similarly encountered the indeterminacy andcomplexity of work, and the inevitability of initiative anddiscretion. Structured communication has encountered thedifference between heuristics and pragmatic in languageuse. Marxist sociology has encountered the seemingimpossibility of planning a complex economy, and thedifficulty of envisaging anything other than a “market”alternative; the difference between the interests of directproducers and the “general interest;’ so that a trade unionperspective (even an idealised one) is no longer sufficient;and the seeming inevitability of competition in a globalcontext and increases in labor productivity as key agents ofdevelopment.

Across the board, therefore, the prospects for determinacyand predictability seem to be increasingly thrown intodoubt, and with them the prospect for such classicallymodernist projects as the “rational design” of artefacts,organisations, institutions, political systems, personal

relations, or whatever. Under these circumstances, whatwould previously have been seen as a discipline’s mainstrengths, its theoretical empowerment, suddenly reappearas essentialism baggage of questionable utility. What arealso called into doubt here are the twinned “necessaryfictions” through which disciplinary boundaries aremaintained: that their own perspectives are both coherentand self-contained as accounts of the world; and thatpractical ends can be satisfactorily achieved on the basis ofthem--in this case, that the depictions of the target domainwhich they produce are adequate for systems design. Theseare not, in the main, explicitly affkmed. But if it is regardedas unnecessary and unirnpoflant to look over the boundariesof a perspective in order to feel confident of one’s ownpronouncements, then they are present by implication andin effect.

Some “Core Propositions” for InterdisciplinarySystem DesignWhat are the implications of this for practical design? I

believe it gives rise to new puzzles of both a technicalcharacter (what is “good design”) and of ethical/politicalchoices (how does one exercise “good will” in design). Ireturn to the latter further below.

I earlier urged a “satisficing” perspective on design, and

argue that this can be a liberating perspective forconsidering who should be involved in design, and how.However, and despite the weakening directionality between

core and application which I proposed above, the firstinstinct of academic researchers when attemptinginterdisciplinary collaboration is to bring together and try toreconcile their theoretical perspectives and core precepts, sothat these can be brought to bear in a “well-grounded” wayon a practical field of application. Yet it is at exactly thislevel that the differences between disciplinary approacheswill seem most intractable: as between, for example, theformal modelling of users’ requirements drawn fromcognitive psychology, the specification of functionalrequirements drawn from information systems, and theflexibility and situated character of action in context drawnfrom ethnomethodology. Researchers will be understandablyreluctant to buy into the solutions to design issuesproposed from other perspectives (the competing necessaryfictions).

One way to approach this is to acknowledge that disciplinesare the custodians of certain core perceptions which anyonesetting out to achieve success in the design of certain kindsof system would ignore at their peril. However strangesome disciplines’ theoretical self-understandings may seemto be, and no matter how much one may wish to contestthem at the level of theoretical or methodologicalessentialism, ultimately there are certain “corepropositions” which relate to particular disciplinary points

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of origin; and if one ignores any one of them in designingsystems, then sooner or later they will return to haunt one.

Another way of putting this is that, even if one is

unwilling to buy into any of the particular SOIU?ionsproposed, does one nevertheless need to accept the problemswhich different disciplinary perspectives somehow represent

or “own [cf., 27]? It is important to appreciate that these“core propositions” are not advanced as lasting absolutes, askey definitions, or as entailing a particular set of sub-propositions which further delineate each field. Their intentis much more “positional”: to act as a means to expressthese problems in terms that reveal their mutual necessity,even to the satisfaction of those with no prior commitmentto that discipline’s participation (the concept of “position”is taken up further below).

Some candidate examples of such “core propositions” for

the social science contributions are as follows:

1. Activities are socially organized atiflexibly situated incontext.

This looks towards ethnomethodological ethnography, andsome other forms of work analysis.

2. Organizations make deliberate strategic changes; theseengage highly differentiated interests.

This recognises “work redesign” and “requirementsengineering’’--that work and technology arrangements arechanged (invented) for instmmental reasons. Hence too thereis a necessary politics of design.

