Abstract
Based on ethnographic fieldwork realized within two digitization projects in Heritage institutions in Brazil, this presentation will discuss perspectives and approaches available to study digitization societal innovations and co-construction phenomena. It will lay a specific way to study digitization: by doing a microscopic approach of interactions with machines based on situational analysis, ethnomethodology and cognition in interaction (Alac, 2017, 2011; Garfinkel, 2002; Goodwin, 2018, 2016, 1997; Suchman 2007, 2011). At this level of analysis, away from quick generalizations, (mis)understandings and blurred definitions of what digitization may be, we gain traction to understand changes and transformations that happens when digitization occurs and we discover the ongoing and progressive shaping of roles and attributes of both humans and machines. The situations observed helped us understand how agreement about what is seen and about the digital copies’ quality is a located and situated achievement (Lynch, 1997) made in coordination and/or exclusion of other participants, machines, softwares and the digitized materials.
Far from being restricted to the limited time and space of our observations, these cases complement broader discussions about digitization-lead societal changes by offering a detailed perspective on digitization in the making and its practical definitions as they appear in the process and through the participants’ concrete and practical work. This approach considers that phenomena, such as digitization, are the ongoing and progressively stabilized production of specific situated actors and that generalizations of concepts and practices alike are always situated achievements (Latour, 2005). We can then suggest that if digitization may be ethically assessed this cannot be once and for all as it is always situated in particular individual settings. Following this, if digitization needs to be ethically assessed it is to be done from place to place, including its actors, technicians and materials alike, and considering the whole situation at hand.
Far from being restricted to the limited time and space of our observations, these cases complement broader discussions about digitization-lead societal changes by offering a detailed perspective on digitization in the making and its practical definitions as they appear in the process and through the participants’ concrete and practical work. This approach considers that phenomena, such as digitization, are the ongoing and progressively stabilized production of specific situated actors and that generalizations of concepts and practices alike are always situated achievements (Latour, 2005). We can then suggest that if digitization may be ethically assessed this cannot be once and for all as it is always situated in particular individual settings. Following this, if digitization needs to be ethically assessed it is to be done from place to place, including its actors, technicians and materials alike, and considering the whole situation at hand.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Publikationsdato | 2021 |
| Status | Udgivet - 2021 |
| Udgivet eksternt | Ja |