Reconstructing technologies as social practice

This article provides an overview of a research program developed over the past 20 years to explore relations between everyday practices and technolog y design and use. The studies highlighted reflect three interrelated lilies of inquiry: (a) critical analyses of technical discourses and practices, ( b) ethnographies of work and technologies-in-use, and (c) design interventi ons. Starting from the premise that technologies carl be assessed only in t heir relations to the sires of their production and use, the authors recons truct technologies as social practice. A central problem for the design of artifacts then becomes their relation to the environments of their intended use. Through ethnographies of the social world, the analyses focus on just how social/material specificities are assembled together to comprise our e veryday experience.