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Kursusnavn (dansk):Situated Analysis of Global Connections with Specialisation Project 
Kursusnavn (engelsk):Situated Analysis of Global Connections with Specialisation Project 
Semester:Forår 2015 
Udbydes under:cand.it., Digital Innovation & Management (dim) 
Omfang i ECTS:15,00 
Kursussprog:Engelsk 
Kursushjemmeside:https://learnit.itu.dk 
Min. antal deltagere:12 
Forventet antal deltagere:30 
Maks. antal deltagere:40 
Formelle forudsætninger:The course functions as the second part of the specialization 'Global Relations and Networked Practices'.

Please note that the course is therfore only available for students enrolled in the programme Digital Innovation & Management and signed up for the 1st course of the specialisation 'Global Relations and Networked Practices'.  
Læringsmål:After the course the student should be able to:

  • Analyze political, social and/or environmental effects of globalizing technologies and projects.
  • Apply, contrast and evaluate the methodologies for a situated analysis of global technology development.
  • Execute and discuss the skills required for conducting empirical studies of technology-mediated practices in globalized contexts.
  • Apply concepts from science and technology studies and related social science fields, including the anthropology of science and technology and organization studies
    Identify and critically analyze the challenges and possibilities for contemporary organizations in a globalized world
  • Based on the project work, describe and discuss a master thesis synopsis 
  • Fagligt indhold:The course will be structured around six themes:

    Theme 1: Thinking the Global
    Have we learned to think globally? How? What projects, technologies and practices encourage, permit and prevent thinking about the global? Using analytical insights from critical globalization literature, STS and environmental literatures, we gain a general backdrop to thinking globally, along with an understanding of the challenges of contemporary research.

    Theme 2: Situated Analysis

    How do we conduct a situated analysis of global projects? Why does situatedness matter? What are the challenges of situated research? How might you conduct a situated analysis? This theme presents students with a methodological toolkit for the analysis of global connections, centered on ethnography of global projects and situational analysis.

    Theme 3: Actor Networks

    Presents an analytical framework based on actor-network theory and feminist theories of science, facilitating understanding how global projects are constructed through mutually defining interactions between people and technologies. Examplse include aircrafts, zoology museums, scallops and trading.

    Theme 4: Environmental Infrastructures

    Explores the interactions between people and technologies in making global infrastructures. Whether making canals or oil pipelines, this theme challenges students to demonstrate their understanding of how environments may be global and situated at the same time.

    Theme 5: Standards and Classification

    What do standards do in and for international projects? How are they put to work in a changing social and technical environment? What can studying them make us aware of? What are the power dimensions of standards and classifications, and what kinds of tools can we use to become more aware of them? Examples include pigs, onions and IQ tests.

    Theme 6: Global Connections

    Analyzes issues of culture, power and discourse related to global organization. Topics include expertise, elites, personal connections and transnational cooperation. 
    Læringsaktiviteter:

    The above Learning Outcomes are specific to the course Situated Analysis of Global Connections, and relate to a mix of practical skills and higher order thinking that you will be developing.

    During class, you will also be engaged in developing a range of MSc level skills. These include your abilities in: summarizing and breaking down sophisticated texts, synthesizing and integrating ideas from different schools of thought, diagramming the interrelationships between concepts, exploring your own interests relative to this field of study, organizing and planning your own work. Core texts unite the class, and groupings allow focus within the specialization on particular themes (e.g. Green concerns).

    You will be writing critically engaged texts of your own, something that will build on, test and develop your existing skills of expression. Perhaps more importantly, this class is invested in supporting your capacity to think independently and creatively. Openness to thinking through the important contributions that are made by social sciences to analyzing, comprehending, and engaging with the challenges of the contemporary world is welcomed.

    The course is taught intensively over six, full-day Monday seminars during the first seven weeks of the semester, from Monday January 26th to March 2nd. It is designed this way so that the remainder of the semester can be dedicated to writing, discussion and reflection. During the intensive, each week addresses a different theme in the course. Sessions are based on a seminar style teaching, which comprises lectures as well as mandatory student presentations. From March 2nd, Phase II begins. Monthly workshops to support research, reflection and the development of written texts. Films are used to spark debate.

    Tuesday afternoons will be used by DSAP students for the preparation of their weekly additional readings, project planning, empirical research, writing and supervision activities with the course manager. An agreement for the use of this time will be drawn up by the students and lecturer during the first week of the semester.