3. Users can easily be alienatedfiom a system for reasonsof presentation, interjace, and usability.

4. Using a system imposes a variety of cognitive loads;these can be assessed only in relation to practice andtraining.

These (Items 3 and 4) look to cognitive ergonomics andcognitive engineering and acknowledge interface andtraining issues, regardless of how secondary they maysometimes seem to the designer of the functionality.

5. Sociotechnical systems are mutually constituting andadaptive,

This recognises some of the dynamics involved--that newsystems change ways of working in intended and unintendedways; and that users change, indeed constitute, thetechnology from the moment of getting hold of it.

6. Users are the ultimate custodians of and experts in theirown practices.

This looks to user participation. No analysis by anymethod can do the job alone--designing by and with users isindispensable, at the least for settings where a close fit withparticular work activities is required.

7. Organizations and activities are continuously evolving.

This recognises continuing everyday dynamics of manydifferent kinds, in addition to those which arise from theintroduction of the technology itself. It implies that therecan be no serious prospect of getting a system “right the

first timey once and for all (although it certainly remainspossible to get it wrong the frst time).

Items 5, 6, and 7, taken together, look also to thearguments about the need to shift from a “product” to a“process” focus in design [15], It is sometimes argued that

this is unrealistic for “industrial” design, but if we havegrounds for thinking it a more appropriate (and mostprobably in the long run a more efficient) model, then weshould surely promote it, For an industry as recent and asvolatile as systems design, and a set of techniques as current

as software engineering, their immanent imperatives shouldnot be assumed too easily.

8. The cost-benefit of systems should be optimised(though not necessarily in financial terms alone).

This recognises that all of these matters, and what to doabout them, cannot be divorced from resourcing.

The key question is how some list of this kind could cometo be received by potential contributors to design fromdiverse backgrounds and perspectives. Are they sufficientlyself-evident, and sufficiently independent of a precisedisciplinary affiliation, as to form a basis for persuadingcontributors to reconsider their own work in the light of

them? For if it is accepted that a list of “core propositions”something like this does apply, then it will be necessary,despite the difficulties, to fmd some way of living with theconsequences of making them mutually intelligible, sincethey impinge drastically on each other. At least for somepurposes, this may not be just a matter of inclusion ormutual tolerance, but may require the development of“hybrid forms” which differ substantially from their

progenitors. It would involve disciplinary contributionswhich “know their place” in the wider scheme. Thealternative is to say which of this list one would beprepared to jettison, and what the costs and consequenceswould be. Not, of course, that this should be regarded as outof the question--it may well be claimed, from oneperspective, that another’s problem (and not just theirsolution) is falsely conceived and disappears within somealternative formulation. There can be no formula for whatkinds of hybrid forms will be appropriate. That can only bediscovered through collaborative work, But that will notstart unless the reasons why it is needed are clarified andaccepted. In the remainder of the paper I seek to exploresome of the issues of hybrid forms through a considerationof two sample areas: “the cognitive versus theethnographic ,“ and the “politics of participation.”

The Cognitive versus the EthnographicAs more researchers with psychology backgrounds in HCIbecome interested in ethnographic methods, so the questionof how exactly we should regard the relationship betweensociology and psychology as “partner” disciplines forcomputer science becomes a more pressing one in CSCW.

There are various ways in which this relationship can betreated. First, the theoretical bases of the approaches can beconsidered, as is done, for example, by Coulter [9] inpresenting a wholesale critique of cognitive theory from the

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standpoint of ethnomethodology. Second, the implicationsof the approaches specifically for HCI can be criticallyreviewed, as is done, for example, in [27]. Third, there arecritiques by psychologists in the HCI field themselves(e.g., [5]). It remains very unclear to what extent thisrepresents a development of psychological approaches, or aconjoining of psychological and sociological approaches, ora displacement of psychology by sociology. There isalready a significant “politics” of this relationship, and wecan expect it to grow. Over the last decade or so thepsychological contribution in HCI, cognitive science andhuman factors has burgeoned into an academic industry, andas yet only a small section of its members--and for themost part those more sympathetic to the shift--have noticedthe threat of displacement lurking at the fringes. CurrentlyCSCW enjoys a certain “suspension of disbelief” which issometimes accorded to newly developing fields which seemto have potential, but we cannot expect this to last.

