Sociomaterial Approach Research Articles

Sociomaterial perspectives on work and learning: sites of emergent learning

PurposeThis paper aims to introduce, explain and illustrate the concept of “sites of emergent learning” (SEL), which pinpoints particular instances of learning in everyday practice. This concept is located within contemporary practice-oriented and sociomaterial approaches to understanding workplace learning.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual development has been resourced by a secondary analysis of data from three workplace learning studies. These were: an ethnographic study of a residential parenting service; a case study of learning among engineers working on a railway construction site; and a case study of a multicultural unit that aims to enhance health services for a diverse community. All were based in the Sydney metropolitan area. The secondary analysis was undertaken by identifying regular practices within each setting where professionals discuss past and future work. These were then subjected to theoretical scrutiny, identifying common and distinctive features.FindingsSEL were identified within the handover, site-walks and catch-up meeting practices. They arise through and are constituted in relationships between social practices and the materialities of work. SEL involve negotiating, exploring and questioning practice and knowledge associated with it; they are instances within work practices in which work is done about how work gets done, developing new understandings of the past to reshape visions for the future. Alongside these commonalities, each site of emergent learning displayed distinctive features shaped by the particularities of the practices and materialities of each site.Originality/valueThis concept is presented as a valuable tool to assist researchers of workplace learning. It elucidates particular learning-intensive features of practice, extending sociomaterial conceptualisations of professional and workplace learning.

Change your space, change your culture: exploring spatial change management strategies

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to explore the use of, and challenges associated with, spatial change management strategies. This is done through a discussion on how spatial environments may be utilised to effect organisational change. The intention is to provoke new thinking on physical change initiatives and to challenge the often highly deterministic view on the effects of contemporary workspace concepts.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is structured as a case study-based literature review, drawing on literature from the fields of environmental psychology, organisational branding, corporate real estate and facility management, as well as organisational change management.FindingsThe study indicates that space management strategies may fail because of the lack of understanding of how organisational events and other contextually specific aspects correlate with the physical change initiative. Succeeding with the spatial strategy requires a strong focus on socio-material relationships and the employee meaning-making process during the spatial change process.Originality/valueContrary to the traditional and rational focus on functional space management strategies, the paper takes a socio-material approach suggesting that there is a need for more empirically based research into the employee meaning-making process and the role of human and organisational practices in the development of new workplace concepts. Focusing on how organisational members understand and “make use of” spatial environments may substantially improve organisations and building consultants’ abilities to strategically manage the physical change initiative and achieve the intended ends.

Remaking Practices in the Redesign of a Primary Healthcare Program

Objective: To develop a detailed account of changed practices in everyday work in the redesign of a primary healthcare program.
 Design: The research aimed to produce layered and rich descriptions of the complex and multidimensional remaking of health practices. Empirical data was gathered through ethnographic methods including; interviewing, self-reporting, observation and shadowing. The subjects of the research were involved as active participants in the research design, data gathering and analysis.
 Setting: HealthOne was a New South Wales government attempt to provide a local and responsive model to improve chronic disease management in primary and community healthcare settings. We report specifically on the HealthOne program implemented in a suburb of Western Sydney.
 Main outcome measures: The research did not aim to evaluate the program but to uncover instances of professional learning though identifying changes in professional practice. These were noted and observed by the researchers and research participants or through reflexive conversations with the program planners, healthcare workers and the research team.
 Results: Drawing on the work of a number of learning and practice-based theory writers, particularly those using a socio-material approach, we describe how practice change has occurred and how work practiceshave been remade at this site - especially in the role of the General Practice Liaison Nurse (GPLN).
 Conclusions: The research demonstrated the potential for new categories and practices of health work to emerge; this was especially seen in the work of the GPLN but also extended to new ways of working through General Practitioners and community health networks.
 Abbreviations: GP – General Practitioner; GPLN – General Practice Liaison Nurse.