    Student participation is essential to the course, and you will be asked to read carefully, prepare thoughtful questions and small texts, listen and respond to one another’s comments. You will be supported in this by both the course manager and the TA, and you will have much richer class discussions as a result of good preparation! 

    Obligatoriske aktivititer:Content

    Workload

    Activities

    One or more presentations as part of group during both the Working Breakfast and Seminar.
    Two documents, due at the close of Phase I
    - a four page literature review pertinent to the proposed final paper, based on three or more texts covered in the course.
    - A proposal for your project, which needs to include elements such as a research question, relevance of this question to the course, a week by week breakdown of planned empirical research activities (questions of dates, access, key actors), relevant literatures, and timeline for the work. 2-3 pages.
    You will receive written feedback on these two documents.

    Feedback

    What if the student fails to pass a mandatory activity:

    Be aware: The student will receive the grade NA (not approved) at the ordinary exam, if the mandatory activities are not approved and the student will use an exam attempt. 
    Eksamensform og -beskrivelse:X. experimental examination form (7-scale; external exam)

    The submission should be approximately 18-20 pages

    Duration of oral exam: 30 minutes per student incl. assessment and feedback  

    Litteratur udover forskningsartikler:January 26th 2015: Thinking Globally

    Theme 1
    Have we learned to think globally? How? What projects, technologies and practices encourage, permit and prevent thinking about the global? Using analytical insights from critical globalization literature, STS and environmental literatures, we gain a general backdrop to thinking globally, along with an understanding of the challenges of contemporary research in this area.

    Core Reading
    Ferguson, James. 2006. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 25-50

    Groups: A selection of:
    Friedman, Thomas L. 2005. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Globalized World in the Twenty-First Century, London: Penguin Books, pp. 3-48.
    Deese, R.S. 2009. The artifact of nature: “Spaceship Earth” and the dawn of global environmentalism. Endeavour 33(2): 70-75.
    Varma, Meher. 2007. “India wiring out: ethnographic reflections from two transnational call centers in India” Anthropology Matters 9(2):1-7.
    Tsing, Anna. 2000. “The Global Situation”, Cultural Anthropology 15(3): 327-60

    and

    Beck, Ulrich. 2000. Introduction and The world Horizon Opens Up: On the Sociology of Globalisation. in, What is Globalisation? Cambridge: Polity Press. pp 1-64.


    February 2 Situated Analysis

    Theme 2

    How do we conduct analysis of global projects? Why does situatedness matter? Providing an advanced class in the challenges of situated research, this theme challenges students with a conceptual and methodological toolkit for the analysis of global connections, centered on ethnography of global projects and situational analysis. n.b: Students with familiarity with Haraway will be required to develop a sophisticated reading of their group text in class.

    Core text:
    Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies 14(3):575-59.
    Franke, Anselm. 2013. “Earthrise and the Disappearance of the Outside” in The Whole Earth: California and the Disappearance of the Outside. Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Sternberg Press, Berlin. pp 12-18.

    Groups
    Clarke, Adele. 2005. Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory after the Postmodern Turn. Excerpts. Thousand Oaks, London & New Delhi, Sage.
    Pink, Sarah. 2012. “Beyond Doing the dishes: Putting Kitchen Practices in Place” in Situating Everyday Life, Sage: Los Angeles. pp 48-65,

    Turbull, D. 2005. “Talk, Templates and Tradition: How the Masons Built Chartres Cathedral Without Plans. In Masons. Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge. Routledge: London, pp 55-91.




    February 9 Actor Networks

    Theme 3
    Develops analytical frameworks based on actor-network theory and feminist theories of science, facilitating understanding how global projects are constructed through mutually defining interactions between people and technologies.

    Core text
    Law, John and Michel Callon. 1992. "The Life and Death of an Aircraft: A Network Analysis of Technical Change". W. E. Bijker and J. Law (Eds.) Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. London: MIT Press.
    Groups
    Ho, Karen. 2009. “Introduction: Anthropology Goes to Wall Street” [Excerpt] and chapter seven “Leveraging Dominance and Crises Through the Global”, pp. 1-13 and 294-325. Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    Olds, Kris, and Thrift x. 2005. “Cultures on the Brink: Re-engineering the soul of Capitalism on a Global Scale” in Global Assemblages ed. Aihwa Ong and Stephne Collier.
    Akrich, Madeline. 1992. “The De-Scription of Technical Objects”. In Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law (Eds.) Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Cambirdge: MIT Press.

    and

    Watson, Gavan. N.d. “An Overview” in Actor Network Theory, After ANT and Enactment: Implications for method. pp 4-15.


