Socio-technical Developments Research Articles

Data management as a promise: The case of ‘I’

The article explores the mechanisms affecting people's perceived ability to influence the uneven power relationships between them and data-driven companies that collect, store, analyze, and use their data and information. I first present a study in which participants were asked to use innovative privacy enhancing technology, enabling them to claim a form of ownership over their personal data and information. This study shows that new socio-technical developments can reduce the uneven balance of power between individuals who disclose personal data and information and the companies which collect, store, and deploy that information. Based on these findings, I point to modes of operation and regulation that could assist data subjects in gaining more control over the relationships between them and companies. The article concludes with suggestions of ethical measures that may aid individuals to influence the ‘give and take’ relationship with data-driven companies.

The future of interactive information radiators for knowledge workers

Abstract Information Radiators (IRs) provide context-specific pieces of information in a semi-public place where a group of people can see it while working or passing-by. They can simplify information sharing “out-of-the-box”, foster awareness and socialization, create serendipity and enhance collaboration. Recent sociotechnical developments such as the establishment of permanent hybrid work settings as well as advances in the area of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as the emergence of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are likely to impact how IRs are being used – or even challenge their usefulness. In this article we discuss those developments and their possible implications for the design and use of IRs in the context of knowledge work in the next decades. We argue that IRs will probably remain an important part of future office environments providing awareness, supporting serendipity and building a situated social place for matchmaking as well as informal communication. Using new display and interaction technologies (such as AR) they might even grow in importance by enabling fluid work scenarios.

Approaches to technical and economic substantia-tion of new bridge construction

Problem. Today, the initial project of the bridge may not meet the existing conditions of operation of the structure due to socio-economic and socio-technical developments, which will require the need to increase the level of maintenance of the bridge. Goal. The goal is technical and economic substantiation of the new construction of a bridge across the Chornoguzka River, Golyshiv - Korshovets, in the Lutsk district, Volyn region. Methodology. Calculation of classes of consequences was carried out, engineering and geological surveys were performed. Results. Technical solutions have been developed on the basis of the conducted research. Originality. The work offers both traditional approaches to solving the given problem using modern reinforced concrete structures and the use of progressive technologies using metal corrugated structures. Practical value. The work considers the most rational solutions of the given task with the analysis of the positive and negative sides of the selected ones, which makes it possible to analyze the most appropriate solution.

Examining clothing repair practices, core competences, techniques, tools and community structures involved in extending the life of garments

The rise of fast fashion as a feature of post-industrial societies has distanced people from many of the habitual practices associated with caring for and valuing clothes. This includes both acquiring and applying the skills to make and mend clothes and understanding fibres and fabrics to develop deeper connections to materials. The principles advocated by a circular economy (CE) require societies to recover these once held values and restore our relationship with materials and practices to keep clothing in use for as long as possible and to reduce consumption. Such CE practices will require our societies to align with current socio-technical developments, where people are increasingly adopting technologies (through e.g. applications, tutorials), to support making and mending practices, and to play and express themselves creatively whilst keeping apparel in use. The study aims to examine self-repair practices and repair services from practitioners’ viewpoints, evaluating available support, and identifying challenges and opportunities to integrate repair practices more widely in society. The results suggest it is critical to develop the skills to mend and customize the garments people own and provide additional support for people to become custodians of clothes. This study is part of a larger project to identify opportunities where technology could intervene in a repair process and facilitate opportunities for people to reconnect with materials and acquire repair skills. To develop this idea, we designed an interview study to investigate practices of clothing repair to determine if and where such support might be welcomed. Researchers conducted interviews with three groups of people – brands, repair practitioners and community initiatives to gather insights into repair practices, core competences, techniques, tools and community structures involved in extending the life of garments. Insights from the findings address some of the underexplored areas of a clothes repair practice across the three settings. We identify the important relationship of material knowledge to repair and the limited attention given to different types of repair tools and their application. As material skills and knowledge diminish across society it can undermine the drive to scale-up the practice of repair. Knowledge from the findings will inform further research to map the repair process and break it down into stages to identify opportunities where digital tools could intervene to help facilitate aspects of the process for people across different settings.