Despite the criticisms, there may nevertheless be a desire onboth sides to collaborate or even a sense that collaborationis necessary; in neither but very little sense of how to doso. This is part] y because each approach is inclined toregard itself as generating a “core” account of the activity,with the other handling some specialised details or aspects.So, for example, ethnographers will be happy to leave suchmatters as screen colours, screen layout, the proximity andspatial relation of different work elements, the memory loadto be imposed, etc. to cognitive ergonomists, whileassuming that these will follow relatively straightforwardlyfrom the analysis of work in context. Equally, thoseengaged in task analysis will see their work as identifyingthe core of the activities being undertaken, withsociological approaches supplementing or modifying thesewith reference to their specifically communicative orcooperative aspects.

I have considered aspects of the relationship betweenethnography and cognitive task analysis in some detailelsewhere [28 Part 1, 30], on the basis of a comparison ofour own ethnographic work--on the issues surrounding an

electronic replacement for the paper flight progress strip inair traffic control [21 ]--with a representative of a taskanalysis approach addressing the same substantive problem[35]. It was suggested that the outcome of the approachesdiffered in various ways from standard expectations--generating both unanticipated opportunities andunanticipated problems--and concluding that certain kinds ofhybrid form might indeed be useful. The possibility that thebehavioral analysis might help address the ethnographer’s“completeness” problem was not fulfilled because of theextreme and potentially arbitrary statistical reduction of thedata. This, in turn, was necessary in order to avoid thecombinatorial explosion of possibilities. Nevertheless, thebehavioral analysis generated significant new informationand iuterpretations which were not in the ethnography.

The empirical basis of the behavioral analysis was calledinto question in various ways. Its categories were derivedfrom domain experts, but that is a process which, although

absolutely critical for the anal ysis, is entirely hidden.Further, it proved impossible for the authors to interpret thefindings in any significant way without appealing outsidethe behavioral data to some externally derived sense ofwhat, substantively, is “really going on” in air trafficcontrol--though, again, the derivation of these insights isnot available for inspection in the way that it would bewith an ethnograph y. Hence the “behavioral” character ofthe study may be somewhat illusory. While a systematicbehavioral recording of the flow of events is potentially avery useful resource for an ethnography, it could only be

helpful on the basis of properly situated categories--aninterdependent and sufficiently flexible iteration ofapproaches.

The development of theories of “distributed cognition”

[e.g., 22] is of obvious relevance to such a project. Instudies such as that of distributed cognition in an airlinecockpit [23], Hutchins and his collaborators draw on severalstrategies, techniques, and concepts, and on substantive andmethodological literature, which are familiar toethnomethodological ethnography. Where their objectivesclearly differ is in continuing to specify what they find interms of individual cognitive properties such as the memorystates of individuals and objects and contrasting expectationstates. They also engage much more directly info-logicalissues and are concerned, for example, with mapping theflow of information availability.

A number of issues would be relevant to furtherunderstanding and developing the relationship between theseapproaches. These include: the basis on which theethnography is done, the purpose and usage of the mappingof information availability, the sense of intersubjectivitywhich is proposed, and the meshing betweenintersubjectivity and distributed cognition. It is also impliedthat the elements of the account can still be placed within ahierarchical and extensible task structure. It is not entirelyclear what the purpose of this would be, how central it is tothe approach, and how the issues of combinatorialexplosion and lateral entanglement would be handled.

Working PositionsIt may be helpful to consider these kinds of questions intwo ways. First, in terms of the normal standards ofacademic debate: the persuasiveness of the arguments andtheir relation to evidence. Second, in terms of the situationsand contexts of those who are party to the issues. Inreception studies of the uses made by audiences of mediatexts, and in cultural studies more generally, it is commonto consider the “reading position” of audience members. So,for example, the meanings drawn from the self-same itemof television coverage of an industrial dispute (and not justthe evaluations made of it) will vary among audiencemembers on the basis of such things as their existingpolitical stance, their personal experience of comparableevents and their coverage, and their independent knowledgeof the events [16].