    February 16 Environmental Infrastructures

    Theme 4
    Explores the interactions between people and technologies in making global and environmental infrastructures. Examples include software development, development aid, canals and oil pipelines.

    Core Text
    Edwards, Paul. 2003. “Infrastructure and Modernity: Force, Time and Social Organization in the History of Sociotechnical Systems”. In T. J. Misa, P. Brey and A. Feenberg (eds.) Modernity and Technology, Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press. 185-225.

    Groups
    Barry Andrew. 2013. “Introduction”. Material Politics: Disputes along the Pipeline. Wiley Blackwell.
    Carse, A. 2012. "Nature as Infrastructure: Making and Managing the Panama Watershed." Social Studies of Science 42(4): 539-563.
    Edwards, Paul. 2010. “Thinking Globally”. In A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data and the Politics of Global Warming: MIT Press. 1-27.

    and
    Larkin, B. 2013. "The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure." Annual Review of Anthropology 42:327-43.

    February 23 Standardization and Classification

    Theme 5
    What do standards do in and for international projects? How are they put to work? What can studying them make us aware of? What are the power dimensions of standards and classifications, and what kinds of tools can we use to become more aware of them? Examples include pigs, onions and IQ tests.

    Core text
    Bowker, Geoffrey C. and Susan Leigh Star. 2000. “Introduction: To Classify is Human” Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

    Dunn, E.C. 2009. “Standards without Infrastructure”. Standards and their stories: How quantifying, classifying and formalizing practices shape everyday life. Eds. Martha Lampland and Susan Leigh Star. Cornell University Press: London.

    Groups

    Dunn, E. C. 2005. “Standards and person-making in East-Central Europe” in Global Assemblages: Technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems A. Ong and S. J. Collier. Oxford,:Blackwell pp. 173-194.
    Star, Susan Leigh. 1991. “Power, Technology and the phenomenology of Conventions: On Being Allergic to Onions” in John Law (ed). A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 26-56.
    Busch, Lawrence. 2011. “Introduction” in Standards: Recipes for Reality.

    Bowker, Geoffrey and Susan Leigh Star. 2000. “Categorical Work and Boundary Infrastructures: Enriching Theories of Classification” Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 283-319.

    March 2 Global Connections

    Theme 6
    Analyzes issues of culture, power and discourse related to global organization. Topics include expertise, elites, personal connections and transnational cooperation.

    Core text
    Tsing, Anna. 2005. “Frontiers of Capitalism” and “The Economy of Appearances”, in Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press pp. 27-51 & 55-81.

    Groups

    Graham, Mark and Laura Mann. 2013. Imagining a Silicon Savannah? Technological and Conceptual Connectivity in Kenya’s BIO and Software Development Sectors. Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 56(2): 1-19.
    Ong, Aihwa 2005. “Ecologies of Expertise: Assembling Flows, Managing Citizenship” in Global Assemblages Blackwell pp 337.354.
    Marres, Noortje. 2011. The costs of public involvement: everyday devices of carbon accounting and the materialization of participation. Economy and Society 40(4): 510-533.

    Inda, Jonathan Xavier and Rosaldo, Renato. 2008. “Tracking Global Flows”, in Inda, Jonahtan Xavier and Renato Rosaldo (Eds). The Anthropology of Globalisation: A Reader. Second Edition. Oxford,: Blackwell.


    Phase II: Researching, Writing and Analysis



    March 23rd: Thinking the Global and the Local
    Students receive individual feedback and discuss plans for research. Workshop on revising the concept of the global in relation to individual project designs.
    Film: The Forgotten Space
    This film deals with global spaces, environmental infrastructures and standards. A guide for reflection and discussion is provided.

    April 20th. Resources, Ethnography and Editing
    Workshop developing skills of ethnographic writing through the analysis of short collaborative movies.

    April 27th Pinboards and Paragraphs: Handling Qualitative Materials
    Workshop which uses students own empirical material in a hands on way. Involves mapping and visual techniques of analysis and insight for peer learning.


    May 11th: Arguments and the Power of References
    This workshop focuses on the power of arguments, and how to build a persuasive one. It takes both writing and referencing as sites of argument building, and students use their own work to practice different ways of presenting material and building a persuasive written piece.