Paper Title: Reflexivity in Digital Anthropology
Authors: Jennifer A. Rode
Authors Bio:
Jennifer A. Rode is an Assistant Professor at Drexel's School of Information, as well as a fellow in Digital Anthropology, at University College London. In her dissertation research, she used ethnographic approaches to create grounded theory that examined gender and domestic end-user programming for computer security. Her work discusses how the relationship between technology and identity is negotiated, especially gendered identity and the presentation of an individual's technical ability.
Presentation Venue: CHI '11 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems that took place at New York (ACM)
Summary:
Hypothesis: In this paper, the author overviews the key aspects of ethnography and its use in HCI, as well as in the anthropological approach. It relates the participant observation practices to participatory design and the socio-technical gap, and the ways ethnography can address them.
The author establishes what anthropologists can contribute to HCI by writing reflexive ethnographies. The people doing this in the digital space are called digital anthropologists, and they write digital ethnographies.
The author proposes a twofold purpose for this research:
1) The HCI community needs to differentiate the forms and variations of ethnography that may be relevant for the field of anthropology.
2) She proposes how this can lead to CHI benefiting from anthropological studies
How the hypothesis was tested: This paper consisted of the author proposing different methodst structure participant observant studies and included examples of the same performed in the past. No experiments were performed to prove the hypothesis.
Methods: The author discusses the concept of Reflexivity in this paper based on its methodological differences from positivist approaches, which culminates in orientations to the production of scientific knowledge. She illustrates in her paper how Anthropological Ethnographic's reflexivity contributes to design and theory in HCI. She describes three forms of anthropological writing. Then she explains key elements of its technique. Then finally she discusses where ethnography is used in the design process in CHI so that she can highlight how Digital Ethnography can contribute.
The author provides a detailed classification of the Styles of Ethnographic Writing in her paper:
Realist: The realist ethnography is the dominant form of ethnographic text within HCI. She talkes about Van Maanen's theory and tradition of ethnography.
Confessional: She discusses the more reflexive approach, the confessional ethnography approach, which broadly provides a written form for the ethnographer to engage with the nagging doubts surrounding the study and discuss them textually.
Impressionistic: Another approach that shows promise for HCI is Van Maanen's impressionistic ethnography, also has reflexive roots. The author discusses further about impressionistic ethnography and states examples of where it can be used.
Discussion:
Effectiveness: The paper gives a great insight in understanding the real world appropriation of technology and how it is situated within social conventions and also about how the realities of daily life is a vital part of the design. The author's intention from this paper is to propose a solution for the debates that are being raised by experimenting with the form of ethnographic text - the experimental, interpretive, dialogical and polyphonic. The paper includes a cluster of examples from studies in the past, and it suggests a valid solution to existing ethnography and anthropology related dilemmas.
Authors: Jennifer A. Rode
Authors Bio:
Jennifer A. Rode is an Assistant Professor at Drexel's School of Information, as well as a fellow in Digital Anthropology, at University College London. In her dissertation research, she used ethnographic approaches to create grounded theory that examined gender and domestic end-user programming for computer security. Her work discusses how the relationship between technology and identity is negotiated, especially gendered identity and the presentation of an individual's technical ability.
Presentation Venue: CHI '11 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems that took place at New York (ACM)
Summary:
Hypothesis: In this paper, the author overviews the key aspects of ethnography and its use in HCI, as well as in the anthropological approach. It relates the participant observation practices to participatory design and the socio-technical gap, and the ways ethnography can address them.
The author establishes what anthropologists can contribute to HCI by writing reflexive ethnographies. The people doing this in the digital space are called digital anthropologists, and they write digital ethnographies.
The author proposes a twofold purpose for this research:
1) The HCI community needs to differentiate the forms and variations of ethnography that may be relevant for the field of anthropology.
2) She proposes how this can lead to CHI benefiting from anthropological studies
How the hypothesis was tested: This paper consisted of the author proposing different methodst structure participant observant studies and included examples of the same performed in the past. No experiments were performed to prove the hypothesis.
Methods: The author discusses the concept of Reflexivity in this paper based on its methodological differences from positivist approaches, which culminates in orientations to the production of scientific knowledge. She illustrates in her paper how Anthropological Ethnographic's reflexivity contributes to design and theory in HCI. She describes three forms of anthropological writing. Then she explains key elements of its technique. Then finally she discusses where ethnography is used in the design process in CHI so that she can highlight how Digital Ethnography can contribute.
The author provides a detailed classification of the Styles of Ethnographic Writing in her paper:
Realist: The realist ethnography is the dominant form of ethnographic text within HCI. She talkes about Van Maanen's theory and tradition of ethnography.
Confessional: She discusses the more reflexive approach, the confessional ethnography approach, which broadly provides a written form for the ethnographer to engage with the nagging doubts surrounding the study and discuss them textually.
Impressionistic: Another approach that shows promise for HCI is Van Maanen's impressionistic ethnography, also has reflexive roots. The author discusses further about impressionistic ethnography and states examples of where it can be used.
Discussion:
Effectiveness: The paper gives a great insight in understanding the real world appropriation of technology and how it is situated within social conventions and also about how the realities of daily life is a vital part of the design. The author's intention from this paper is to propose a solution for the debates that are being raised by experimenting with the form of ethnographic text - the experimental, interpretive, dialogical and polyphonic. The paper includes a cluster of examples from studies in the past, and it suggests a valid solution to existing ethnography and anthropology related dilemmas.
No comments:
Post a Comment