The search-ification of everyday life and the mundane-ification of search

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand how meaning is assigned to online searching by viewing it as a mundane, yet often invisible, activity of everyday life and an integrated part of various social practices.Design/methodology/approachSearching is investigated with a sociomaterial approach with a starting point in information searching as entangled across practices and material arrangements and as a mundane part of everyday life. In total, 21 focus groups with 127 participants have been carried out. The study focusses particularly on peoples’ experiences and meaning-making and on how these experiences and the making of meaning could be understood in the light of algorithmic shaping.FindingsAn often-invisible activity such as searching is made visible with the help of focus group discussions. An understanding of the relationship between searching and everyday life through two interrelated narratives is proposed: a search-ification of everyday life and a mundane-ification of search.Originality/valueThe study broadens the often narrow focus on searching in order to open up for a research-based discussion in information science on the role of online searching in society and everyday life.

Doing Sociomateriality Research in Information Systems

This paper agrees with Mueller et al.'s (2016) view that researchers who want to adopt a sociomaterial approach often find themselves confused regarding research methods. However, it departs from Mueller's et al. suggestion to seek guidance from the structural-functionalist approach of Parsons' and Shils' (1951) General Theory of Action. The paper argues that finding a methodological framework for research following a sociomaterial approach has to be consistent with the philosophy, ontology and roots of this approach and that it is limiting to read the post-human approach of sociomateriality through a structural-functionalist lens. The paper briefly reviews the roots of the sociomaterial approach in sociology and information systems and offers a methodological guidance based on Actor Network Theory (ANT) and post ANT/Feminist lenses.

Returning to the Philosophical Roots of Sociomateriality

Sociomateriality is a growing research stream in the field of IS. In response to an increasingly complex and interconnected world, sociomateriality researchers have proposed a view of relational ontological fusion. This view transcends the conventional framework of assuming a clear distinction between the social and the material. In this paper, we argue that the fundamental difference between sociomateriality and the conventional view lies on the ontological level, not on the epistemological or methodological levels. But without a return to its philosophical roots, sociomateriality remains obscure and confusing. To better inform researchers, we return to the original works of two Western philosophers, Heidegger and McLuhan, who both share the view of ontological fusion in proposing their arguments on how the entanglement of technology and the human agent precludes access to a primordial truth. In this paper, we reflect on these philosophical works, providing a solid foundation for this new approach. We argue that the sociomateriality approach can open the black box of the epistemological bias that stems from habitual systemic thinking. This study contributes to the less-researched area of unintentional consequences of technology. The paper also provides practical, alternative methods that can help in furthering this approach in future studies.

Visualization in analysis: developing ANT Analysis Diagrams (AADs)

This article presents a novel diagramming approach which employs aspects of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) in the creation of ANT Analysis Diagrams (AADs). ANT is a socio-material approach which allows for the consideration of both human and inanimate entities in a social context. AADs provide a novel method for the analytical investigation of social situations, thereby both operationalizing elements of ANT and generating a visualization of a domain. It is the process of creating an AAD which is crucial, focusing attention on the characteristics of the entities involved and the nature of the relationships between them, thereby supporting the analysis of qualitative social data. As this article illustrates, AADs can be usefully applied to a wide range of social contexts and across scales, from the individual person, to groups through to broad social concepts.

Learning and change in the redesign of a primary health care initiative

Purpose This paper aims to provide an account of learning and change in the redesign of a primary health-care initiative in a large metropolitan city in Australia. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on research exploring the place and role of learning in the re-making of health professional practices in a major New South Wales Government health reform called HealthOne. The analysis and findings presented here make reference to data drawn from a longitudinal ethnographic study (2011-2014) conducted by an inter-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of Technology Sydney. Socio-material and practice-based approaches for understanding learning are used in working with the data. Findings There were substantial changes in professional practice, especially in the role of the General Practice Liaison Nurse. Changes, and the learning connected to the changes, were dynamically influenced by the macro-context. HealthOne was a reform initiative with a strong focus on achieving health service redesign and a consistent focus on staff developing new ways of thinking and operating. Although learning was often discussed, it was, for the most part, expressed in general terms, and there was a lack of a formal and well-developed approach to learning collectively and individually. Originality/value This research paper will inform future attempts at service redesign in community and primary health contexts and provides a site-specific examination of workplace learning in a context of rapid change.

