XMCA Mail 2005_08: [xmca] rejoining xmca & introducing myself

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[xmca] rejoining xmca & introducing myself

Dear xmca community,
I am rejoining xmca after a long hiatus. I provide an introduction to
myself, with a warning in advance that it is a bit lengthy.

>From September 2005, I will be at the Institute of Design, Illinois
Institute of Technology, Chicago, in a position about 'Understanding
Users' in design. The Institute of Design began as ‘the New Bauhaus' and
has a long commitment to human-centered design, with long contestation
over what that means. There is interest in cultural-historical activity
theory in design studies and design research which are both diverse,
growing and boundary-crossing communities.

Since 2001, I have worked in the Information Systems research group in the
Department of Informatics, University of Oslo (Institutt for Informatikk,
Universitetet I Oslo). Originally known as Systemarbeid, it has been a
leading group in participatory design and object-oriented programming
within computer science. The IS group is strongly oriented towards
actor-network theory.

I received my PhD in Communication (2000), University of California at San
Diego. I was associated with LCHC, where I participated in a working group
on Expertise as Collaborative Activity, with Yrjo Engestrom, Mike Cole and
others (1990-1993).

In my doctoral thesis, entitled Sorcerer's Apprentice: Creating the
Electronic Health Record, Re-inventing Medical Records and Patient Care, I
take up the questions that arose from my extended ethnographic study of
the large-scale electronic health record prototyping project in which I
worked for five years (1993-98). Where does the imaginative power of
innovation-in-the-making come from? And how may we explain the persistence
of concepts in the face of difficulties in practical realization? To think
about innovation-in-the-making, I devised a concept, the incomplete
utopian project, that is sociohistorical, heterogeneous and argumentative
in structure. It is also a story about what happens when a 'beautiful
logic' (the design logic) is confronted with the multiplicity of logics of
practices, knowledges, illnesses, records and systems - with the proposal
of 'working across disparate imaginaries' (following Verran) as a way of
thinking about the negotiation between logics in design.

I will be at ISCAR 2005, participating in the symposium Semiotic
Mediation: Theoretical and Practical Aspects, organized by Jonna
Kangasoja, Tarja Knuuttila and Jussi Silvonen, with a paper with the
working title, 'Immaterial and Affect Labor in the Changing and Enduring
Worlds of Patient Care and Health Systems: from Spinoza to radical Italian
sociology and ethics in relations' (Gregory, Yard and Aronowitz). I am
also a co-author for a paper entitled 'Learning and construction inthe
trajectory of recovery - new opportunities for multiple actors' (Moen,
Gregory and Smordal).

I look forward to being back on the list and to seeing many of you in
Seville!
Judith