Sociomaterial Approach Research Articles

Script of Healthcare Technology: Do Designs of Robotic Beds Exclude or Include Users?

April 01 2015 Script of Healthcare Technology: Do Designs of Robotic Beds Exclude or Include Users? Søsser Brodersen, Søsser Brodersen Søsser Brodersen is assistant professor at Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University Copenhagen. She has a Master degree and PhD in Engineering. Her research focus is on the socio-material approach to design and innovation. Her main research areas are user-participation, participatory design and user-driven innovation with special focus on healthcare technologies, marginalized people and multicultural design challenges. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Meiken Hansen, Meiken Hansen Meiken Hansen has a Master of Science Engineering in the field Design and Innovation. Her master thesis was focused on user oriented product development. She is currently a PhD student, studying smart-grid innovation, intelligent homes and consumer practices. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Hanne Lindegaard Hanne Lindegaard Hanne Lindegaard is an Ethnologist with a PhD in Engineering. She is associate professor in User Oriented Design at the Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Her main focus is on combining ethnographic field study methodology with engineering design approaches. Her research areas are a sociotechnical approach to design and innovation, User Oriented Design, Field observations, Co-creation, healthcare technology and intercultural design challenges. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Søsser Brodersen Søsser Brodersen is assistant professor at Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University Copenhagen. She has a Master degree and PhD in Engineering. Her research focus is on the socio-material approach to design and innovation. Her main research areas are user-participation, participatory design and user-driven innovation with special focus on healthcare technologies, marginalized people and multicultural design challenges. Meiken Hansen Meiken Hansen has a Master of Science Engineering in the field Design and Innovation. Her master thesis was focused on user oriented product development. She is currently a PhD student, studying smart-grid innovation, intelligent homes and consumer practices. Hanne Lindegaard Hanne Lindegaard is an Ethnologist with a PhD in Engineering. She is associate professor in User Oriented Design at the Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University Copenhagen. Her main focus is on combining ethnographic field study methodology with engineering design approaches. Her research areas are a sociotechnical approach to design and innovation, User Oriented Design, Field observations, Co-creation, healthcare technology and intercultural design challenges. Online Issn: 1531-4790 Print Issn: 0747-9360 © 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2015 Design Issues (2015) 31 (2): 16–28. https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00319 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Søsser Brodersen, Meiken Hansen, Hanne Lindegaard; Script of Healthcare Technology: Do Designs of Robotic Beds Exclude or Include Users?. Design Issues 2015; 31 (2): 16–28. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00319 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsDesign Issues Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2015 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Towards socio-material approaches in simulation-based education: lessons from complexity theory.

Review studies of simulation-based education (SBE) consistently point out that theory-driven research is lacking. The literature to date is dominated by discourses of fidelity and authenticity - creating the 'real' - with a strong focus on the developing of clinical procedural skills. Little of this writing incorporates the theory and research proliferating in professional studies more broadly, which show how professional learning is embodied, relational and situated in social - material relations. A key concern for medical educators concerns how to better prepare students for the unpredictable and dynamic ambiguity of professional practice; this has stimulated the movement towards socio-material theories in education that address precisely this question. Among the various socio-material theories that are informing new developments in professional education, complexity theory has been of particular importance for medical educators interested in updating current practices. This paper outlines key elements of complexity theory, illustrated with examples from empirical study, to argue its particular relevance for improving SBE. Complexity theory can make visible important material dynamics, and their problematic consequences, that are not often noticed in simulated experiences in medical training. It also offers conceptual tools that can be put to practical use. This paper focuses on concepts of emergence, attunement, disturbance and experimentation. These suggest useful new approaches for designing simulated settings and scenarios, and for effective pedagogies before, during and following simulation sessions. Socio-material approaches such as complexity theory are spreading through research and practice in many aspects of professional education across disciplines. Here, we argue for the transformative potential of complexity theory in medical education using simulation as our focus. Complexity tools open questions about the socio-material contradictions inherent in SBE, draw attention to important material dynamics of emergence, and suggest practical educative ways to expand and deepen student learning.