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I wish by analogy to invoke a concept of “workingposition’’ for parties to CSCW design. That is, the sense

and the usefulness--one might say the “validity’’--of different

perspectives and methods will depend ontheir relation tothe position from which different parties are attempting to“work on” CSCW, as well as on their merits in the standardterms of debate. In that sense we might, for example, say“positionally” of the field of CSCW as a whole that it ismoving past the point at which “ethnography” is asufficient term, and finds it both necessary and possible tocope with the question of just what kind of ethnography,and with what consequences.

The concept of distributed cognition could be seen to beworking both as a means to identify, for example, flows ofinformation availability, and also positionally to approach

sociological issues of the organization of work. So thepoint about distributed cognition is not only in what senseit involves a “better” or “worse” set of concepts thanintersubjectivity, but also that distributed cognition is avehicle by which those coming from a cognitive point of

origin can orient to the sociality of (in this case) work,which those from other backgrounds might collect underintersubjectivity. Of course it does not follow that theyamount to the same thing: there are particular costs andconsequences, together with a new potential for a dynamicrelation between the two traditions.

The Politics of ParticipationWhile ethnomethodology’s documentary method, discussedearlier, is intended to get to the heart of “what is reallygoing on” in a particular setting, there are obvious limits towhat it can achieve. In the case of the air traftlc controllerswe studied [21], they undergo highly selective recruitment,two or three years of training, and specitlc validation for theindividual sectors in which they will work which needs tobe regularly renewed. Controllers report that quite shortperiods away from a sector destroy their capacity to masterit, and they also (self-) report that the stress and theconcentration required can make it difficult for the moredemanding sectors to be managed over the age of aroundfifty. No ethnographer stands a chance under thesecircumstances of “completing” an analysis of the work.Even under much simpler conditions, there can be nocertainty of interpretation which avoids the need to involveusers closely.

But the converse also holds. It may well be asked why,having succeeded in some measure in getting psychologists“out of the loop”, designers should now be asked to toleratethe intermediation of ethnographers [Liam Bannon,workshop contribution] ? It is a tenet of ethnomethodologythat its findings are only “what every competent memberalready knows” (although I have, in fact, claimed that theschematisation that is involved goes beyond this). Yet evenso, it is evident that these renderings can seem very peculiarwhen relayed back to those members, wbo do indeed find aworld of difference between what they “already know”performatively and what they could know discursively (formyself, I have found my facility at turn-taking in

conversation considerably debilitated since reading theliterature). This means that there is a point to theethnomethodological intermediation--the rendering ofactivities that results from it is, for good or ill,substantially different from a collegird “muddling through”

of users and designers.

This raises directly the question of the relationship betweenan ethnographically-informed CSC W and ParticipativeDesign (PD). Although also a varied program [see, e.g., 3,11], the most distinctive elements of PD could besummarised as:

(l)It is politically committed to workers and directproducers, and to the enhancement rather than thedestruction of their skills, autonomy, and quality ofworking life. It has sought to realise this throughworking closely with trade unions at various levels,

and enhancing their capacity to devise and to achievealternative technology policies.

(2)It is action research, intended to make a direct andimmediate difference to the working conditions of theirresearch “subjects” and to foster industrial democracy.

(3)It proceeds by a direct and unmediated partnershipbetween designers and the users of systems, and hasdevised a range of methods for rapid prototyping ofsystems in collaboration with users.

While the political engagement of PD is always stressed,some commentators suggest that its main rationale hasshifted from democratic participation to effectiveness indesign [27]. It might be more accurate to say that theconcern with effectiveness has always been there, but thatits grounds have shifted. In the earlier formulations, thecapitalist context and its labor process implications werethemselves seen as the main fetters on development, so thata thoroughgoing industrial democracy was the mostobvious way to unleash more effective systems. But this isnow part of PD’s problem: as confidence in thisstraightforward solution has weakened, it is less evidenthow to replace it. While PD has always been concerned totry to exercise “good will” in design, the decline of tradeunion power even in Scandinavia means that this is a goodwill which PD has increasingly to define for itself. How, in

effect, should one attempt to assess the politics of CSCWsystems?

