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Technoscience, Gender and Value DOCTORAL T H E SIS Fredrik Sjögren Technoscience, Gender and Value Value Gender and Technoscience, Fredrik Sjögren Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences Division of Human Work Science ISSN 1402-1544 Technoscience, Gender and Value ISBN 978-91-7583-213-5 (print) ISBN 978-91-7583-214-2 (pdf) A Study of the Doing of Gender and Technoscience in Luleå University of Technology 2015 Four Swedish ICT-Research Organizations A Study of the Doing of Gender and Technoscience in Four Swedish ICT-Research Organizations in Four Swedish ICT-Research Technoscience of the Doing Gender and A Study Fredrik Sjögren Technoscience, Gender and Value A Study of the Doing of Gender and Technoscience in Four Swedish ICT-Research Organizations Fredrik Sjögren Luleå University of Technology Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences Division of Human Work Science Printed by Luleå University of Technology, Graphic Production 2015 ISSN 1402-1544 ISBN 978-91-7583-213-5 (print) ISBN 978-91-7583-214-2 (pdf) Luleå 2015 www.ltu.se Lydia Harry Acknowledgements Everything has to come to an end, also a work that sometimes seemed to have none. Many have participated in the making of this thesis, and I wish to acknowledge them all. I want to thank all informants. Without them, this work would not have been possible. The interviewees’ willingness to talk for hours about their or- ganizations, their work, and much more, is what this thesis rests on. This also goes to all members of the studied organizations who have helped me in various ways: booking rooms, reading excerpts, mailing information, asking questions, showing me around, and so on. I also want to thank my main supervisor Maria Udén, and my assistant supervisors Åsa Rudström and Jim Barry for their support, their readings, and their challenging questions. Also Ewa Gunnarsson, main supervisor dur- ing the first three years of my doctoral studies, deserves acknowledgments for the same reasons. Christina Mörtberg, opponent at my final seminar, deserves warm thanks for posing difficult questions and for pointing out di- rections in the text, which I at the time did not see. The group behind the gender equality project of which my research has been a part - Hans Malmqvist, Lisa Schmidt, and Åsa Rudström - also is to be deeply thanked. Furthermore, Per Olov Idfeldt, working for the project, deserves warm thanks. The project enabled this thesis, and the project members’ work helped to shape it. My colleagues, and especially my fellow doctoral students, at the division of Human work sciences at Luleå University of Technology have made these six years well worth the efforts. All the anonymous reviewers and the not so anonymous participants in courses, conferences, and seminars have with their questions, comments, and conversations made me a better researcher than I would have been without them. Thank you Anna, for being an excellent reader of the text in its different phases. Karlsvik, January 2015 2 PART I ................................................................................................................................................. 5 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 7 1.1 ICT and Gender Equality .............................................................................................................. 9 1.1.1 Work and Education in ICT ............................................................................................................................... 9 1.1.2 Why Should Women Enter Technology? ................................................................................................. 10 1.2 The Organizations ........................................................................................................................ 14 1.2.1 Swedish Institute of Computer Science .................................................................................................... 15 1.2.2 Interactive Institute .......................................................................................................................................... 16 1.2.3 SICS Center For Networked Systems .......................................................................................................... 18 1.2.4 Mobile LiFe VINN Excellence Centre .......................................................................................................... 19 1.3 “A gender perspective on ICT research organizations and processes in transition” .................................................................................................................................................... 22 1.4 Aim and Research Questions .................................................................................................... 23 PART II ............................................................................................................................................. 25 2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................... 27 2.1 Discourse and the Material ...................................................................................................... 27 2.1.1 Modernism or Postmodernism? .................................................................................................................. 27 2.1.2 Disclosure .............................................................................................................................................................. 31 2.2 Technoscience, Networks and Determinisms ................................................................... 34 2.2.1 Social Determinism ........................................................................................................................................... 35 2.2.2 Networks, Translations and Boundary Objects .................................................................................... 37 2.2.3 Topological Multiplicity .................................................................................................................................. 41 2.2.4 Where are the Excluded in ANT? ................................................................................................................. 43 2.3 Gender ............................................................................................................................................... 45 2.3.1 Gender Norms ..................................................................................................................................................... 48 2.3.2 Organizations, Competence, and Meritocracy ....................................................................................... 49 2.3.3 How is Technoscience Gendered? .............................................................................................................. 56 2.3.4 Technology as a Masculine Culture? .......................................................................................................... 59 2.3.5 Gendered Identities and Technoscience .................................................................................................. 60 2.3.6 ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ Technology .......................................................................................................................... 62 2.3.7 Gender and ICT – Hackers and Nerds ....................................................................................................... 64 2.4 Gender Identity and Subjects of Value ................................................................................. 70 2.4.1 Where is the Subject in the Network? ....................................................................................................... 70 2.4.2 Value Production and the Norm .................................................................................................................. 73 2.4.3 Subjects of Value ................................................................................................................................................. 77 2.5 A Return to Gender Through the Lenses of Technoscience and Value .................. 78 3. METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND EMPIRICAL DATA ................................ 81 3.1 Considering ...................................................................................................................................... 81 3.1.1 Interviews, Discourse and ReFlexive Pragmatism ............................................................................... 81 3.1.2 Discourse ............................................................................................................................................................... 85 3.1.3 ‘Studying Up’ and ‘Talking Back’ ................................................................................................................. 87 3.2 Gathering and Organizing ........................................................................................................ 91 3.2.1 Organization Membership and AFFiliation ............................................................................................... 91 3.2.2 Choosing and Contacting Interviewees, and Interview-location .................................................. 92 3.2.3 Practical Implementation ............................................................................................................................... 93 3.3 Ethical Concerns ..........................................................................................................................
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