Scripting, Situating, and Supervising: The Role of Artefacts in Collaborative Practices
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. A Heuristic of Collaborative Practices
‘Facilitation is political work: you are creating an artificial situation, orchestrating materials and artefacts, and seeking to enable dynamics that would not happen otherwise.’(Escobar et al. 2014, p. 96 [36])
1.1.1. Spatial and Temporal Dimensions
1.1.2. Socio-Material Dimension
‘Social life transpires through human activity and is caught up in orders of people, artifacts, organisms, and things […] and it exists only as so entangled.’(Schatzki 2002, p. 123 [18])
2. Methods
2.1. The Case
2.2. Data Collection and Analysis
- Field notes from participatory observation of both the backstage and the frontstage work of the collaborative process throughout the phases of scripting, staging, performing, and inscribing.
- Thirteen recorded and transcribed semi-structured interviews with actors engaged in the process. Facilitators and researchers were interviewed before and after the event. Due to time constraints, officials of the city development department were interviewed before the event, and participants and the MDR director afterwards.
- Seven hours of audio–visual recordings of all three events; transcripts thereof, including coded segments of each participant’s speech time.
- Pictures of the resulting documentation (maps, Post-its, and templates) filled in by the participants during each event.
3. Results
‘We will work with different results’ containers, identically for all three groups. In particular, we thought about a map to which specific ideas could be pinned. Another template will allow participants to separately record concrete and further developed ideas. I think this format is applicable to the work of the city administration.’(Researcher)
3.1. Interactions between the Social and Material World: Three Constellations
3.2. Backstage Work
3.2.1. Scripting
‘I believe that, within such a short time, it is useful […] to define what is the scope of action for participants to develop their own ideas. We are suggesting these categories rather as a projection surface. These may match, or not, and [participants] might also realize that there are completely different categories. This [suggesting categories] accelerates the process.’(Facilitator)
3.2.2. Setting the Stage
3.3. Frontstage Work
3.3.1. Performing
3.3.2. Inscribing: Between Frontstage and Backstage
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
- Moser, S.C. Can science on transformation transform science? Lessons from co-design. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 2016, 20, 106–115. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Herberg, J. Control before collaborative research–Why phase zero is not co-designed but scripted. Soc. Empitemol. 2020, 34, 395–407. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Mauser, W.; Klepper, G.; Rice, M.; Schmalzbauer, B.S.; Hackmann, H.; Leemans, R.; Moore, H. Transdisciplinary global change research: The co-creation of knowledge for sustainability. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 2013, 5, 420–431. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Herberg, J.; Haas, T.; Oppold, D.; von Schneidemesser, D. A collaborative transformation beyond coal and cars? Co-creation and corporatism in the German energy and mobility transitions. Sustainability. 2020, 12, 3278. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Kershaw, E.H. Co-producing Future Earth: Ambiguity and Experimentation in the Governance of Global Environmental Change Research. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, 2018. [Google Scholar]
- Bodin, Ö. Collaborative environmental governance: Achieving collective action in social-ecological systems. Science 2017, 357, 6352. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Ansell, C.; Gash, A. Collaborative governance in theory and practice. J. Public Adm. Res. Theory 2008, 18, 543–571. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Huxham, C.; Vangen, S.; Huxham, C.; Eden, C. The challenge of collaborative governance. Public Manag. Int. J. Res. Theory 2000, 2, 337–358. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Ansell, C.; Torfing, J. (Eds.) Public Innovation through Collaboration and Design; Routledge Critical Studies in Public Management: London, UK, 2014. [Google Scholar]
- Awan, U.; Muneer, G.; Abbas, W. Organizational collaborative culture as a source of managing innovation. World Appl. Sci. J. 2013, 24, 582–587. [Google Scholar]
- Fadeeva, Z. Promise of sustainability collaboration—potential fulfilled? J. Clean. Prod. 2005, 13, 165–174. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Huxham, C. Advantage or inertia? Making collaboration work. In The New Management Reader; Paton, R., Clark, G., Jones, G., Eds.; Routledge: London, UK, 1996; pp. 238–254. [Google Scholar]
- Huxham, C.; Vangen, S. Managing to Collaborate: The Theory and Practice of Collaborative Advantage; Routledge: Abingdon, UK, 2005. [Google Scholar]
- Molinengo, G. Flows of Power. An Analytical Framework for the Study of Collaboration, 2020; in press.