The sociomateriality of education policy

By drawing on sociomaterial approaches to education, this paper presents a case study on the creation, development and consolidation of the education zone, a new policy space in South Italy. The topological reading of the case study reveals the complex reassemblage of humans and non-humans in the enactment of the education zones, and its multiple enactments as regions, networks and fluids.

Simulation in Higher Education: A sociomaterial view

This article presents a sociomaterial account of simulation in higher education. Sociomaterial approaches change the ontological and epistemological bases for understanding learning and offer valuable tools for addressing important questions about relationships between university education and professional practices. Simulation has grown in many disciplines as a means to bring the two closer together. However, the theoretical underpinnings of simulation pedagogy are limited. This paper extends the wider work of applying sociomaterial approaches to educational phenomena, taking up Schatzki’s practice theory as a distinctive basis for doing so. The question ‘What is being simulated?’ is posed, prompting discussion of multiple bodies, performances and experiences. The potential of adopting such a framework for understanding simulation as a pedagogic practice that brings the classroom and workplace together is illustrated with reference to clinical education in nursing.

Low-income low-qualified employees’ access to workplace learning

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to investigate the embedded process that enables or constrains low-income low-qualified employees’ access to workplace learning in small organizations. Design/methodology/approach – Informed by the sociomaterial approach and cultural historical activity theory, this study adopted a qualitative cross-case study method. Data were collected from three small business owners in Central Texas, USA. Data included interviews and organizational artifacts and were analyzed using a constant comparative and inductive thematic data analysis. Findings – This study extends existing literature for low-income low-qualified employees by elucidating business owners’ motivations to develop supportive employment relationships. Despite incongruent value systems, subordinates were provided equal access to workplace learning based on organizations’ needs and business owners’ value systems. Research limitations/implications – The organizations’ small size and business owners’ position as the sole decision maker potentially create a different embedded context from supervisors who are subordinates in larger organizations. Further, findings from this qualitative study cannot be generalized without caution. Practical implications – The findings from this study suggest that workforce professionals should consider the advantages of small organizations for low-qualified clients seeking employment and adult education opportunities. More research is needed to generalize findings that delineate work situations where low-qualified employees can gain equal access to workplace learning and gain access to adult learning opportunities that lead to job mobility. Originality/value – This study identified an organizational context where business owners support workplace learning for low-income low-qualified employees with incongruent value systems.

Learning domestic violence interagency work: enacting “practice multiple”

Purpose– This paper aims to shed light on the complex multiplicity of domestic violence interagency work. It proposes a new conceptualisation that reflects the entangled nature of professional practice and learning.Design/methodology/approach– The research on which this paper draws is an ethnographic study of practice in an integrated local domestic violence initiative. Data include focussed workplace observations, semi-structured interviews and key documents. The study draws on practice-based sociomaterial approaches and the conceptual framework, and methodology is informed by actor-network theory, in particular, the work of Annemarie Mol.Findings– Findings suggest that interagency work that starts from the victim and traces threads of connection outwards is able to “hang together” as “practice multiple” in integrated service provision. I argue that the learning that happens in these circumstances is a relational effect and depends on who and what is assembled in the actor-network.Research limitations/implications– The research has significant implications for framing understandings of domestic violence interagency work, as it firmly anchors “working together” to victims. Findings are expected to be of interest not only to practitioners, educators and researchers but also to policymakers.Originality/value– The paper addresses a current gap in the literature, applies a novel research approach and proposes a new conceptualisation of domestic violence interagency work.