Observing of interprofessional collaboration in simulation: A socio-material approach

ABSTRACTSimulation exercises are becoming more common as an educational feature of the undergraduate training of health professionals. Not all students participate in these activities, but are assigned as observers of the actual simulation. This article presents a study that explored how social-material arrangements for observation of interprofessional collaboration in a simulated situation are enacted and how these observations are thematised and made relevant for learning. The empirical data consisted of 18 standardised video recordings of medical and nursing students observing their peer students simulate. Practice theory is used to show how observation is embodied, relational, and situated in social-material relations. The findings show two emerging ways of enacting observation—proximate observation and distant observation. The enactments are characterised by different socio-material arrangements concerning the location where the simulation took place and its material set-up as well as embodied “doings” and “relatings” between the observing students and instructors. The observing students are participating in a passive, normative position as an audience and as judges of what is correct professional behaviour.

The structuring of information through search: sorting waste with Google

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore informational structures producing and organising the construction of waste sorting in Sweden. It shows how the issue is constructed by it being searched for in Google and how this contributes to the specific informational texture of waste sorting in Sweden. It is guided by the following questions: who are the main actors and which are the central topics featuring in Google results on popular, suggested searches for waste sorting in Sweden? What do the link relations between these tell the author about the issue space that is formed around waste sorting in Sweden? How is the construction of the notions of waste sorting and waste shaped in the information available through Google’s features for related and other relevant searches?Design/methodology/approach– Waste sorting is discussed as a practice structured along moral rules and as a classification exercise. The study brings together two types of material, results from searches carried out in Google and lists of Google query suggestions for relevant search terms. These are analysed with a mixed method approach, uniting quantitative network analysis and qualitative content analysis of query suggestions. A sociomaterial approach theoretically grounds the analysis.Findings– Waste sorting in Sweden emerges as an issue that is characterised by dense networks of rules and regulation, focused in public authorities and government agencies, which in turn address consumers, waste management businesses and other authorities. Search engine use and waste sorting in Sweden are shown to be joined together in various mundane everyday life practices and practices of governance that become visible through the search engine in form of search results and suggested searches. The search engine is shown to work as a fluid classification system, which is also created and shaped by its use.Originality/value– The study offers a novel methodological approach to studying the informational structures of an issue and of its shaping through it being searched for. The sociomaterially grounded analysis of Google as a fluid classification system is original.

Questioning the ontology of sociomateriality: a critical realist perspective

Purpose– The author join Orlikowski (2007) in seeking the “reconfiguration of our conventional assumptions and considerations of materiality.” In her sociomaterial approach, Orlikowski combines what is social and what is material into a “sociomaterial assemblage” in considering material and social aspects of technology. However, the author thinks this conflation creates a number of analytical and phenomenological problems for the understanding of technology in organizing. Rather than considering materiality with a primacy, the author argue that the proposed approach may reduce what is material into a social essence and makes materiality of a technology impossible to perceive separate from the social aspects. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– Empirical examples of “Information Search” and “Mobile Communication” in Orlikowski (2007) are further employed to discuss the grounds of the criticism.Findings– The author propose a critical realist perspective to technology both as social and material recursively.Research limitations/implications– The analysis is primarily ontological and meta-theoretical. In future, extensive reviews can be performed on what questions have been asked and what questions have been omitted by researchers employing different versions of sociomaterial perspective.Practical implications– The perspective offered by this paper enables asking new questions and necessary empirical leverage to analyze how one technology becomes materialized and successful in the social realm and not the other. The author also discusses strategic conditions of how one successful technology can be replaced by another.Social implications– Understanding the state of the art in theory in understanding material and social aspects of technology would help us develop novel strategies to contest, complement and adapt to material and social issues of technologies.Originality/value– This paper is among the few critical papers that meta-theoretically question the relatively recent sociomaterial turn in organization studies and information systems fields.

