Methods for Collaborative Editing

Feminism, Method, and Information Technology

K e y w o r d s - map

key words that help us to discuss the concepts

Selected fragments from the text: M e t h o d

   Susan Leigh Star, 1994
   Method; 
   "distinct from a recipe or a formula" its more of an approach rather than an exact way of achieving something.

   "It is a real-time, lived, and experiential form of ordering practice." it is situated.

   "Method is a way of surviving experience." [p. 148] [or experiment]

   "Methods considered in this fashion may have many of the features of surviving experience, depending on the values of the community using them: they can become imperialisstic or monolithic (if one only has a hammer, the world becomes a nail, etc.); they can become a means of enforcing fundamentalism (reducing the world to that which can be perceived using the method); or they can become ways of encompassing multiplicity, complexity, and ambiguity." [p. 148]

   "Feminism as a method thus creates robust findings through the articulation of multiplicity, contradiction, and partiality, while standing in a politically situated, moral collective." [p. 149]

   "attributes of feminist method: 
       1. experiential and collective basis;
       2. processual nature;
       3. honoring contradiction and partialness;
       4. situated historicity with great attention to detail and specificity; and
       5. the simultaneous application of all of these points." [p. 149]

Patti Lather: transgressive validity - where after poststructuralism, can we find validity? ironic validity (problematizes the single voice, realist representation of nature); paralogical validity (emphasizes paradox and heterogeneity); rhizomatic validity (undermines the taken-for-granted and keeps opening up new ways of situated seeing); voluptuous validity (precisely goes too far, and joins ethics and epistemology) [p. 149 f.]

   "The truth is not one thing. " Itś complex, woven carpet, with each strand a partial truth

M e t h o d (our definition)

Method is not a straightforward process as there is not only one way to go or one truth. Complexity should be taken into account when it comes to developing methods, which are very different than manuals or recipes, as it is crucial that methods can be changed along the way. For methods not to become totalitarian tools they must remain flexible and encompass multiple and often contradictory elements that may lack consistency and stability. In the heart of method lies experience, since method is "a way of surviving experience" (eg. pouring sauce over a dish baking in the oven without getting burned) but also experimentation, which will make the method viable, improve it, situate it in a specific setting or adapt it according to the tools at hand.

Selected fragment from the text - B o u n d a r y O b j e c t s

  "[…] activity is always mediated through tools and material arrangements." This gives us some insight in what is considered an object.

  "a community of practice is defined in large part according to the co-use of such objects" Objects have the power to connect community members, or facilitate for community.

   Objects can become natural in community of practices.
   can be abstract or concrete common norms, standards
  "...we can see that the source of boundary objects comes from a combined willingness of the community of practice to accomodate marginality and multiple naturalised objects..."  

  boundary object is information, such as specimens, field notes, and maps, used in different ways by different communities for collaborative work through scales. "Here I mean 'Object' to include all of these things: stuff and things, tools and techniques, and ideas, stories, and memories—those objects which are treated as things by community memebers"

Our definition - A b o u n d a r y o b j e c t

A boundary object can challenge common norms and standards. Different methods can apply to these objects depending on the knowledge, interests and viewpoints of the groups (or individuals) approaching them. Different communities of practice have vastly different methodologies when dealing with these boundary objects. An example of such an object could be a dead bird seen from the viewpoint of an amature ornithologist or a biologist. In this example the ornithologists (a community of practice) might want to preserve the birds appearance to admire it, and has certain methods for this. Whilst the biologists (another community of practice) might want to dissect the bird to learn more about it. A boundary object (can be abstact or concrete) and is not just an object, but a community of practices as well as "stuff and things, tools and techniques, and ideas, stories, and memories" that comprise many different and maybe contrasting methodologies, and it is open enough that it can include even the smallest groups and approaches. Collaboration and communication are core functions of the boundary object, since it facilitates both and opens a dialogue that can lead to a better and wider understanding of the object at hand. In this sense, a boundary object can be also seen as a piece of information serving different communities in various ways and allows them to embrace collaborative work.

A community of practice is formed around such objects and methodolgies, as "activity is always mediated through tools and material arrangements". Boundary objects must also be considered in terms of the motives of the people/community who choose them and their communicative role. The creation of boundary objects is always to a certain extent an expression of hegemony and as such cannot be considered politically neutral or necessarily consensual.

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