From social movement learning to sociomaterial movement learning? Addressing the possibilities and limits of new materialism

In recent years academic interest in social movement learning (SML) has flourished. Studies in the Education of Adults has arguably emerged as the premier international forum for exploring the links between adult learning and movements for progressive change. In parallel to this subfield, yet largely in isolation from it, Studies has fostered the development of sociomaterial approaches to adult education and lifelong learning studies. These approaches reflect a wider trend in the social sciences and humanities towards what has been termed ‘new materialism’. In what follows, I develop SML theory by considering what such perspectives have to offer. Firstly, I explore the similarities and differences between so-called new materialisms and historical materialism. Secondly, I explore what happens when social movement learning is redefined as sociomaterial movement learning. The final part addresses the ethico-political questions raised when SML is understood in sociomaterial terms.

Conducive Environments for the Promotion of Quality Teaching in Higher Education in South Africa

The article reports on an investigation into constraining and enabling conditions for professional academic development with regard to the teaching role at eight South African universities. The data comprised interviews with 10 – 16 interview transcripts with academics across a range of levels of seniority, demographic categories and disciplines. These have been analysed according to a set of categories agreed upon by a research team, and collated in eight institutional case study reports. The findings show, firstly, that conditions which enable and constrain teaching enhancement are far broader than the formal provision of professional development opportunities, and include factors such as organisational climate, infrastructure and resources. The data suggests that various ‘lenses’ including critical realism, socio-cultural approaches and socio-material approaches all have analytic value, but none are sufficient on their own, to provide a full account of what constrains and enables the enhancement of teaching and learning.

Does the children’s room really belong to me? A discussion about independence of a child in the private space of a children’s room.

A child’s independence in the children’s room has always been an issue about power and control in upbringing topics between the child and his/her parents. Nowadays the consumption of material items and media and the opportunities they offer created conditions for a child to desire independence and individual search for meaning, however parents of 9-11 years old children get more involved in the issues about the surrounding aesthetic environment and things, as well as the length and contents of the used media. Things and media and their meaning in various children’s rooms are different and they actually depend on the child’s experience and upbringing patterns in the family. This report features modern children’s rooms, the expressions of a child’s independence in a children’s room; and these points are analysed and explained by aspects such as individuality, independence, privacy and parenting style in the family. There is a contradiction about the understanding and perception of expressions of independence between the child and his/her parents.The socio-material approach is applied in this report. The research examines five case studies, respectively, five interviews with 9-11 years old children who have their own children’s room, five interviews with their parents and photographs of these children’s room that express and outline those meanings that cannot be disclosed by interviews. The case study analysis provides an answer to the following question: whether a children’s room really belongs to him/her in case the child cannot choose and independently use the objects in the children’s room in accordance with his/her perception, meanings and sense?

On the Composition of Academic Work in Digital Times

Over the last two decades, a sense of awareness has arisen that universities are facing important challenges. This article focuses on the challenge that could be broadly termed as ‘the digitisation of academic work’, yet without assuming that this digitisation would be an explanatory factor clarifying the precise nature of contemporary academic work. On the contrary, and adopting a relational actor-network theory (ANT) approach, this article stresses the concrete composition of academic work without making any general presumptions regarding how the university looks at present. Furthermore, by introducing a specific interview technique as methodological approach and different visualisations as (qualitative) analytical approach, this article offers a threefold exploratory textual and visual analysis of academic practice in the making. The article concludes, firstly, that it makes not much sense any more to talk about academic practice in terms of humans or non-humans, material or digital, etc. Instead, perhaps it makes more sense to speak of actors in academic practice as being humandigital. Secondly, the article concludes that sociomaterial approaches might constitute a fruitful addition to more traditional research about the university that is inclined to focus on epochal changes that are suggested or expected to alter the position of academics and the university.

Toward a Foundation of Material Approaches in Neo-Institutional Theory: A Bricolage Approach

Socio-material approaches of innovation are currently developing fast in neo-institutional theory yet they lack global coherence. As a result, their contribution to the understanding of institutional innovation is fragile. This paper develops a coherent view on socio-material approaches of innovation in neo-institutional theory. Drawing on a literature review, we propose that material approaches of institutional innovation focus on the design of institutions. We build on the concept of bricolage to unveil the three activities involved in the design of institutions: crafting, testing and evaluating. Eventually, we articulate these findings with existing insights on institutional innovation and develop a multilevel model of institutional innovation.

