First-person perspective and sociomaterial decentering: Studying technology from the standpoint of the subject

Abstract

The article argues for systematically including human subjectivity and the first-person perspective in the theoretical and methodological framework of the social studies of technology. The first part of the analysis explores how the subjective dimension of human life is conceptually articulated in science and technology studies and discusses efforts within this field to overcome the dichotomy between human beings and technology. On this basis, the case is put for refining the conceptual inclusion of human subjectivity and agency, showing why this requires the first-person perspective and offering an outline of guiding principles for studying technology from the standpoint of the subject. The argument illustrates how a first-person perspective can overcome individualistic positions and opens up a situated, decentered and social-symmetrical epistemology that also embraces the analysis of the power and materialized action of technological artifacts.