Who Cares for Agile Work? In/Visibilized Work Practices and Their Emancipatory Potential

Springer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 15 - Trang 57-70 - 2021
Alev Coban1, Klara-Aylin Wenten2
1Department of Human Geography, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2Munich Center for Technology in Society, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Tóm tắt

The future of work has become a pressing matter of concern: Researchers, business consultancies, and industrial companies are intensively studying how new work models could be best implemented to increase workplace flexibility and creativity. In particular, the agile model has become one of the “must-have” elements for re-organizing work practices, especially for technology development work. However, the implementation of agile work often comes together with strong presumptions: it is regarded as an inevitable tool that can be universally integrated into different workplaces while having the same outcome of flexibility, transparency, and flattened hierarchies everywhere. This paper challenges such essentializing assumptions by turning agile work into a “matter of care.” We argue that care work occurs in contexts other than feminized reproductive work, namely, technology development. Drawing on concepts from feminist Science and Technology Studies and ethnographic research at agile technology development workplaces in Germany and Kenya, we examine what work it takes to actually keep up with the imperative of agile work. The analysis brings the often invisibilized care practices of human and nonhuman actors to the fore that are necessary to enact and stabilize the agile promises of flexibilization, co-working, and rapid prototyping. Revealing the caring sociotechnical relationships that are vital for working agile, we discuss the emergence of power asymmetries characterized by hierarchies of skills that are differently acknowledged in the daily work of technology development. The paper ends by speculating on the emancipatory potential of a care perspective, by which we seek to inspire careful Emancipatory Technology Studies.

Tài liệu tham khảo

Harris R (2015) The changing nature of the workplace and the future of office space. J Prop Invest Financ 33(5):424–435. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPIF-05-2015-0029 Bouncken RB, Reuschl AJ (2016) Coworking-spaces: How a phenomenon of the sharing economy builds a novel trend for the workplace and for entrepreneurship. Rev Manag Sci 12(1):317–334. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-016-0215-y Tanvir S, Safdar M, Tufail H, Qamar U (2017) Merging prototyping with agile software development methodology. Circulation in Computer Science. Int Confr Eng Comput Info Technol 50–54 Kelliher C, Anderson D (2010) Doing more with less? Flexible working practices and the intensification of work. Hum Relat 63(1):83–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726709349199 Böhmer A, Beckmann A, Lindemann U (2015) Open innovation ecosystem: Makerspaces within an agile innovation process. Paper Presented at the ISPIM Innovation Summit, Brisbane, Australia Bergweiler G, Hansen J, Dörfer M (2019) Agile development with physical prototypes for a better project planning. ATZ Worldw 121:44–47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s38311-019-0075-6 Beedle M, van Bennekum A, Cockburn A, Cunningham W, Fowler M, Highsmith J, Hunt A, Jeffries R, Kern J, Marick B, Martin R, Schwaber K, Sutherland J, Thomas D (2001) The agile manifesto. https://agilemanifesto.org. Accessed 28 Feb 2020 Gillies D (2011) Agile bodies: A new imperative in neoliberal governance. J High Educ Policy Manag 26:207–223. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2010.508177 UK Government Service Manual (2020) Agile delivery. How to work in an agile way: Principles, tools and governance. www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery. Accessed 28 Feb 2020 Deloitte Center for Government Insights (2017) Agile in government. A playbook from the Deloitte Center for Government Insights. www.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/3897_Agile-in-government/DUP_Agile-in-Government-series.pdf. Accessed 28 Feb 2020 Joroff ML, Porter WL, Feinberg B, Kukla C (2003) The agile workplace. Journal of Corporate Real Estate 5(4):293–311. https://doi.org/10.1108/14630010310812145 Turner F (2006) From counterculture to cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the rise of digital utopianism. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Söderberg J, Delfanti A (2015) Hacking hacked!: The life cycles of digital innovation. Sci Technol Human Values 40(5):793–798. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243915595091 Drewlani T, Seibt D (2018) Configuring the independent developer. Journal of Peer Production 12:96–114 Wenten KA (2019) Controlling labor in makeathons. On the recuperation of emancipation in industrial labor processes. In: Meyer U, Schaupp S, Seibt D (eds) Digitalization in industry. Between emancipation and domination, Palgrave McMillan, London, pp 153–177 Dickel S, Schneider C, Thiem C, Wenten KA (2019) Engineering publics: The different modes of civic technoscience. Sci Technol Stud 32(2):8–23. https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.59587 Irani L (2015) Hackathons and the making of entrepreneurial citizenship. Sci Technol Human Values 40(5):799–824. