The British Journal of Sociology
Volume 53 No 2 June 2002
pages 163-179
Abstract
This paper follows recent science studies in theorizing information technologies as socio-material configurations, aligned into more and less durable forms. The study of how new technologies emerge shifts, on this view, from a focus on invention to an interest in ongoing practices of assembly, demonstration, and performance. This view is developed in relation to the case of the 'prototype', an exploratory technology designed to effect alignment between the multiple interests and working practices of technology research and development, and sites of technologies-in-use. In so far as it is successful, the prototype works as an exemplary artefact that is at once intelligibly familiar to the actors involved, and recognizably new.
Keywords: Information technologies, science and technology studies, ethnomethodological studies of work, accountability, innovation, research and development
Lucy Suchman Department of Sociology University of Lanchaster
Randall Trigg
Global Fund for Women San Francisco, CA, and
Jeanette Blomberg
Department of Work Science Blekinge Institute of Technology Sweden