Technological Ethics in a Different Voice

Michelfelder, Diane P.

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226333885.003.0013

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Diane Michelfelder (2000) and Corlann Gee Bush (1983) have made parallel and reinforcing arguments from feminist philosophy of technology, critically extending these points in important ways. In Michelfelder's case, supporting interventions similar to Borgmann's over those of Feenberg, we see how giving proper weight to women's experiences provides an understanding of the role of technology in building relationships and a meaningful life that is all too easy to fail to notice without adopting a feminist perspective.…”

Section: Theoretically-based Motivations For Intervention In Public Dmentioning

confidence: 95%

Public Philosophy of Technology

Wittkower¹,

Selinger²,

Rush³

2013

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology

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Philosophers of technology are not playing the public role that our own theoretical perspectives motivate us to take. A great variety of theories and perspectives within philosophy of technology, including those of Marcuse, Feenberg, Borgmann, Ihde, Michelfelder, Bush, Winner, Latour, and Verbeek, either support or directly call for various sorts of intervention—a call that we have failed to heed adequately. Barriers to such intervention are discussed, and three proposals for reform are advanced: (1) post-publication peer-reviewed reprinting of public philosophy, (2) increased emphasis on true open access publication, and (3) increased efforts to publicize and adapt traditional academic research.

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Section: Theoretically-based Motivations For Intervention In Public Dmentioning

confidence: 95%

Public Philosophy of Technology

Wittkower¹,

Selinger²,

Rush³

2013

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology

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“…In IHS, Inuit have created a community through a device that provides access to something that encompasses them all as dwellers of the North. As Michelfelder (2000) states, if devices can support focal practices to some extent, then the ways in which technology can assume a supporting role in our lives are enhanced, the same as with our experiences; it would be like wearing the right kind of boots for a hike in the woods. A young Inuk may have never gone hunting given the social changes that have occurred in the Arctic or given the high cost of the necessary materials.…”

Section: Ihs Technology and Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their history, Inuit have appropriated technologies for their own uses, and the internet and social media are no exception. Technology carries a democratic potential in so far as it can be appropriated for different and novel uses (MacKenzie and Wajcman 1999) that people engage with even in focal activities, as Michelfelder (2000) points out. In this sense, a communication technology such as Facebook is appropriated collectively to create something like IHS in which the land is made somehow accessible and present.…”

Section: Ihs Technology and Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identity, Community, and Technology: Reflections on the Facebook Group Inuit Hunting Stories of the Day

Castleton

2019

etudinuit

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In this article I reflect on a particular Inuit use of the social networking site Facebook: the group called Inuit Hunting Stories of the Day. I focus on two main issues. First, I discuss the logic behind current technologies as conceptualized by Albert Borgmann (e.g., 1984), who states that rather than being neutral tools, modern devices foster a particular “taking-up” with the world that leads to disengagement from community and meaningful practices. Arguing against this view, I discuss how Inuit Hunting Stories of the Day is an example of how the internet and Facebook are appropriated and provide meaningful engagement. Second, I follow anthropologist Claudio Aporta’s (2013) notion of ecology of technology and argue that the relationship between technology and Inuit has to be understood within an ecological framework that encompasses the broader context of political, economic, and social change, which are intertwined with the use, appropriation, adoption, and adaptation of technology. Drawing from the ecology of technology perspective, it is my central argument that technology and computer-mediated communication bring proximity to cultural practices, activities, and the land rather than provoking distance and alienation from reality, as commonly expressed in dystopian notions.

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“…9 A device, at least in the digital context, may also have positive effects on engagement (cf. Michelfelder 2010). In this way, digital work can be interpreted as engagement with focal things that are pervasive in both our personal and organizational spheres (Table 2 provides some examples).…”

Section: Focal Things and Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 14. For example, Michelfelder (2010) suggests a feminist interpretation of the device paradigm; Stolterman and Fors (2006) suggest aesthetic experience interpretation to make sense of meaningful engagement with information systems. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Values and Digital Work: An Ethnographic Study of Device Paradigm

Chughtai

2019

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

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I examine Albert Borgmann’s concept of device paradigm as a way to underscore the significance of human values in one’s engagement with digital work in an organizational setting. Device paradigm explains the pervasive patterns of everyday engagement with information technologies as devices that facilitate prosperity without burden and efforts and, in so doing, can downplay the human values in practices. Although prior research has highlighted the significance of focal things and practices, much remains to be learned about the role of human values in contemporary everyday engagement with digital technologies. Drawing on a critical ethnography of everyday practices at an information technology firm (approximately 300 employees), I apply the critical social theory of Borgmann to analyze how digital work is firmly anchored in human values, and how device paradigm can be used as a critical lens to examine the contemporary everyday engagement with information technology. The study reveals that digital devices can have focal aspects and everyday places can be seen as focal places. Focal things are firmly grounded in focal places, which facilitate the emergence of focal practices. Ethnographers are encouraged to explore values in the field (held by people) as well as values of the field (attached to the places).

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Technological Ethics in a Different Voice

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Public Philosophy of Technology

Public Philosophy of Technology

Identity, Community, and Technology: Reflections on the Facebook Group Inuit Hunting Stories of the Day

Human Values and Digital Work: An Ethnographic Study of Device Paradigm

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