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243915578486 Lindtner S, Hertz G, Dourish P (2014) Emerging sites of HCI innovation: Hackerspaces, hardware startups & incubators. CHI 2014. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557132 Suchman L (2000) Making a case: ‘Knowledge’ and ‘routine’ work in document production. In: Luff P, Hindmarsh J, Heath C (eds) Recovering work practice and informing system design, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 86–91. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511628122.003 Chan AS (2013) Networking peripheries—technological futures and the myth of digital universalism. MIT Press, Cambridge, London Moore P (2018) Tracking affective labour for agility in the quantified workplace. Body Soc 24(3):39–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X18775203 Hodgson D, Briand L (2013) Controlling the uncontrollable: ‘Agile’ teams and illusions of autonomy in creative work. Work Employ Soc 27(2):308–325. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017012460315 Roth WM, Jornet A (2018) From object-oriented to fluid ontology: A case study of the materiality of design work in agile software development. Comput Support Coop Work 27:37–75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-017-9297-6 Puig de la Bellacasa M (2011) Matters of care in technoscience: Assembling neglected things. Soc Stud Sci 41(1):85–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312710380301 Latour B (2005a) Reassembling the social. Oxford University Press, Oxford Latour B (2004) Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Crit Inqu 30(2):225–248 Latour B (2005b) From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik or how to make things public. In: Latour B, Weibel P (eds) Making things public: Atmospheres of democracy. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 14–43 Puig de la Bellacasa M (2012) ‘Nothing comes without its world’: Thinking with care. The Sociol Rev 60(2):197–216. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2012.02070.x Dalla Costa M, James S (1972) The power of women and the subversion of the community. Falling Wall Press, Bristol Federici S (2012) Revolution at point zero: Housework, reproduction, and feminist struggle. PM Press, Oakland Martin A, Myers N, Viseu A (2015) The politics of care in technoscience. Soc Stud Sci 45(5):625–641. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312715602073 Jack M, Jackson S (2016) Logistics as care and control: An investigation into the UNICEF supply division. Proceedings of the 2016 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 2209–2219. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858503 Kocksch L, Korn M, Poller A, Wagenknecht S (2018) Caring for IT security: Accountabilities, moralities, and oscillations in IT security practices. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2, Comput Support Coop Work 92:1–92:20. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274361 Buser M, Boyer K (2021) Care goes underground: Thinking through relations of care in the maintenance and repair of urban water infrastructures. Cult Geogr 28(1):73–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474020942796 Pinel C, Prainsack B, McKevitt C (2020) Caring for data: Value creation in a data-intensive research laboratory. Soc Stud Sci 50(2):175–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312720906567 Star SS, Strauss A (1999) Layers of silence, arenas of voice: The ecology of visible and invisible work. Comput Support Coop Work 8(1–2):9–30. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008651105359 Law J (1994) Organizing modernity. Blackwell, Oxford, Cambridge Boes A, Kämpf T, Langes B, Lühr T (2017) The disruptive power of digital transformation. New forms of industrialising knowledge work. In: Briken K, Chillas S, Krzywdzinski M, Marks A (eds) The new digital workplace: How new technologies revolutionise work. Palgrave, London, pp 153–173 Ahmed S (2004) Collective feelings - Or, the impressions left by others. Theory Cult Soc 21(2):25–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276404042133 Ahmed S, Schmitz SS (2014) Affect/Emotion: Orientation matters—a conversation between Sigrid Schmitz and Sara Ahmed. Freiburger Zeitschrift für GeschlechterStudien 20(2):97–108. https://doi.org/10.3224/fzg.v20i2.17137 Ahmed S (2004b) Affective economies. Social Text 79 22(2):117–139 Schurr C, Strüver A (2016) “The rest”: Geographien des Alltäglichen zwischen Affekt, Emotion und Repräsentation. Geogr Helv 71:87–97. https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-71-87-2016 Pfeiffer S (2019) From “in the wild” into the wilderness of field study approaches: The case of the company case study in german industrial sociology in times of digitalization. diGAP Working Paper 2019 McDowell L (2009) Working bodies: Interactive service employment and workplace identities. Wiley-Blackwell, West-Sussex Carr C, Gibson C (2017) Animating geographies of making: Embodied slow scholarship for participant-researchers of maker cultures and material work. Geogr Compass 11(e12317):1–10. