2.1 Introduction
2.1.1 The search for a theoretical framework
The focus of this study was to highlight the socio-technical dynamics involved in collaborative design network assemblages that took place among engineering design students. This is a complex process, and finding a theoretical framework that could be used to trace collaborative design in action was not an easy task. A theoretical framework was needed to address the research questions which I generated. In particular, the theoretical framework needed to enable me to do the following:
Approach collaborative design in terms of a networked activity;
Trace how the Web 2.0-facilitated collaborative process is constituted and enacted in practice;
Trace and assemble the associations created by the actors, in order to understand the role played by Web 2.0 technology; and
Allow both human and non-human actors to account for their actions their networks.
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The search for a theoretical framework that would allow me to carry out the task at hand, as discussed above, involved exploration of the following theories: cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), social construction of technology (SCOT) (Pinch & Bijker, 1984), network theory (Scott, 1994), and connectivism theory (Siemens, 2004). However, a closer look at each of these exposed their inadequacies in resolving the critical issues of this study.
For example, in CHAT (Engeström, 1987; Leontiev, 1978; Vygotsky, 1981), which has been a visible landmark of the theoretical landscape of human-computer interaction, takes up Hegel’s and Marx’s concept of work as an important starting point. CHAT understands work as a prototype of creative activity mediated by tools and cultural artefacts, and as a process in which humans simultaneously create both themselves and their material culture. Its basic unit of analysis is an activity. The object-orientedness of CHAT in the way it views the subject- object relationship, which bears some similarity to phenomenology’s notion of “intentionality”
(Dourish, 2001), is the major issue with regard to the appropriateness of the theory in assisting in this research. A closer look at CHAT reveals that the role of context in understanding the activity is critical, because all activity is shaped by the already existing context within which it occurs (Bertelsen & Boedker, 2003). To understand human activity research must therefore focus upon the social, cultural, and historical contexts where meaning is shared and co- constructed with others. Thus CHAT gives special consideration the already existing context to explain the activity, and as a result it does not allow the actors to create the context that shapes the activity. As such, this theory cannot be used to adequately describe the Web 2.0- facilitated collaborative design process and the translations involved since the context in which it takes place cannot be accurately predicted prior to action.
According to Scott (1994) the network theory is a humanistic theory that places emphasis on the social relationships among actors at different nodes of a network. In order to work as an analytical tool it would confine the researcher to humans, disregarding other players in a network. If we view collaborative design as a network, then the network theory would disregard other important actors in the network such as the Web 2.0 tools used, design tools, the LAN, Internet connectivity, and the design studio, among others. However, from a network theory perspective Wellman and Berkowitz (1988) point us to the fact that the concept of node is rather confined to humans and cannot be extended to structures such as the university LAN, the Internet (Web 2.0 virtual work spaces) and the design studio. Nevertheless, in order for us
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to fully understand the dynamics of collaborative design these elements cannot be left out. It is for this reason that this theoretical framework could not be used in this study.
One of the most widespread criticisms leveled against SCOT is that it is one-sided; it is mainly concerned with the influence of social relations upon technology and underestimates the influence of technology on social relations. In other words, the theory is accused of seeking to more or less replace technological determinism with social determinism. The theory has also been considered incompetent at dealing with the materiality of artefacts; in actual fact it “denies the obduracy of objects and assumes that only people can have the status of actors” (Akrich, 1992, p. 206). As such, SCOT looks for relatively stable social groups to explain the meanings ascribed to technical objects. In doing so SCOT maintains the duality of the social and the material or the social and the non-social in describing the relationship we have with technology.
SCOT tends to privilege the social in its explanations of phenomena. In order for us to have a full understanding of the influence of Web 2.0 on collaborative design, neither technology (Web 2.0) nor the social order should be given privilege over the other.
As MacKenzie and Wajcman (1999b, p. 44) point out, “it is this mistake to think of technology and society as separate spheres influencing each other: technology and society are mutually constructive”. The ANT can be viewed as one way to create a theoretical framework that is better suited to articulate this. In any case, in engineering the point is that design artefacts are developed as a result of negotiations that take place between the various actors involved, each with their different interests, agendas, needs and desires (Fallan, 2008a). To design researchers this implies that artefacts are viewed as products of science and technology and scientific theories and technological objects. Central to ANT is the desire to treat entities and materialities as enacted and relational effects. ANT therefore seeks to explore the configuration and reconfiguration of those relationships (Law, 2004). In its description of these relationships, ANT disassembles the conversational dichotomies of technology-society and nature-culture, thus in some way dismantling the axiomatic distinction between human and non-human actors in a network of things. I will return to this unconventional outlook later on in this chapter, but first ANT needs a closer look.
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