Divining a Digital Future Divining a Digital Future Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2011 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please email special_sales@ mitpress.mit.edu This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permis- sion for the use of copyrighted material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notifi ed of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dourish, Paul. Divining a digital future : mess and mythology in ubiquitous computing / Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-01555-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Ubiquitous computing. 2. Computer networks — Social aspects — Forecasting. I. Bell, Genevieve. II. Title. QA76.5915.D68 2011 303.48′ 33 — dc22 2010038387 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction : The Myth and Mess of Ubiquitous Computing 1 I 7 2 Contextualizing Ubiquitous Computing 9 3 Making Room for the Social and Cultural 45 4 A Role for Ethnography : Methodology and Theory 61 II 91 5 What Lies Beneath 95 6 Mobility and Urbanism 117 7 Rethinking Privacy 137 8 Domesticity and Its Discontents 161 III 185 9 Reimagining Ubiquitous Computing : A Conclusion 187 References 211 Index 245 Preface We wrote the proposal for this book in a stark modernist hotel room in Geneva, while attending a new media conference there. In between con- ference sessions, extravagant French-infl uenced desserts, and a memorable trip to the International Museum of the Reformation, we sketched out a plan for how it might take shape. We knew from the outset that we wanted to critically interrogate the idea of “ ubiquitous computing ” (or “ ubicomp ” ). It was a project that we had been circling around in various publications and talks for several years, and the time seemed ripe to take a more comprehensive look. Much of this project ’ s distinctiveness and whatever success it achieves relies on the interdisciplinary nature of our collaboration. Dourish is a com- puter scientist whose work lies at the intersection of computer science and social science; Bell is a cultural anthropologist with a primary concern in information technology as a site of cultural production along with the con- sequences for technology innovation and diffusion. Our intellectual and personal trajectories are complicated. We have each spent time, in various guises — as a child, worker, student, professor, and researcher — in a range of signifi cant hubs — such as the Australian National University, Stanford Uni- versity, Bryn Mawr College, Cambridge, University College London, Silicon Valley, Rank Xerox EuroPARC, Xerox PARC, Apple, and Intel ’ s Architecture Lab and Corporate Technology Group. Raised in Australia and educated in the United States, Bell is currently directing a new Interaction and Experi- ence Research laboratory at Intel Corporation. Raised in Scotland, and educated in Scotland and England, Dourish now runs an interdisciplinary research program at the University of California, Irvine. Our collaboration refl ects our belief that any satisfactory account of contemporary computational practice must be deeply grounded in cultural and specifi c settings yet must also take the nature of computational devices seriously, not black boxing them, but instead engaging with both the viii Preface technology and practice of information technology design. The material in this book, then, draws on the body of empirical and conceptual work that we have undertaken, individually and together, over the last six years, across a wide range of related topics, domains of inquiry, and regions of the world. Our work has generated a series of articles in journals and other publications over the last three or four years; these writings form the basis of the book and are elaborated, developed, connected, and reframed in terms of a broader set of conceptual and methodological themes. The book itself is divided into three sections. The fi rst section spells out the terrain of ubicomp with a particular focus on culture and eth- nography as theoretical as well as methodological stances. The second one provides a sequence of thematic explorations of dominant narratives within ubicomp. The third section provides a conclusion, proposing directions for future exploration and study. We wrote this book over a long period, and it has gone through multiple instantiations and a number of working titles. But the one thing that has been a constant is the cover image. It fi rst appeared in Australia in 1985. Produced by Redback Graphix, an activist design house run by Michael Callaghan from Wollongong, “ Bush Radio ” sought to promote a joint venture — bringing radio in local languages to the aboriginal communities of central Australia— between the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association. The image blends contemporary representations of radio waves and broadcast ranges with a map of the Northern Territory, while simultaneously evoking the more traditional images of Aboriginal art and country. Here, the “ future ” is understood by reference to the present and the ever present. It is just such forms of hybridity, the reappropriations of technical realities, around which this book turns. Acknowledgments Although we both attended a conference organized by Lucy Suchman and her colleagues in 1999, we managed not to meet until an Intel-sponsored conference in Oregon in September 2003. Other conferences followed, and over time an intellectual connection bloomed into an ongoing collabora- tion that has seen us writing papers together for nearly seven years. This book is a natural outgrowth and result of that process, but it would never have come to print without a great deal of assistance, input, and support. Some specifi c material for this book has been drawn from written pieces and projects that we have undertaken in collaboration with others, includ- ing Ken Anderson, Arianna Bassoli, Kirsten Boehner, Johanna Brewer, Simon Cole, Rogerio de Paula, Eric Kabisch, Scott Mainwaring, Karen Martin, Phoebe Sengers, Jennifer Terry, and Amanda Williams. We have benefi ted greatly from a sustaining network of colleagues who, through conversation, collaboration, and critique, have helped shape the ideas we present here. At Intel, this includes Ken Anderson, Ashwini Asokan, Maria Bezaitis, Sue Faulkner, Anthony LaMarca, Scott Mainwaring, Jay Melican, Dawn Nafus, Mike Payne, Tony Salvador, John Sherry, and Alex Zafi roglu. At the University of California, Irvine, this includes Tom Boellstorff, Simon Cole, Beatriz da Costa, Martha Feldman, David Theo Goldberg, Gillian Hayes, Garnet Hertz, Mimi Ito, Crista Lopes, Liz Losh, George Marcus, Gloria Mark, Bill Maurer, Melissa Mazmanian, Bonnie Nardi, Robert Nideffer, Don Patterson, Simon Penny, Kavita Philip, Mark Poster, David Redmiles, and Jennifer Terry. Beyond the immediate boundaries of our own institutions, this includes Mark Ackerman, Julian Bleecker, Geoffrey Bowker, John Seely Brown, Matthew Chalmers, Kate Crawford, Michael Curry, Keith Edwards, Bill Gaver, Gerard Goggin, Melissa Gregg, Beki Grinter, Steve Harrison, Larrisa Hjorth, Kia H ö ö k, Ann Light, Peter Lunenfeld, John McCarthy, Malcolm x Acknowledgments McCullough, Christena Nippert-Eng, Eric Paulos, Yvonne Rogers, Christine Satchell, Phoebe Sengers, Brian Cantwell Smith, Lucy Suchman, Nina Wakeford, and Peter Wright. At the outset of our collaboration, we found ourselves writing about infrastructure, and so we sent a draft of our fi rst paper on the topic to Leigh Star, whose thinking and writing on infrastructure and messiness were as inspiring to us then as they are now. Leigh’ s generous and thought- ful engagements with us, around that paper and in the years that fol- lowed, were invaluable. Leigh passed away a few weeks before this manuscript was completed. Her presence is hugely missed both personally and intellectually. Dourish ’ s students and postdocs, past and present, have made— and continue to make — key contributions through their research, questions, and refreshing refusal to take anything at face value: Johanna Brewer, Judy Chen, Marisa Cohn, Rogerio de Paula, Danyel Fisher, Lilly Irani, Charlotte Lee, Silvia Lindtner, Madhu Reddy, Jennifer Rode, Irina Shklovski, Janet Vertesi, and Amanda Williams. We thank our current institutions for their forbearance, support, and engagement: UC Irvine’ s Department of Informatics as well as the Labora- tory for Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction, and Intel Corporation (in particular, the Corporate Technology Group ’ s Peoples and Practice Research along with the Digital Home Group’ s User Experience Group). Aspects of this work were also supported in part by the National Science Foundation under awards 0133749, 0205724, 0326105, 0524033, 0527729, 0712890, 0838499, 0838601, and 0917401, and by grants from the Intel Research Council