Radical Technology Inquirer: a methodology for holistic, transparent and participatory technology foresight

This paper introduces and motivates the Radical Technology Inquirer (RTI) methodology for anticipation of technological breakthroughs and their combined cross-sectoral and social impacts. The primary use of the methodology is long-term policy evaluation and design. The first version of the methodology was published in 2013. This paper reports the current RTI 2018 version, which is based on systematic collection of scientific and technological news and grounded on theory. It combines societal functions with technological opportunities by conceptualising 20 “global value-producing networks” GVNs and 100 “anticipated radical technologies” ARTs. The RTI methodology is participatory, using continuous crowdsourcing and stakeholder evaluations. Each GVN is characterised by a need and an existing and a novel way of satisfying that need and organising the societal function. The methodology combines existing and new foresight methods and concepts to achieve a holistic and transparent approach for anticipating technology-enabled transformative socio-technical developments of the next 20 years. In this anticipation effort, the focus is more on recent weak signals of emerging technological capabilities than on past strong signals, e.g. the diffusion of various technologies.

Creating a circular EV battery value chain: End-of-life strategies and future perspective

The rapid uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) will be vital to decarbonise the transport sector and achieve climate change targets. However, this transition is leading to an increased demand for key battery materials and associated resource challenges and supply-chain risks. On the other hand, discarded EV batteries create business opportunities for second life and recycling. This study presents scenario-driven material flow analysis (MFA) to estimate the future volume of EV battery wastes to be potentially generated in Sweden and future demand for key battery materials, considering potential EV fleet, battery chemistry developments, and end-of-life strategies of EV batteries. Further, we combine MFA with a socio-technical approach to explore how different socio-technical developments will affect both EV battery flows and the underlying systems in the future. Recycling has the potential to reduce primary demand by 25–64% during 2040–2050 based on projected demand, meaning that waste streams could cover a considerable part of the future raw material demands. Second-use of EV batteries can promote circularity yet postpones recycling potentials. From a transition perspective, promoting recycling, second-life use of EV batteries and advanced battery technologies entail system disruption and transformational changes in technology, markets, business models, policy, and infrastructure and user practices. Demand for high-capacity batteries for grid decarbonisation and aviation applications may contribute to the emergence of niche battery technologies. Each scenario highlights the need for effective policy frameworks to foster a circular EV battery value chain.

Ethical Dimensions of the GDPR, AI Regulation, and Beyond

Our digital society is changing rapidly, with emerging new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, robotics, and the internet of things. These changes trigger new fundamental ethical questions relating to privacy, data protection and other values, including human rights and the way they are affected by the extensive and intensive use of data for analytical and practical innovations. This article explores these ethical dimensions and the extent to which the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2018 takes ethics into account in relation to these socio-technical developments. More briefly, it looks similarly but more selectively at the EU’s proposed AI Act of 2021, which aims to regulate AI in relation to levels of risk.It concludes with some observations on desirable institutional arrangements for making and applying ethical judgements in the regulation of advanced technologies that use personal data.

World wars and sociotechnical change in energy, food, and transport: A deep transitions perspective.

This paper explores the relationship between world wars and sociotechnical transitions in energy, food, and transport. We utilise and contribute to the Deep Transitions framework, which explores long-term, multi-systemic sociotechnical transitions and integrate a conceptual approach tailored to this particular topic. This approach bridges between historical literatures focused on world wars and sociotechnical perspectives. We explore in what ways the three sociotechnical systems of energy, food, and transport were influenced by the conditions of the First and Second World War and the extent to which these developments influenced lasting change. Our framework is based around three analytical steps: first, we analyse sociotechnical developments during wartime through the interpretive lens of mechanisms of total war. Second, we examine these developments in terms of how they can be interpreted as influencing the development of rules and meta-rules in sociotechnical systems. Third, we focus on the legacy of ‘total war’ utilising the concept of imprinting to examine the rules-based, infrastructural, and wider symbolic and cultural legacy of world wars in peacetime. This paper presents a novel interpretation of world war and sociotechnical transitions and contributes to a specific query of the Deep Transitions framework regarding the role of war in the emergence of the first deep transition. We consider the significance of this analysis in the context of sustainability transitions research.

Micro-memories: Digital modes of communication across three generations

This article examines how digital modes of communication serve to facilitate family relations across three generations. Drawing on written interviews with two family chains, three categories of memory co-production are identified: co-construction, sedimentation and recreation. Applying theories of media generations and mediated memory studies, the analysis explores how these memories are shaped and unfolded. The empirical results demonstrate that all family members use digital modes of communication in the constructions of “micro-memories” of family relations, and that the three generations articulate these memories as vernacular archives of their family’s proximate past. The youngest family members represent a “here-and-now” presentism culture, while the middle and eldest family members represent a more classic “what has taken place” culture. In conclusion, it is argued that studies of mediated memories require additional empirical grounding which is contextualized, critical and mindful of the socio-technical developments and the affordances of the digital modes of communication.

