Notes toward Multidimensional Methodologies

INTRODUCTION: THEORIZING TECHNOLOGY AS PRACTICE AND PROCESS Technology is more than just objects. Technology is, as Ursula Franklin suggests in her germinal work, The Real World of Technology, also a set of social practices and processes that define communities and groups through "ways of doing something."' Terms such as "knowledge economy" and "information worker" define a group of immensely diverse occupations and industries by their shared "way of doing something," namely, working with information technologies (IT). Though these terms are used primarily as labels that delineate highly valued groups, they also often conceal, rather than reveal, the nature of such work. Is a data entry worker, for example, an "information worker" in the same way as a software designer, because they both use a computer to process information? The definitions of such occupational groups can also lead to particular assumptions of value about the work. We tend not to ask what is actually "known" in our "knowledge economy," or for that matter, whether "knowing" is better than "understanding." The use of the word "knowledge" is peculiar in this case, as the ultimate goal of many technological systems is to eliminate human error and presumed user stupidity. Other types of occupations not viewed as "knowledge occupations," such as trades occupations, can be comparatively rich in knowledge, expertise, and critical tidbits of data. Given that in the context of scientific rationalism, certain marginalized groups of people, including women, have not been viewed as "knowers" and have been excluded from particular kinds of knowledge communities, such terms can hide the social relations of power and privilege that shape technological processes.