Just as the earlier assessments were grounded incontemporary conceptions of the labor process founded inthe work of Braverman [4], a current assessment needs tosituate itself in relation to present debates about thechanging nature of work in advanced economies [19, 24],especially concerning “flexible specialisation” in the

globalised post-Fordist economy. The orienting sigtilcanceof these debates for redesign is obvious, though it could beargued that it is not very specific. But their import is farmore direct when it comes to seeking to evaluate thepolitics and the ethics of particular interventions in systemsdesign, since these depend on an appraisal of the realistic

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possibilities and their balances of advantage, howeverdifficult this may be. A broad spectrum of possibilities forevaluating CSCW and comparable leading edge systemsphilosophies might be as follows:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

That the new forms of work and their accompanyingtechnologies are simply a systematic aid toexploitation on lines of class, gender, race, the globaldivision of labor, etc. Perhaps the character of thisexploitation is more shrouded and obscure, more“ideological” (as, for example, in “quality circles”), butthis simply represents a more modern form of the samelabor process developments that have alwayscharacterised new technology.

At the other extreme, that the technology itself isinherently democratic and liberating. Of course therewill always be differential access to and through anytechnology, but CSC W cannot help but be moredemocratic than the “privatised” technology that itdisplaces, in much the same way that the telephonemight be said to be an inherently democratic(uncontainable) technology.

That the forms of work are themselves becoming lessoppressive. As the most advanced forms of productionshift from Fordism to post-Fordism, this requiresincreasing flexibility and intelligent initiative from alarger proportion of the workforce. There is therefore acorresponding shift from “direct control” to“responsible autonomy” as the management strategyfor these sections of the workforce. This is akin tosome of the “human relations” developments of the1960s and 1970s, but this time forced as part of thematerial development of the labor process, rather thanchosen as an act of “good will.”

That we can exercise the moral choice only to developsystems that are “liberating” and humane. Thisinvolves making the brave assumption that we canknow the uses of systems, and that these uses cannotbe “turned” [cf., 36].

That we can choose only to support subordinatedgroups of people, whose voices would otherwise not beheard in the development process.

That even if our intervention is exploitative, we mayhave to accept that enhancing productivity in a globallycompetitive environment is simply necessary as theengine of growth and of survival. If capitalism is nowthe only show in town, then it is in workers’ intereststo be exploited by successful rather than unsuccessfulcapitals. If the objectives of skill enhancement and jobcreation are to be pursued, then it may be necessary toshift the focus to a societal or even global level, ratherthan expecting to be able to achieve it within a givenunit of production.

That people resent and are frustrated by systems andsetups which force them to do a bad job. Thoughpeople are sometimes so completely demoralised orantagonised that they seem not to care about their

8

9

work, basically they prefer to be able to take pride intheir job. Even if they do intensify accumulation, goodsystems and procedures are a major determinant--maybenow the major determinant--of the quali~ of workinglye.

That we have to make continuing choices, project byproject, day by day, and even hour by hour, about what

to get involved in. In doing this, we are drawn into acontinuously unfolding succession of more-or-less

shabby compromises.

That the character and consequences of what is done insystems design, in both the broad and the narrowcontext, are extremely complex and Iargelyunknowable.

Essentially, I believe the current politics of design are bestrepresented as a mixture of all of these, with the last twopredominating. This raises some issues with regard toSuchman’s critique of THE COORDINATOR, mentionedearlier, Foucault’s analysis of the birth of the prison inDiscipline and Punish [12] focuses on a particularinstitution, but explores the ways in which its regimes of

surveillance were “rehearsed” over other institutions, andargues that these are the main techniques of diffused powerthrough which our society in its totality is now maintained.In an age of surveillance, the character and sigtilcance ofany particular artefact of surveillance is not so clear, anddepends on the relations within which it is embedded. Asystem like THE C 00 RDINATOR is one thing whenimposed on functionaries in a strongly hierarchical firm;but what would one say of it being applied to monitoringcompliance by police custody officers with prisoners’ rightsas set out, for example, in the UK Police and CriminalEvidence Act? The enthusiasm with which, it seems, thesystem is sometimes received by ordinary users might havesomething to do with its contrast with uncompromisinglyhierarchical systems of the project planning type. If theprevious experience was of simple fiat delivered by thesystem (complete with critical date), then to be offered thechance of agreeing or negotiating a commitment may seemlike heaven (while under other circumstances--regularstandard procedures, for example--it could be an infernalnuisance). Of course this is not at all to dispute that onecould and should try for something much better (which maymean much “less”).

