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Chapter 13 - Observing Artifacts

How Drawing Distinctions Creates Agency and Identity

from Part III - Illustrative Examples and Emergent Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2023

By
Sven-Volker Rehm ,
Lakshmi Goel  and
Iris Junglas
Edited by
Boyka Simeonova  and
Robert D. Galliers
Boyka Simeonova
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
Robert D. Galliers
Affiliation:
Bentley University, Massachusetts and Warwick Business School
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Summary

Today’s information technology is becoming ever-more complex, distributed and pervasive. Therefore, problematizing what we observe as Information Systems (IS) researchers is becoming ever-more difficult. This chapter offers a new perspective for qualitative empirical research in the IS field. It looks at how we can possibly study dynamically changing, evolving, spatially and temporally distributed phenomena that evade our accustomed concepts and assumptions about the locus of agency. Or asked differently: How can we formally approach phenomena evading our concept of ‘identity’?

Using the mathematical-logical framework of the Laws-of-Form, formulated in 1969 by George Spencer-Brown, the chapter introduces the notion of distinction to capture the manifestation of concepts. It provides a short overview and illustrates how it can be used on sample concepts drawn from IS sociomateriality research.

The chapter advances qualitative methodology by suggesting a formal notation to communication analysis that is reflective of technologies’ complex nature. Applying the framework not only alters the epistemological boundaries for how to experience and study the ‘digital’, but also helps to build a bridge between deep technological insights, our immediate, unbiased and mundane experience of technologies, and how we speak about them.

Keywords

observingartifactdistinctionagencyidentityformqualitative researchobserverobservabilityin-junction
Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Qualitative Digital Research , pp. 193 - 210
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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