Cross-Cultural Trade and Socio-Technical Developments in the Oman Peninsula during the Bronze Age, ca. 3200 to 1600 BC

Cross-Cultural Trade and Socio-Technical Developments in the Oman Peninsula during the Bronze Age, ca. 3200 to 1600 BC

Cross-Cultural Trade and Socio-Technical Developments in the Oman Peninsula during the Bronze Age, ca. 3200 to 1600 BC

Cross-Cultural Trade and Socio-Technical Developments in the Oman Peninsula during the Bronze Age, ca. 3200 to 1600 BC

Jenseits der Autonomie: Die De/Problematisierung des Subjekts in Zeiten der Digitalisierung

In the socio-theoretical discourse on digitisation there is, among others, a strong sceptical and explicitly critical perspective towards socio-technical developments. The focus of this scepticism is the autonomous subject as the normative guiding value of modern society, which seems to be at stake due to the progress of digitisation processes. Accordingly, there seems to be a broad consensus that these developments will be problematic. However, it is also a possibility that they may not be problematized in social practice. This is hardly taken into account by contemporary social theories. In our contribution we would therefore like to plead for a problematisation of this practical de-problematisation. The de-problematisation of human autonomy is not only a possible vision of the future, but, as an already present undoing of autonomy, an empirical object that calls for a theoretical exploration that is not limited to a mere diagnosis of a problem in need of correction. Instead of theoretically assuming that the acting subjects must be interested in their autonomy, our contribution discusses the practical deproblematisation as a real possibility of future dealings with digital technologies and, against this background, pleads for a theoretical problematisation of this de-problematisation, which takes into account the possibility of posthuman social orders.

Measuring Disability Inclusion Performance in Cities Using Disability Inclusion Evaluation Tool (DIETool)

Cities are exposed to a growing complexity, diversity and rapid socio-technical developments. One of the greatest challenges is as of how to become fully inclusive to fit the needs of all their citizens, including those with disabilities. Inclusive city, both in theory and practice, still lacks attention. Even in the context of ambitious contemporary concepts, such as smart and sustainable city, the question remains: Do smart and sustainable cities consider inclusiveness of all their inhabitants? Among numerous evaluation systems that measure city’s smartness, sustainability or quality of life, those tackling inclusion are very rare. Specifically, disability inclusion is hardly covered. This may be one of the reasons why cities struggle with applying disability inclusion to practice in a holistic and integrative way. This paper proposes a Disability Inclusion Evaluation Tool (DIETool) and Disability Inclusion Performance Index (DIPI), designed to guide cities through a maze of accessibility and disability inclusion related requirements set within the political, legislative and standardization frameworks. The testing in two European cities shows that the tool is beneficial for providing diagnosis as to how disability friendly a city is, and as such offers an opportunity for designing informed corrective measures towards disability inclusive city design.

The psychology of privacy in the digital age

AbstractPrivacy is a psychological topic suffering from historical neglect—a neglect that is increasingly consequential in an era of social media connectedness, mass surveillance, and the permanence of our electronic footprint. Despite fundamental changes in the privacy landscape, social and personality psychology journals remain largely unrepresented in debates on the future of privacy. By contrast, in disciplines like computer science and media and communication studies, engaging directly with sociotechnical developments, interest in privacy has grown considerably. In our review of this interdisciplinary literature, we suggest four domains of interest to psychologists. These are as follows: sensitivity to individual differences in privacy disposition, a claim that privacy is fundamentally based in social interactions, a claim that privacy is inherently contextual, and a suggestion that privacy is as much about psychological groups as it is about individuals. Moreover, we propose a framework to enable progression to more integrative models of the psychology of privacy in the digital age and in particular suggest that a group and social relations–based approach to privacy is needed.

Open Governance: A New Paradigm for Understanding Urban Governance in an Information Age

This theoretical viewpoint paper presents a new perspective on urban governance in an information age. Smart city governance is not only about technology but also about re-organizing collaboration between a variety of actors. The introduction of new tools for open collaboration in the public domain is rapidly changing the way collaborative action is organized. These technologies reduce the transaction costs for massive collaboration dramatically and thus facilitate new forms of collaboration that we could call ‘open governance’: new innovative forms of collective action aimed at solving complex public policy issues, contributing to public knowledge, or replacing traditional forms of public service provision. These innovative open and collaborative organisational forms in cities seem to point towards not only a wide variety of digitally connected actors but also to a fundamentally different and more invisible role of government in these arrangements. We argue that the recently emerging paradigm of New Public Governance (NPG) (Osborne 2010) also fails to capture the dynamics of open governance since it does not acknowledge the emergent – pop-up – character of the new collaborations; neither does it present an understanding of massive individualized collaboration in cities. This paper aims to theoretically and empirically explore the core elements and the underlying socio-technical developments of this new Open Governance (OG) paradigm and compare and contrast OG with existing governance paradigms. Based on illustrative real-life cases, we will argue that we need a new paradigm that is better capable of explaining these emerging innovative forms of governing cities. We will argue that this requires an understanding of governance as a platform that facilitates an urban ecosystem. By connecting new insights from studies on digital governance to the debate about governance paradigms, this paper results in a set crucial empirical and normative questions about governance of cities and also in guidelines for urban governance that builds upon the rich, emerging interactions in cities that are facilitated by new technologies.