If it is hard to assess the meaning of “good will” in design,how hard would it be to realise once decided? Of course thiscan only depend on the particular circumstances, but amidthe guruism of “modem management” there seems, in manycases, to be real indecision about the direction to take, withmodernist “scientific” management and postmodemflexibility and autonomy holding variable sway in differentsites, in different forms, with regard to different sectors ofthe workforce, and with different consequences. Amongstother things, those seeking new systems will probably beuncertain about what they want and about what is possible,and may well imagine themselves to be far moreconstrained by existing design techniques, methods, and

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philosophies than is actually the case. In such

circumstances a politically realizable intervention fromsystems design is not entirely out of the question. That it is

sorely needed is shown by studies such as that of Egger and

Wagner of time management in the allocation of hospitalsurgery resources [10]. A revealing irony which is relevantto the previous discussion is that the strengthening ofmanagement in the UK national health service, broughtabout by a government-enforced pseudo-market orientation,is likely to enhance the prospects of some such systemhere.

An upshot of all these considerations is that a sensitive andsuccessful redesign is, at least for many of the mostinteresting and significant kinds of systems for CSCW,

unlikely to be achieved without the development of mutualunderstanding on the part of very diverse contributors.Consultants and management scientists will propose formsof work and technology redesign which will often be rootedin fashion and hype, but which may also be grounded inexperience of comparable settings and of the developingcompetitive environment. A participative design or aparticipative CSCW which takes no account of theproblems, as they understand and experience them, whichare faced by organizations in engaging with a hostile andincreasingly global environment, has no chance of beingtaken seriously. This does not foreclose in any way theimaginativeness with which this “taking account” might bedone. At the same time, managements and their consultantsare likely to have a severely tnmcated view of what theirstaff really do, and of the dependence of their enterprise ontheir routine and flexible production of cooperation, Theobjective is to invent and develop appropriate forms ofwork and work support by and with diverse groups of users.Among the most important factors for this will be thespace and time for attempts at workable resolutions to benegotiated amongst the parties when the prospects ofredesign bring them to light,

CONCLUSIONSI have tried to indicate that there is a need and a virtue indeveloping hybrid forms of social science contribution toCSCW, and that ethnomethodologicrd ethnography shouldalso engage in this program. The objective would be foreach participating discipline to recognise these hybrid

forms, not as a generous accommodation to others’problems, but as necessary for satisfactorily addressingvarious of their own core problems, properly conceived. Atpresent the context for such attempts is very obviously aresearch one. If it can be made to work there, then it will betime to consider such crucial matters as when and for whatrange of systems it would be cost-effective to attempt it.

If this were only a matter of improving the contributionmade by different social sciences to systems design, thenthat would be a worthy but slightly dull result from theperspective of the heartland of a discipline. But, of course,the long term hope must be that such stem tests, overterrain not entirely of their own choosing, will provoke andreveal core developments for their methods and theories.

This paper has also tried to indicate some glimpses of suchprospects.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe ideas in this paper have benefited from discussions withmany groups of colleagues, including especially themembers of EC Working Groups on InterdisciplinaryTheoretical Approaches for Cooperation Technology(INTACT) and on Interdisciplinary Practice for CooperationTechnology (IMPACT), the EC HCM Research Networkon Appropriate Cooperation Technology (ENACT), the ECESPRIT Basic Research Action on Computer-BasedMechanisms of Interaction in Cooperative Work (COMIC),the Vienna-based “Software Cultures” project, and theLancaster CSCW Research Centxe.

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