Sobre el potencial crítico de los enfoques sociomateriales en educación

Este artículo tiene como argumento central que el recientemente emergente enfoque sociomaterial tiene un inherente potencial crítico para la educación, pero esta capacidad no ha sido completamente puesta en práctica o explorada en estudios educativos. Para argumentar estas ideas, este artículo empieza, en primer lugar, con una concisa descripción de representacionalismo en contraposición al pensamiento relacional, y propone que los estudios sociomateriales deben situarse en esta última corriente. En consecuencia, la función crítica que es ampliamente apoyada en el pensamiento representacional –que es una función principalmente dirigida a desacreditar y develar– requiere ser repensada. Para concebir nuevamente esta función, el artículo en segundo lugar profundiza sobre las principales características de los estudios sociomateriales en educación para demostrar que tal pensamiento relacional toma forma dentro y durante la realización de la investigación sociomaterial. Estas características son decisivas para aprehender completamente la perspectiva crítica de los enfoques sociomateriales en educación. La función de la crítica, entonces, equivale a una actitud comprometida con las prácticas objeto de investigación y dirige la atención hacia la creatividad crítica que ofrece algunos horizontes de cambio.

Hospitality within hospital meals—Socio-material assemblages

ABSTRACTHospital meals and their role in nutritional care have been studied primarily from a life and natural science perspective. This article takes a different approach and explores the idea of hospitality inspired by Jacques Derrida’s work on the ontology of hospitality. By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish hospital, hospitality practices were studied using a socio-material assemblage approach. The study showed that rethinking the meal event could change the wards into temporary “pop-up-restaurants,” transcending the hospital context and providing a scene for shifting host–guest interactions and creating temporary meal communities. However, asymmetrical host–guest relations bound to health and efficiency rationales typical for public meal production-systems contested the hospitality space. Findings indicate that hospitality thinking can be a valuable guiding principle to enable staff and management involved in hospital food service and in nutritional care to work more systematically with the environment for improved hospital meal experiences in the future.

Relational thinking in education: topology, sociomaterial studies, and figures

Over the last few years, different sociomaterial research orientations have emerged. In this article, we argue that most of these orientations are relying on a relational mode of thinking, that is, a way of conceiving of educational practices in terms of the relations between the different actors present in these particular practices. In doing so, these various sociomaterial studies share many of their theoretical assumptions with social topology, an approach inspired by the mathematical field of topology. In educational research, however, this connection between sociomaterial and sociotopological accounts is not commonly made. Therefore, this article calls for a more intricate interweaving of topological thinking with better-known sociomaterial approaches. Furthermore, we assert that using visualisations might play a crucial role in this respect. To that effect, we introduce the Foucauldian and Deleuzian notion of the diagram. This notion of the diagram, as the technique that brings the orders of the visual and the articulable together, is conceived as a promising technique in order to investigate different aspects of educational practices. In a concluding section, the article offers some suggestions as to what the general potential of adopting such relational studies in the field of education might be.

Performing inter-professional expertise in rural advisory networks

In this paper we draw on in-depth research to explore inter-professional working in rural land and livestock management and introduce the novel concept of inter-professional expertise. An increasingly intricate regulatory framework, the diversification of the economic base of rural areas away from primary commodity production and a growing emphasis on environmental protection and ecosystem services mean that the management of land and livestock are becoming more complex in their objectives, more demanding of specialised technical knowledge and skills and more rule-bound in their procedures and processes. To assist them in meeting these challenges, farmers and other land managers turn to a growing array of rural professional advisers. Increasingly the achievement of private and public objectives for rural businesses depends upon the integration of a variety of specialised expert inputs. So, alongside pressures to differentiate the specialised knowledge they have to offer, rural professionals face demands to work together to help clients solve complex problems and deliver multiple objectives. It follows that rural land and livestock management present a rich context in which to explore the dynamic relationship between different types of professional experts. As a departure from the strong tradition of farmer-centred research examining extended knowledge networks in rural settings, we therefore explore the working relations between advisers themselves. Using concepts of relational agency and socio-material approaches we identify the skills and strategies involved in this inter-professional communication and working, with relevance to expert-expert interactions and the negotiation of contemporary professional expertise in fields far beyond the provision of rural services. We find that it is in the ways that experts perform, act and interact in the field that professional expertise and, by extension, inter-professional expertise – is realised and practised. Thus as working practices are increasingly shared, credentialism is pursued less by achieving the monopolies of old and more by striving for new monopolies of inter-professional practice.

