Future War for Fun and Profit: Authority, Bureaucracy, and Masculinity in Defence Industry Software Development
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2016 Future War for Fun and Profit: Authority, Bureaucracy, and Masculinity in Defence Industry Software Development Collins, Riley Collins, R. (2016). Future War for Fun and Profit: Authority, Bureaucracy, and Masculinity in Defence Industry Software Development (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26252 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/3124 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Future War for Fun and Profit: Authority, Bureaucracy, and Masculinity in Defence Industry Software Development by Riley Thomas Collins A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF STRATEGIC STUDIES GRADUATE PROGRAM IN MILITARY AND STRATEGIC STUDIES CALGARY, ALBERTA JULY, 2016 © Riley Thomas Collins 2016 ii Abstract Technological innovation is at the heart of many discussions of understanding military practice, and it is increasingly important to understanding the relationship between states, militaries, and civilian actors such as a corporations and citizens increasingly shaped by militarization. One group of technologies affected and whose development has been conditioned by these discussions is simulation software. Based upon four months of participant observation research at a defence contractor and software development company in Calgary, Alberta, this study explores how contingencies of professional practice in the software industry, authority, corporate hierarchy and reporting practices, gender, and the nature of simulation contribute to developing products for military use. This study suggests that these contingencies not only reproduce and reinforce certain gendered, authoritative, and professional stereotypes during production, but that understanding these stereotypes and their linguistic, aesthetic, and structured facets contributes to understanding the relationship between militarization and the production of technology. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people in no particular order for their gracious, patient, and inspiring contributions to my education and this thesis: Sabrina, Susan, Tim, Harris, Alex, Jacqueline, Adam, Jim, Rob, Gavin, Holger, Terry, Maureen, John, Donna, Shelley, Nancy, the QEII Committee, Chris and Patrick iv Dedication To all who would speak of potential and possibility… v Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... iii Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... v Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1 On the Rites and Rules of Agility: Secrecy, Expectations, and Knowledge in Defence Industry Software Development ................................................................................................. 24 Paradoxes and Professionalisms of Secrecy ........................................................................... 26 “Stand Up” Meetings and the Material and Social Configurations of Secrecy .................. 38 Communicative Acts and Defining Context for Software Development ............................. 43 Development Priorities and the Smoke and Mirrors of getting it “Good Enough” ........... 51 The Performance of Branding: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, and the Articulation of Innovation ..................................................................................................................................... 55 Gordy: Charismatic Authority and the Performance of Corporate Culture ..................... 60 CANSEC and the Performance of Branding and Business .................................................. 66 Tortoises and Heroes: Gender, and the Unknowing and Knowing of Software Testing ...... 90 The Life of Testing ................................................................................................................... 92 Masculinity and Skilled Labor ............................................................................................... 96 Leadership, Gender, and the Skilled and Unskilled ............................................................. 99 Other(ed) Lives in the Margins ............................................................................................ 105 Testing as an Afterthought .................................................................................................... 109 Tension, Rationalities, and the Structured Space of Reasoning ........................................ 112 Sustaining Divided Rationalities in Everyday Life ............................................................. 120 Seeing the State in the Margins ............................................................................................ 131 Tension, Necessity, and Sustaining the Margins in the Whole .......................................... 133 Contingency and Subject Rationalities in Sustaining the Margins ................................... 138 Automation and the Regulation of Subversion ................................................................... 141 Promises of the Market: Liberalization, Militarization, and Mythology in the Development of Simulation .............................................................................................................................. 150 Presenting the Global and the Local .................................................................................... 154 Situating Design Individually, Collectively, and in Collaboration .................................... 161 Neoliberalization in War and Peace ..................................................................................... 172 Defining, Marketing, and Simulating the Objects of Expertise ......................................... 178 vi Militarizing Everyday Life in Commentary and Development of Simulation ................. 195 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 207 References ................................................................................................................................... 213 1 Introduction I never expected to discover an interest or an ideal space to conduct research on scientific and corporate cultures surrounding simulation in Calgary, a city known for a flourishing economy founded upon oil. C4i Consultants – a software engineering company focused on simulation, at whose offices I would later conduct my field work – was surprised at my interest in simulation, apparently unexpected from Calgary’s local university. Governments, militaries, and private groups have defined the project of simulation with varying forms, objectives, and experiences in mind. These have included war games and exercises, tactile simulations used to train individuals to fly planes, drive tanks or operate machinery, and even simulations of the experience of commanding large groups of soldiers. I first arrived at C4i’s offices in northeast Calgary to find myself situated in the heart of Calgary’s northern commercial sector; numerous equipment and tool manufacturers, other defence contractors, delivery warehouses and minor offices of government agencies litter the region, packed into strip-mall office parks and beige, brutalist architecture. My time in this space always felt transitory – the route I took to C4i’s offices everyday did not even have a sidewalk for pedestrian traffic; a selection of restaurants inspired by local immigrant communities and global fare dot the places between commercial space, drawing primarily on lunchtime, after-work crowds of white collar professionals to stay afloat. I attempted to prepare myself for what I thought could be an overwhelming confrontation with corporate and technoscientific lifeways that I had only read about up until that point – whether in the oblique conformities of office structures, including cubicles, board rooms, and pastel-colored walls, contrasted and 2 differentiated by reference to emblematic decoration characterized according to national or industry norms (Kondo, 1997: 49-50). Instead, I faced a confusing mix of excitement and disappointment as I encountered these conformities and stereotypes of office structure first-hand. Rows of identical cubicles articulated into labyrinths of project teams and ad-hoc spaces for meetings and designs, muted red and blue walls, and occasional stacks of unused or overused electronics characterize C4i’s office space. In contrast to the banal fixtures of the office setting,