Actor-Network Theory (ANT)

In this theoretical paper, the author provides a critical review of the Actor-Network Theory concept, while considering the relative under-utilization of Actor-Network Theory in education studies, tracing possible ways in which this theory can contribute as an analytical framework through its strands of ‘actor-network', ‘symmetry', ‘translation', and their constituents– thus facilitating its international growth. Two concepts this paper gives prominence to are networks and power relations. The author challenges the widespread conception of the ‘network' metaphor propagated by globalization discourses, contrasting it in turn with the network conception in Actor-Network Theory, where the main premise is multiplicity. The author explores Actor-Network Theory as a theory of the mechanics of power, concerning itself with the establishment of hegemony. This paper is especially aimed at those researchers of education reform who are as yet unfamiliar with Actor-Network Theory and somewhat sceptical of socio-material approaches, in order for them to realize its unrivalled potential contribution to their work.

Sociomateriality in medical practice and learning: attuning to what matters

In current debates about professional practice and education, increasing emphasis is placed on understanding learning as a process of ongoing participation rather than one of acquiring knowledge and skills. However, although this socio-cultural view is important and useful, issues have emerged in studies of practice-based learning that point to certain oversights. Three issues are described here: (i) the limited attention paid to the importance of materiality - objects, technologies, nature, etc.-- in questions of learning; (ii) the human-centric view of practice that fails to note the relations among social and material forces, and (iii) the conflicts between ideals of evidence-based standardised models and the sociomaterial contingencies of clinical practice. It is argued here that a socio-material approach to practice and learning offers important insights for medical education. This view is in line with a growing field of research in the materiality of everyday life, which embraces wide-ranging families of theory that can be only briefly mentioned in this short paper. The main premise they share is that social and material forces, culture, nature and technology, are enmeshed in everyday practice. Objects and humans act upon one another in ways that mutually transform their characteristics and activity. Examples from research in medical practice show how materials actively influence clinical practice, how learning itself is a material matter, how protocols are in fact temporary sociomaterial achievements, and how practices form unique and sometimes conflicting sociomaterial worlds, with diverse diagnostic and treatment approaches for the same thing. This discussion concludes with implications for learning in practice. What is required is a shift from an emphasis on acquiring knowledge to participating more wisely in particular situations. This focus is on learning how to attune to minor material fluctuations and surprises, how to track one's own and others' effects on 'intra-actions' and emerging effects, and how to improvise solutions.

Making Materials Matter—A Contribution to a Sociomaterial Perspective on Work Environment

This paper aims to discuss the implications of adopting an STS (science and technology studies)- based conceptualization of the psychosocial work environment. We problematize how work environment research presently divides elements of working conditions into separate physical and psychosocial dimensions. Based on actor network theory, a currently dominant perspective in the field of STS, we discuss the concept of sociomaterial work environment. An ANT perspective on work environment is relevant and timely, we argue, first and foremost because more entities are embraced in the analyses. We argue that the ANT perspective leads to a more nuanced understanding of the work environment where it is not a set of predefined categories that is the focus of interest, but rather the work environment as multiple locally performed aspects of agency, translation, and collectively constructed reality. This perspective on work environment, we argue, addresses pivotal issues raised in the work environment debate during the last ten years, for instance of how the work environment as a concept saliently belongs to a social democratic Scandinavian agenda in which the singular employee in a work environment context is predominantly seen as a victim. This trope, which was peaking in the 1970s, is increasingly becoming obsolete in a changing economy with still more flexible jobs. The contribution of this paper is to provide a presentation and a discussion of the potentials and pitfalls provided by a shift toward a sociomaterial work environment perspective, as well as an empirical exemplification of a sociomaterial approach to work environment assessment.