Socio-material perspectives on interprofessional team and collaborative learning.

Interprofessional teamwork and collaboration have become important parts of health care practice and education. Most of the literature on interprofessional learning, however, assumes that learning is something acquired by individuals and readily transferred to other contexts. This assumption severely limits the ways in which interprofessional educators and researchers can conceptualise and support learning related to collaborative interprofessional health care. Socio-material theories provide an alternative to individualistic, acquisition-oriented notions by reconceiving learning in terms of collective dynamics, participation in social communities and active engagement with material contexts. Socio-material literature and theories were reviewed to identify concepts relevant to interprofessional learning. After briefly summarising the origins and key principles of socio-material approaches, the authors draw upon specific socio-material theories--including complexity theory, cultural-historical activity theory and actor-network theory--in order to reconceive how learning happens in interprofessional contexts. This reframing of interprofessional learning focuses less on individuals and more on collective dynamics and the actual social and material relations involved in practice. The paper proposes five ways in which learning may be enacted in interprofessional teamwork and collaboration from a socio-material perspective: (i) diverse contributions; (ii) social interactions and relationships; (iii) synthesis of professional ideas; (iv) integration of material elements, and (v) connections to large-scale organisations. For each of these categories, the paper provides practical illustrations to assist educators and researchers who wish to identify and assess this learning. Although more exploratory than comprehensive, this paper articulates many key aspects of socio-material learning theories and offers practical guidance for those who wish to employ and assess them in interprofessional contexts.

On the critical potential of sociomaterial approaches in education

espanolEste articulo tiene como argumento central que el recientemente emergente enfoque sociomaterial tiene un inherente potencial critico para la educacion, pero esta capacidad no ha sido completamente puesta en practica o explorada en estudios educativos. Para argumentar estas ideas, este articulo empieza, en primer lugar, con una concisa descripcion de representacionalismo en contraposicion al pensamiento relacional, y propone que los estudios sociomateriales deben situarse en esta ultima corriente. En consecuencia, la funcion critica que es ampliamente apoyada en el pensamiento representacional –que es una funcion principalmente dirigida a desacreditar y develar– requiere ser repensada. Para concebir nuevamente esta funcion, el articulo en segundo lugar profundiza sobre las principales caracteristicas de los estudios sociomateriales en educacion para demostrar que tal pensamiento relacional toma forma dentro y durante la realizacion de la investigacion sociomaterial. Estas caracteristicas son decisivas para aprehender completamente la perspectiva critica de los enfoques sociomateriales en educacion. La funcion de la critica, entonces, equivale a una actitud comprometida con las practicas objeto de investigacion y dirige la atencion hacia la creatividad critica que ofrece algunos horizontes de cambio. EnglishThis paper has as central argument that the recently emerging sociomaterial approach to education has an inherently critical potential, but that this capacity is not yet fully deployed and explored in educational studies. In order to make this argument, this paper starts, first, with a concise description of representationalist versus relational thinking, and argues that sociomaterial studies have to be situated in the latter current. Consequently, the role of critique that is largely upheld in representationalist thinking –that is, a role primarily directed at debunking and unveiling– needs to be rethought. In order to reconceive this role, the paper secondly elaborates upon the key characteristics of sociomaterial studies in education in order to show such relational thinking takes shape in and during the conduct of sociomaterial research. These characteristics are crucial in order to fully apprehend the critical prospect of sociomaterial approaches in education. The role of critique, then, amounts to an engaged attitude vis-a-vis the practices under investigation, and more particularly points to critical creativity as offering some horizons of change. francaisCet article a comme argument central que l’approche sociomateriel recemment emergent dans la recherche educative a un potentiel intrinsequement critique, mais que cette capacite n’est pas encore totalement deployee et exploree dans les etudes pedagogiques. Afin de rendre cet argument, cet article commence, d’abord, avec une description concise de la pensee representationaliste et la pensee relationnelle, et argumente que les etudes sociomaterielles doivent etre situees dans le dernier courant. Par consequence, le role de la critique qui est largement adopte dans la pensee representationaliste –i.e., un role adresse principalement aux demystification et devoilement– doit etre repensee. Afin de ressaisir ce role, le document explique deuxiemement les caracteristiques cles des etudes sociomaterielles dans l’education, afin de montrer que telle pensee relationnelle prend forme dans, et pendant, la conduite de la recherche sociomateriel. Ces caracteristiques sont essentielles pour apprehender pleinement la perspective critique des approches sociomaterielles dans l’education. Le role de la critique, puis, s’eleve a une attitude engagee vis-a-vis des pratiques sous enquete, et plus particulierement a la creativite critique qui offre des horizons du changement.

