Today, in the NYTimes Circuit section, there is a profile of Genevieve Bell (a dear friend and mentor). As a anthropologist at Intel, Genevieve has been traveling the world to understand how different cultures consume technology. In turn, she has been challenging Western assumptions, most notably in areas concerning ubiquitous computing.
“We thought, there’s a group of people just like us all over the world who will buy the technology and have it fill the same values in their lives,” Dr. Bell said. “I was fairly certain that wasn’t going to be the case. I’m an anthropologist. Culture matters.”
What with CHI and Pervassive ending and a flurry of activity around digital divide about to happen. Genevieve’s piece, along with your interests, lead me to believe we are at an ironic moment in research. Much research in the industry now is focused on things like social software, building vibrant social networks, feeling/knowing ones place in society, having strong community ties, focusing on satisfaction and emotional life, involvement in political life in a meaningful way, having a “street life”, etc. In short, it is in areas where emerging countries are and have been quite successful. Ironically, this research is focused on things/places/people in the West (rather than say Brazil), where we don’t do any of these things particularly well, to develop models for all these areas.
I had read and noted this article, then found it again exploring blogfriends of my friend John Perry Barlow. I have many Native American friends who are products of boarding schools and who are founders and leaders of the American Indian Movement…certainly different POV’s than those of Erickson and others. I would love to hear more about that part of Genevieve’s background thinking. Also what comes to mind is Mary Katherine Bateson’s book Full Circle/Overlapping Lives. Well, I mean her book as a focal point of her work and existance as the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson…human players in this unfolding integral story. What I am wondering is if the vision to explore/exploit markets that motivates Genevieve’s employment (not necessarily her “work”)will preclude the flow back of innovative possibilities in the other direction? Will we find more places in our homes for resonating with peace, grace and humility as a result of these studies? Perhaps there is a value (prophet motiph) for Intel or someone in flipping the paradigm. 😉
Her dissertation is called “TELLING STORIES OUT OF SCHOOL: REMEMBERING THE CARLISLE INDIAN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, 1879-1918” and can be ordered at: http://home.epix.net/~landis/secondary.html
Genevieve, like her mother, is fundamentally motivated by empowering unprivileged people and cultures by making their voices heard. She grew up while her mother was doing fieldwork in Australia. Her work at Intel focuses on understanding what people are actually doing and why that is different from what they are prescribed by technologists to do. Genevieve’s work is very disruptive in nature, but that is why she’s in research, not marketing.
I had read and noted this NYT article, then found it again exploring blogfriends of my friend John Perry Barlow. I have many Native American friends who are products of boarding schools (the subject of Genevieve’s Stanford dissertation) and who are founders and leaders of the American Indian Movement…certainly different POV’s than those of Erickson and others. I would love to hear more about that part of Genevieve’s background thinking. Also what comes to mind is Mary Katherine Bateson’s book Full Circle/Overlapping Lives. Well, I mean her book as a focal point of her work and existance as the daughter of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson…human players in this unfolding integral story. What I am wondering is… if the vision to explore/exploit markets that motivates Genevieve’s employment (not necessarily her “work”) will preclude the flow back of possibilities in the other direction? Will we find/create more places in our homes…”space of purity from the pollutedness of the world, a place where you expres values like simplicity, humility, modesty, grace” as a result of these studies? Perhaps there is a value (prophet motiph) for Intel or someone in flipping the paradigm. ;). Surely there is a value in the full circle of transformative possibilities just as Native Americans transformed the world putting peppers in Sechewan, potatos in Europe, and new/old understandings into hearts and minds everywhere.
free internet!
I am currently at the Computer Science Dept. at the University of Ljubljana, which means, among other things, that I am not paying by the minute for internet. That means I can catch up on my blog reading, and I went straight for danah’s blog because a)…