[AISWorld] Final CFP: AMCIS 2014, SIG Philosophy Track, Discourses on People and Technology

[Alan Litchfield]

CALL FOR PAPERS: Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), Savannah, Georgia, USA August 7-10, 2014.

Track: IS Philosophy (SIGPhilosophy) :: http://goo.gl/54EDk7

Minitrack: Discourses on People and Technology

Much of the research in IS is driven from a systems and technology perspective however we are to be reminded that there ought to be balance and encourage a human centred perspective on discipline significant topics to avoid an overwhelming imbalance.

Authors are invited to submit papers that explore the complex relationships that exist between people and the technological artefacts they have created. In the field of Information Systems research, the artefact is taken as a core feature and much that captures the researchers' gaze is focussed on the idealisation, building, and assessing of artefacts and tools. However, Scheler (1960) says that while there is no doubt that the human is a practical being, it is in its being, a participant in a continual appearance and that it is this aspect that is core to humanity's existence. Thus, a tension exists between conceptions of the human as maker of artefacts and the human as a social being, from which there exist artefacts that are a by-product of its appearance.

In the last several decades, attempts have been made to comprehend the advance in technology and to understand the relationship that exists between humanity and the tools it has made. C. S. Lewis (2002) says that in its quest to gain mastery over nature, humanity forgets what it means to be human and humanity becomes subject to technological domination. Heidegger (1993) says the human cannot master the essence of technology and we are in witness to a time where technological humanity has created a society in which collective humanity has adapted to the challenge through subservience.  Also, Toffler (1970) warned that humanity’s ability to evolve its social and cultural practices and cope with change wrought by technological change is being outpaced. Yet, despite such dire warnings, humanity embraces ever more tightly the advance of technological innovation and adoption.

Further, Kroker (1992) talked about people being 'possessed' by systems rather than possessing them and McLuhan (1964) refers to Technological Determinism in relation to what he calls Technological Somnambulism: sleep walking into the 21st century. The question is then, to what degree does humanity forego its freedom to be human, to act, to be of itself? In our corporations, in what respect do ERP systems constrain not only innovation, but also freedom? Shall we simply talk about sociomateriality (Orlikowski and Scott, 2008)? Or do we need other philosophical concepts like “embodiment” (Dourish, 2011) “entanglement” or “dictature of the they” (Heidegger)? At the corporate level, what happened to the ideal of socio-technical systems? Does IT reinforce control, or may it promote participative management?

Additionally, the field of IS research appears to perpetuate the notion that to be relevant, publications must relate to the professional practice of IT/IS professionals. Therefore there exists an imbalance toward hierarchical bureaucracy and capitalistic structures rather than democratic ones. The importance of the individual in the organisation is skewed toward efficiency and effectiveness rather than efficacy.

In this mini-track, we invite authors to present works that approach topics that affect human-technology relations. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
• Philosophical issues in the uses and application of technology
• The human/tool relationship
• Politics (eg democratic use of computing)
• Use of devices
• Conceptions of the artefact
• Tool building and use
• Human + technology and culture
• Virtual Environments (VE) (e.g. non-verbal communication, teamwork and training)
• Gaming
• Artificial intelligence and nature inspired computing
• Philosophy of ambient intelligence
• Human as the Creator
• The future of the machine
• Role of Myth and Story
• Machine consciousness
• Abstraction, linguistics, symbolism and projected identity
• The genesis of technology
• Power balance: governance
• People in the workplace
• Democracy and politics, in systems design
• Human centred studies
• Requirements engineering
• Human Computer Interaction
• Human involvement in development practice
• Critical Discourse analysis
• Sociological issues in IS research and systems design
• Philosophical aspects of IT in corporations
• Socio-materiality of IT
• IT Addication, embeddedness and embodiment
• Phenomenology of IT (entanglement, dictature of the they, authenticity)
• Emancipation and IT
• Participative management and IT
• Social theories of IT in organization and philosophical perspectives

Minitrack chairs
Alan Litchfield, Robert Wellington, Emmanuel Monod

Dourish, P. & Bell, G. (2011). Divining a digital future mess and mythology in ubiquitous computing. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Heidegger, M. & Krell, D. (1993). Basic writings : from Being and time (1927) to The task of thinking (1964). San Francisco, Calif: Harper San Francisco.
Kroker, A.(1992). The Possessed Individual: Technology and Postmodernity. London: MacMillan Press.
Lewis, C.S. (2002).The abolition of man. Retrieved from http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/aboli tion1.htm
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge.
Orlikowski, W.J. and Scott S.V., 2008. Sociomateriality: Challenging the separation of technology, work and organization. Academy of Management Annals, 2 (1), 433-474.
Scheler, M. (1960). On the Eternal in Man. Noble, B. (trans.) London: SCM Press.
Toffler, A. (1970). Future shock. New York: Random House.


--
Dr Alan T Litchfield, MIITP
School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies
Auckland University of Technology
http://www.aut.ac.nz/cms/
Ph +649 921 9999 x5217

President, AIS SIG on Philosophy in Information Systems
Director, Service and Cloud Computing Research Lab
Academic Leader, Master of Service-Oriented Computing

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