What screens do: The role(s) of the screen in academic work

This article reports of an ethnographic study conducted in two academic research centers. The article is centrally directed at the role of digital technologies and devices in contemporary academic work, and more particularly at the role of the screen in the daily composition of this work. Three central questions are raised. First, which positional relations do academics need to uphold with the screen in order for the screen to be able to operate? Second, in which forms do these digital devices come into being? Third, which sorts of (in)compatibility between activities are established because of the mutual interplay between academics and screens? By adopting a relational, sociomaterial approach, the study gives an account of the established choreographies that are enacted likewise, provides an overview of the role and operations of the screen in contemporary academic work, and analyzes which sorts of time and space are generated likewise.

Policy matters: de/re/territorialising spaces of learning in Victorian government schools

This article seeks to augment an emerging interest in education policy research in enactment theorising, to explicitly consider the role and contribution of materiality in this theorising. Guided by the notion of policy matters, the article takes as its empirical context a major policy initiative, the Building the Education Revolution infrastructure programme, which commenced in Australia in 2009 and saw funding distributed to schools to develop new learning spaces and facilities. Deploying a sociomaterial approach to researching policy, and bringing selected Deleuzian concepts to bear, this programme is traced as it is playing out presently in Victorian government schools. The argument is made that understanding policy objects such as these ‘open’ and ‘flexible’ learning spaces as being in a perpetual state of ‘becoming’ is especially useful in the context of education policy where rationalistic approaches tend to prevail. It opens a space for re-imagining education policy and the politics of this policy by crediting the idea that materialising processes such as architecture and facilities matter in education policy. They are performative agents with interventionist possibilities regarding schools’ curricular and pedagogic outcomes and goals.

The tension between business process modelling and flexibility: Revealing multiple dimensions with a sociomaterial approach

Business process modelling has contradictory effects on flexibility: on the one hand, recent approaches to process modelling in organisations have been used to pursue flexibility as a strategic goal. On the other hand, the display of organisational practices in models and adherence to these models might reduce the degree of organisational flexibility. In order to shed new light on this paradox, this article adopts a sociomaterial analytical approach based on the Actor-Network Theory to develop a multidimensional understanding of flexibility as a relational effect of sociomaterial networks. A case study, carried out of a process modelling project within a large aircraft maintenance corporation, shows that the influence of process modelling on flexibility is not confined to the elements explicitly modelled in the diagrams (‘what’), but also span informal aspects of work practices (‘how’) and the extent of accountability in the organisation (‘who’). Therefore, the relative degree of flexibility that emerges from process modelling should be analysed along each dimension produced within the sociomaterial networks of the organisation.