Ethnography in a Computer Science Centered Project Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences Data Archive for the Social Sciences Unter Sachsenhausen 6 -8, Köln Germany

Overview Experiences and insights gained in an ethnography for design intervention within an interdisciplinary, computer science-led research project aiming to develop the internet of things Ethnography means to observe people and cultures, to understand their meanings and everyday practices

Two challenges to interdisciplinary collaboration 1.Different research interests and observational standpoints 2.A lack of clarity within the methodological foundations for ethnography-based design informing which concerns the question of how to deal with an uncertain future

Challenge 1: Different observational standpoints Different research interests A fundamental difference with regards to the authority of claims made in the work – Computer scientists: able to accept assumptions about the state of the world and to start building a system based on this assumption – Ethnographers: essential to understand the discourse, history, ideology and make-up of such assumptions, which entailed to question them Very different requirements regarding valid and publishable research output

Challenge 1: Different research interests - Solutions Make continued efforts to find common ground and to identify particular, bounded points for collaboration In the long run: Individual efforts are dependent on universities and funding bodies rewarding out-of-the box thinking & acknowledging differences in what counts as publishable results

Challenge 2: Design is future-oriented Technologies can only be understood in use contexts But how to observe future technologies in order to inform design? For an ethnographic account to become useful we needed to solve: – How to build a new technology while still researching the target setting – How to describe changes which will only emerge with technology use

Challenge 2: Design is future-oriented - Solutions Frame the technologies as already ‘there’ – in the form of actors' perceptions and expectations – in the form of technology precursors within the setting View technology development as part of a continuous and ongoing process of change within the setting – …rather than as a sudden cut which dramatically alters everything – Allows to see development and research of the setting as connected – Can achieve iteration/co-development of findings/theory & practice / development

Outlook Look further into the role that institutionalizing interdisciplinary plays in enabling novel approaches Call for an ‘agile ethnography’ that makes use of concepts of iteration both from ethnography and from agile development methods in order to improve interdisciplinary collaboration

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