Technology Assessment in a Globalized World

Abstract The interaction between science and policy is affected by increasingly dissolving boundaries whereby a number of issues arise, such as, what should political advice for national parliaments consist of in the face of global socio-technical developments? The Internet of Things in relation to Big Data resulting in enormously fast analysis of huge amounts of data, accelerates the dissolution of boundaries between science, society and policy at global level. This type of “globalization” raises questions that concern very diverse and intimate areas of life, ranging from food to health to work automation. How can access to science and technology in very different societal settings can be enabled, while also accounting for global developments? The article deals with the assumption that global effects of science and technology as well as global challenges lead to an urgent need to develop methodologies for analyzing and also shaping these developments. Under the umbrella term “Global Technology Assessment” (Global TA) it is argued that the problem-oriented, interdisciplinary methodology of technology assessment offers a promising frame to deal with cultural and ethical questions in relation to emerging technologies. This framework is needed in order to be able to develop meaningful national comparisons, but also in order to be able to approach the analysis of common future challenges on equal footing.

Forensic genetics and the prediction of race: What is the problem?

A new wave of innovations in forensics seeks to support criminal investigations by making inferences about the racial or ethnic appearance of as yet unknown suspects using genetic markers of phenotype or ancestry. This paper argues that to grasp fully the potentials of these innovations they must be understood both in the context of established patterns of police–minority relations and as part of significant changes in the use of ‘race’ as an object of knowledge in science, policy, and politics. Socio-technical developments offer new means of identification through geneticisation, datafication, and visualisation and heighten the visibility and valorisation of racial difference. Elements of this are already evident in existing national police forensic DNA databases whose operation, outcomes, and accompanying ethical frames are racialised in varied ways. By openly mobilising race and ethnicity, however, predictive techniques raise new questions about the validity, interpretation, dissemination, and application of results. Examination of existing use by the police and public of suspect descriptions shows the enduring power of common sense visual and linguistic understandings of race and appearance. That very power makes it hard to transition effectively from moments of collective stigmatisation to the identification of individual suspects.

The Negative Influence of Socio-Technical Developments on Eating Habits and Health

The Negative Influence of Socio-Technical Developments on Eating Habits and Health

Science, Translation and the Mangle: A Performative Conceptualization of Scientific Translation

Against a backdrop of growing interest in historical and sociological approaches to the translation of science, this paper explores the conceptual potential of Andrew Pickering’s ‘mangle of practice’ (Pickering 1992; 1993; 1995; Pickering and Guzik 2008) as a sociological framework for research into the translation of science. Pickering’s approach is situated within a performative idiom of science and seeks to account for the interplay of material and human agency in scientific practice. It sees scientific and technological advances as emerging temporally from a dialectic of resistance and accommodation, metaphorically the mangle of practice. This paper introduces the main tenets of Pickering’s argument, contextualizing it within the field of science and technology studies. It then explores some of the implications of construing translation in these terms. Firstly, this conceptual approach helps to recognize the role of translation in the performance of science and to seek ways of studying translation practices as an integral component of scientific practices. Secondly, Pickering’s posthumanist or decentred perspective focuses on both material and human agency and the interplay between them; a similar approach to the study of translation would foreground the interaction between translator agency and material performativity in studies of translation practices. I conclude with proposals for adopting this ontological shift in translation studies, where it may have the potential to enhance our understanding of translation practices, in particular in relation to tools, technologies and sociotechnical developments in translation.

Navigating foresight in a sea of expectations: lessons from the sociology of expectations

Foresight can be described as the articulation of possible futures. It has a range of applications and is used with different methods, for different objectives and in different settings. Yet, anticipation in science and technology is not limited to foresight, but occurs in many more informal ways. This paper investigates the phenomenon that socio-technical developments are saturated with formal and informal anticipations and discusses the implications of this condition for foresight. The range of foresight studies is reviewed as well as the main results of the sociology of expectations, which studies the informal production and circulation of expectations in science and technology. Finally, three generic lessons from the sociology of expectations are derived, and it is discussed how these support or limit the ambitions of foresight.