social interaction and mundane technologies IN-PRESS

Future publications

Updated 09-Jan-2009

EXTENDED CALL: Theme Issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing - Social Interaction and Mundane Technologies in Everyday Life

Editors

Paul Dourish, Connor Graham, Dave Randall, Mark Rouncefield

Key dates

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Extended Call for Papers

This theme issue is responding to the proliferation and developing constellations of 'social' and 'mundane' technologies in people's everyday lives. We define 'mundane technologies' (Graham and Rouncefield, 2007) as those quite unremarkable technologies that, given the context in which they operate, have been 'made at home', have become 'ordinary' and, indeed, part of the organisation already in place (Sacks, 1992). These technologies are often simple, minimalist and 'loose' and yet support richly layered social interactions which are sustained and develop across time, place, and culture in particular 'social worlds' (Strauss, 1978). Our assumption is that these 'mundane technologies' are at a mature level of adoption, with seemingly well worked-out affordances so that their use has become so tightly entwined with activity and social interaction as to be almost invisible (Weiser, 1991) and thus, difficult to study and to be surprised by.

In this theme issue we are interested in three main classes of 'mundane technologies' and the social interaction surrounding them – mobile technologies, domestic technologies and office technologies. We do not regard these as mutually exclusive categories and, indeed, an additional interest for us is how particular technologies can blur category boundaries and, indeed, operate across different situations as people experience increased mobility (Larsen et al., 2006). Our particular interest is around the use of digital media (e.g. mobile phone cameras, home videos) at play and in the home and the use of 'office' technologies (e.g. wordprocessors, email, calendar applications) by leaders and managers and, more generally, in everyday life. For instance, a spreadsheet application can both be used to 'put a brave face on' a balance sheet in a conversation between an employee and a manager and equally to support the discussion of household spending in the home. Put simply, we are interested in exploring 'real' studies of quite ordinary technologies that have already been appropriated, domesticated (Silverstone et al., 1997) and subsumed into the fabric of family, social and organisational life and do particular work: maintaining a sense of community; assisting with everyday decision-making; maintaining "social translucence" (Erikson and Kellogg, 2000); providing channels for emotional labour (Hoschchild, 1983); and so on.

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Primary interests

Our primary interests concern:

• how technology both provides an account and makes us account for our actions to ourselves as well as to others;
• the transformation of (constellations of) mundane technologies that occurs in people's lives to support particular routines;
• the kinds of social action and interaction mundane technologies facilitate such as emotion work, keeping in touch and awareness work;
• the visibility that technology enforces despite its 'embeddedness' and 'invisibility';
• the importance of the relationship between ordinary technologies and notions of space and place.

We are interested in understanding how these interests really play out in different people's lives, if at all. Given our interest in 'the ordinary' we prefer submissions that report of actual studies (field or ethnographic) of technology use and/or methodological concerns.

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Secondary interests

One of our secondary interests, which is often inseparable from the above concerns, is how mundane technologies can be useful methodological instruments in the ethnographic enterprise and how they can be fused with other, more 'traditional' approaches in social science research, to inform how technology is used and how practices, rhythms and routines are structured around technology to get work done. We are also convinced that individuals leave digital (audit) trails as they traverse their everyday lived and what people slough and shed via mundane technologies can provide real insights for the ethnographic enterprise: browser histories, mobile phone logs, temporary files generated on-the-fly etc. can all be leveraged in this regard. We are interested in how these 'digital footprints' can be provide insights into people's use of technology, possible design considerations and the ethical issues with the use of such material in examining people's lives.

Types and topics

Types of submissions can include (but are not restricted to):

• extended reports from the field describing and analysing mundane technologies for 'social' uses in particular contexts (e.g. the home, an organization);
• studies of newly introduced, 'simple' technologies and how they are transformed and become mundane;
• methodological accounts across different studies describing how mundane technologies provided insights into a setting.

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Possible topics include:

• How people maintain a sense of community in particular social networks through mundane technologies (e.g. blogging);
• The role of mundane technology (e.g. digital media, spreadsheets) use in family life, if any;
• How managers operate across mundane technologies (e.g. email, mobile phone, Word, Excel) to lead in their organisations and the work that each technology does for them
• How simple technologies reconfigure space and what the implications of them becoming mundane are.

Submission Details

Submissions should be no more than 6000 words in length. Publications should be emailed to c.graham [at] lancaster.ac.uk and/or m.rouncefield [at] lancaster.ac.uk. In preparing manuscripts, authors should adhere to the instructions for authors for Personal and Ubiquitous Computing. Reviewing will involve at least two reviews and two cycles of reviewing.

Short Call for Papers (PDF)

Conference calls

Updated: 09-Jan-2008

Publicity

Updated: 21-Feb-2008

News item at InfoLab21 on SIMTech '07 workshop

News item at Lancaster University on initial grant award