Ethnography of, for and within

In two articles written in 1997, ethnographic methods were found to support research and practice in computing in three ways. Beynon-Davies coined the terms Ethnography within,

for and of in a survey examining information systems research (Beynon-Davies, 1997).

Anderson similarly described three uses of "technography" to support system design and human computer interaction research (1997) as Integration, Complementarity and

Independence. Though Beynon-Davies' survey considered a broader number of sub

disciplines of computing, the categories of within, for and of are sufficiently descriptive to represent the taxonomy given in both.

Ethnography within development employs an ethnographic approach to systems

development tasks like design, requirements elicitation (Martin & Sommerville, 2004) or training. The ethnographer in this case is a member of the team (Anderson, 1997). He may perform duties concurrently with development tasks, employing "quick and dirty" techniques or using ethnography to assess designs or specifications with users (Beynon- Davies, 1997, of Hughes).

Ethnography for development produces accounts of how work is done within domains

as a way to inform and influence how systems are developed. Anderson makes the point that the specific aim of these studies is to raise awareness or “sensibilities" about the environment in which the technology under development will be used (Anderson, 1997).

Ethnography of research aims to remain independent of design, studying developers

and development workplaces. It provides detailed information about the "problems and practicalities" (Beynon-Davies, 1997, p. 537) that arise in creating software. It might illuminate, for example, how developers adapt methodology to the demands of practice, the values given to different kinds of development tasks and the broader cooperative aspects of development.

4.2.1.1 Knowledge is Cultural

knowledge is employed in work, or describe details of practical or “articulated” work in particular settings (Suchman, 1987). These theories underpin interpretations of how workers perform their duties, how they use, or fail to use and adapt technology to fit the requirements of their tasks.

Humans routinely perform skilled activity, but cannot always articulate how they do it. The skills they use are tacit, implicit (Smith, 2003). Beynon-Davies suggests that the concept has been interpreted within ethnographies for as the knowledge that is required for individual workers to adapt their practices to those of others in a work environment. He links the interpretation to the concepts of explicit and activity perspectives on work, developed by Sachs (1995). The explicit view relates to organisational tasks, as represent- ed by defined tasks and procedures. The activity view is socially mediated by workers, through relationships and communication and coordination practices that often involve interaction with artefacts and tools, such as paper-based forms, drawing tools, and spreadsheets.

Beynon-Davies finds three thematic strands of relevance to information systems developers. First, there is the notion the existence and character of tacit knowledge should be considered in participatory design exercises. Second, tacit work practices may have an impact the integration of new technology into "everyday" work settings. The last suggests more generally that tacit work practices underlying cooperative work are situated (Beynon- Davies, 1997).

Anderson's survey explores in detail situated work, analysing the development of

ethnographies for design in terms of Lucy Suchman’s study of photocopier failure

(Anderson, 1997; Suchman, 1987). He identifies two innovative aspects of her research methodology: First, she re-orientated conversation analysis from its standard use for examining how two people interact, to examining how humans interact with machines.

Second, she used the notion of “communities of practice”, or an interpretation of learning drawn from research by Lave as being cultural rather than cognitive (Lave, 1988).

By combining structured, ethno-methodological analytic technique with the notion of socially-based learning, her study was pre-disposed to see the structure and order in these working lives as “situated”, “occasioned” and “co-produced” (Anderson, 1997). Though ethnographic studies of technology preceded her work, Anderson argues it was the impact of her methodological stance that galvanised researchers to apply ethnographic methods in the service of design.

4.2.1.2 Technology in Use

The theme of technology as it is used is a second core assumption within ethnographies for and within technology. Many of the studies examine work practices that depend on computing technology to perform other, “real world” tasks.

This perspective has been widely explored in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) research, with studies that examine how employees are affected by new technolo- gies in the workplace (Orlikowski, 1992; Orlikowski & Gash, 1994), the ways in which communities of users engage with collaborative software (Kling & Courtright, 2003), how electronic media support scientific communication Kling, McKim & King, 2003), and how employees use technology to engage with one another (Markus, 1994). The common theme in this research is to study adoption of technologies at the organisational level that have already been developed. While the social environment receives a detailed analysis in this research, the artefacts themselves are often overlooked (Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001).

This view has been interpreted within software development in studies like Randell's description of problems in the development of software for the NHS in England (Randell, 2007), or Ince's analyses of software for supporting social work (Ince, 2010). Their view,

in nature. Domains must be studied in these terms to determine how best to make software in their service.