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12317 Waldby C, Wakeford N, Green N (2006) Feminist technoscience: Intimacy, embodiment and abjection in science studies. Sci Stud 19(2):3–5. https://doi.org/10.23987/sts.55191 Ames MG, Rosner DK, Erickson I (2015) Worship, faith, and evangelism: Religion as an ideological lens for engineering worlds. Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing 69–81. https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675282 Avle S, Lindtner S, Williams K (2017) How methods make designers. Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems:472–483. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025864 Coban A (2018) Making hardware in Nairobi: Between revolutionary practices and restricting imaginations. Journal of Peer Production 12:60–76 Irani L (2015) Hackathons and the making of entrepreneurial citizenship. Sci Technol Human Values 40(5):799–824. https://doi.org/10.1177/2F0162243915578486 Sivek SC (2011) “We need a showing of all hands”: Technological utopianism in MAKE Magazine. J Commun Inq 35(3):187–209. https://doi.org/10.1177/0196859911410317 Pfeiffer S (2017) The vision of “Industrie 4.0” in the making—a case of future told, tamed, and traded. Nanoethics 11:107–121. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-016-0280-3 Gibson C (2016) Material inheritances: How place, materiality, and labor process underpin the path-dependent evolution of contemporary craft production. Econ Geogr 92(1):61–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2015.1092211 Crang M, Cook I (2007) Doing ethnographies. SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi McMorran C (2012) Practising workplace geographies: Embodied labour as method in human geography. Area 44(4):489–495. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2012.01101.x Mayring P (2010) Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken, Beltz, Weinheim, Basel Clarke A, Friese C (2007) Grounded theorizing using situational analysis. In: Bryant A, Charmaz K (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Grounded Theory. SAGE Publications, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore Coughlan P, Fulton Suri J, Canales K (2007) Prototypes as (design) tools for behavioral and organizational change. J Appl Behav Sci 43(1):122–134. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886306297722 Mellis DA (2011) Case studies in the digital fabrication of open-source consumer electronic products. Thesis submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences School of Architecture and Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://alumni.media.mit.edu/~mellis/mellis-thesis-screen.pdf. Accessed 20 May 2019 Mungai C (2015) What’s holding back Africa’s tech startups? World Economic Forum. www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/09/whats-holding-back-africas-tech-startups. Accessed 06 July 2017 Alexander JK (2009) The concept of efficiency: An historical analysis. In: Meijers A (ed) Philosophy of technology and engineering sciences. Elsevier, North Holland, pp 1007–1030 Coban A (2019) Calculative making: The fear of failure in Kenya’s Makerspaces. Backchannels - Blog of Society for Social Studies of Science. https://www.4sonline.org/calculative-making-the-fear-of-failure-in-kenyas-makerspaces/. Accessed 14 Jan 2021 Ames MG, Lindtner S, Bardzell S, Bardzell J, Nguyen L, Ahmed SI, Jahan N, Jackson SJ, Paul D (2018) Making or making do? Challenging the mythologies of making and hacking. Journal of Peer Production 12:1–21 Schwaber K (2004) Agile project management with Scrum. Microsoft Press, Redmond, Washington Sutherland J (2019) A Scrum book: The spirit of the game. Pragmatic Bookshelf Mol A, Moser I, Pol J (2015) Care in practice. On tinkering in clinics, homes and farms. Transcript, Bielefeld Strang V (2017) The Gaia complex: Ethical challenges to an anthropocentric ‘common future’. In: Brightman M, Lewis J (eds) The anthropology of sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp 207–228. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56636-2_12 Escobar A (2018) Designs for the pluriverse: Radical interdependence, autonomy, and the making of worlds. Duke University Press, Durham, London Lorey I (2019) Emanzipation und Schulden. In: Lettow S, Maihofer A (eds) Demirović A. Emanzipation - Zur Geschichte und Aktualität eines politischen Begriffs. Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster, pp 10–15 Precarias a la deriva (2014) “Was ist dein Streik?” - Militante Streifzüge durch die Kreisläufe der Prekarität. transversal texts, Wien Meyer U, Schaupp S, Seibt D (2019) Digitalization in industry. Between domination and emancipation, Palgrave McMillan, London Haraway D (1991) Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. Routledge, London Myers N (2008) Molecular embodiments and the body-work of modeling in protein crystallography. Soc Stud of Sci 38(2):163–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/2F0306312707082969