Performative ontologies: Sociomaterial approaches to researching adult education and lifelong learning

Sociomaterial approaches to researching education, such as those generated by actornetwork theory and complexity theory, have been growing in significance in recent years, both theoretically and methodologically. Such approaches are based upon a performative ontology rather than the more characteristic representational epistemology that informs much research. In this article, we outline certain aspects of sociomaterial sensibilities in researching education, and some of the uptakes on issues related to the education of adults. We further suggest some possibilities emerging for adult education and lifelong learning researchers from taking up such theories and methodologies

The Reconfiguration of the Relationship to Care for a Rare Disease: Neonatal Expended Screening in a Socio-material Perspective

Neonatal Screening (NBS) is a mass screening, secondary prevention policy aimed at detecting one or several often congenital disorders in all neonates in a given country. The French CF NBS programme is completely functional since the middle of 2003. Drawing its inspiration from the socio-material approach, this article advances a description and analysis of the interactions between the biomedical technologies used in neonatal cystic fibrosis screening and the resulting changes in clinical practice, the bioethical debate and finally in the interstice between voluntary individual consent to screening and the management of a population’s health. The analysis grid focuses on four dimensions: institutional, techno-scientific, regulatory and socio-professional. Backed up by a field survey conducted in the specialised healthcare centres, this study explores two major aspects of the repercussions of NBS: first, the genesis and institutionalisation of this public policy and the impact of a more flexible form of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and the sustained controversy on the neonatal screening programme uniting the community of cystic fibrosis paediatrics. This study suggests that institutional stability remains fragile and in this respect constitutes a paradoxical form of production with incompleteness and uncertainty as constituting factors.

Professional learning in rural practice: a sociomaterial analysis

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the professional learning of rural police officers.Design/methodology/approach – This qualitative case study involved interviews and focus groups with 34 police officers in Northern Scotland. The interviews and focus groups were transcribed and analysed, drawing on practice‐based and sociomaterial learning theories, by members of the research team.Findings – The two key skills for effective rural policing were mobilising available human and material resources in the moment, and learning how to police and live in a rural community. The professional learning of rural police is spatial, emergent, embodied and deeply enmeshed in specificities, and is developed through interactions between human and non‐human actors.Practical implications – This paper argues that, in order to understand professional learning, it is imperative to examine how work practices are fully entangled in social and material relations.Originality/value – Applying sociomaterial approaches to issues of ...

Distributed Leadership in Policy Formulation: A Sociomaterial Perspective

Leadership in public policy making is challenging. There is tension in gaining commitment from competing stakeholder groups, in sustaining public engagement in technically complex areas and securing broad-based support. Our paper illuminates these challenges through a case study of health policy development in the UK. We go beyond individual roles and leader–follower exchange relationships to develop the concept of distributed leadership using a sociomaterial approach to reveal how and why leadership is distributed across sociomaterial practices which together (re)configure policy coalitions and context. In so doing we also show how legitimacy and trust are sociomaterially enacted and shape leadership in public policy.

(Re/dis)assembling learning practices online with fluid objects and spaces

Actor network theory (ANT) is used to explore how work-learning is enacted in informal online communities and illustrates how researchers might use sociomaterial approaches to uncover complexities, uncertainties, and specificities of work-learning practices. Participants in this study were self-employed workers. The relational and material aspects of work-learning, along with notions of the workspace of the self-employed as hybrid, distributed, and shifting, are considered. This study then examines the work that web-technologies, such as postings, do as they are entangled in an array of networks. Far from being singular objects unified in function, form, or effect, the posting provides multiple entry points for exploring online work-learning practices. The informal learning enacted in this study was the effect of multiple networks and attempts to stabilize fluidity. Different associations with knowledge and novel ways of knowing were also enacted, although there are contradictions between Web2.0 rhetoric and the practices of these self-employed workers. Findings suggest that practitioners and researchers should not be too quick to paint work-learning practices in online communities, or even the notion of online community, with a broad brush.

Entrepreneurial Identity: A Sociomaterial Approach

With a sociomaterial approach, this study explores the entrepreneurial identity constitution process in the context of fashion. More specifically, this paper considers how the social and material a...