- Freeth, R.; Caniglia, G. Learning to collaborate while collaborating: Advancing interdisciplinary sustainability research. Sustain. Sci. 2019, 15, 247–261. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Klein, J.T. Crossing Boundaries: Knowledge, Disciplinarities, and Interdisciplinarities; University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville, VA, USA, 1996. [Google Scholar]
- Van Breda, J.; Swilling, M. The guiding logics and principles for designing emergent transdisciplinary research processes: Learning experiences and reflections from a transdisciplinary urban case study in Enkanini informal settlement, South Africa. Sustain. Sci. 2019, 14, 823–841. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Schatzki, T.R. The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and Change; Pennsylvania State University Press: University Park, PA, USA, 2002. [Google Scholar]
- Schatzki, T.R. Peripheral vision: The sites of organizations. Organ. Stud. 2005, 27, 1863–1873. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Jarzabkowski, P.; Pinch, T. Sociomateriality is ‘the New Black’: Accomplishing repurposing, reinscripting and repairing in context. M@n@gement 2013, 16, 579–592. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Carlile, P.R.; Nicolini, D.; Langley, A.; Tsoukas, C.K. How Matter Matters. Objects, Artifacts, and Materiality Organization Studies; Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 2013. [Google Scholar]
- Healey, P.; Hillier, J. Communicative micropolitics: A story of claims and discourses. Int. Plann. Stud. 1996, 1, 165–184. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Di Giulio, A.; Defila, R. Transdisziplinär und Transformativ Forschen: Eine Methodensammlung; Springer: Wiesbaden, Germany, 2018. [Google Scholar]
- Rowe, G.; Frewer, L.J. Public participation methods: A framework for evaluation. Sci. Technol. Hum. Values 2000, 25, 3–29. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Smith, G. Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2009. [Google Scholar]
- Rosenberg, S.W. Deliberation, Participation and Democracy; Palgrave Macmillan UK: London, UK, 2007. [Google Scholar]
- Hajer, M.A. Setting the stage. Adm. Soc. 2005, 36, 624–647. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Escobar, O. Scripting deliberative policy-making: Dramaturgic policy analysis and engagement know-how. J. Comp. Policy Anal. 2015, 17, 269–285. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Nicolini, D.; Mengis, J.; Swan, J. Understanding the role of objects in cross-disciplinary collaboration. Organ. Sci. 2011, 23, 612–629. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Cooren, F.; Thompson, F.; Canestraro, D.; Bodor, T. From agency to structure: Analysis of an episode in a facilitation process. Hum. Relat. 2006, 59, 533–565. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Owen, H. Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide; Berrett-Koehler Publishers: San Francisco, DC, USA, 2008. [Google Scholar]
- Brown, T. Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovations; Harper Collins: New York, NY, USA, 2009. [Google Scholar]
- Doorley, S.; Witthoft, S. Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration; John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2012. [Google Scholar]
- Schwartz-Shea, P.; Yanow, D. Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes; Routledge: Abingdon, UK, 2012. [Google Scholar]
- Freeman, R.; Sturdy, S. (Eds.) Knowledge in Policy: Embodied, Inscribed, Enacted; Policy Press: Bristol, UK, 2014. [Google Scholar]
- Escobar, O.; Faulkner, W.; Rea, H. Building capacity for dialogue facilitation in public engagement around research. J. Dialogue Stud. 2014, 2, 87–111. [Google Scholar]
- Escobar, O. Transformative Practices: The Political Work of Public Engagement Practitioners. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK, 2014. [Google Scholar]
- Escobar, O. Facilitators: The micropolitics of public participation and deliberation. In Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance; Elstub, S., Escobar, O., Eds.; Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, UK, 2019; pp. 178–195. [Google Scholar]
- Goffman, E. The interaction order. Am. Sociol. Rev. 1983, 48, 1–17. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Escobar, O. Public Dialogue and Deliberation: A Communication Perspective for Public Engagement Practitioners; UK Beacons for Public Engagement: Edinburgh, UK, 2011. [Google Scholar]
- Moore, A. Following from the front: Theorizing deliberative facilitation. Crit. Policy Stud. 2012, 6, 146–162. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Goffman, E. Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings; The Free Press: New York, NY, USA, 1966. [Google Scholar]
- Bartels, K.P.R. Public encounters: The history and future of face-to-face contact between public professionals and citizens. Public Adm. 2013, 91, 469–483. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Follett, M.P. Community is a process. Philos. Rev. 1919, 28, 576–588. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Bacchi, C.L. Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to Be? Pearson Australia: Frenchs Forest, Australia, 2009. [Google Scholar]
- Felt, U.; Fochler, M. Machineries for making publics: Inscribing and de-scribing publics in public engagement. Minerva 2010, 48, 219–238. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Freeman, R. What is ‘translation’? Evid. Policy 2009, 5, 429–447. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Akrich, M.; Latour, B. A summary of a convenient vocabulary for the semiotics of human and nonhuman assemblies. In Shaping Technology/Building Society. Studies in Sociotechnical Change; Bijker, W.E., Law, J., Eds.; The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1992; pp. 251–264. [Google Scholar]
- Jarzabkowski, P.; Spee, A.P.; Smets, M. Material artifacts: Practices for doing strategy with ‘stuff’. Eur. Manag. J. 2013, 31, 41–54. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Gherardi, S. Situated knowledge and situated action: What do practice-based studies promise? In The SAGE Handbook of New Approaches in Management and Organization; Barry, D., Hansen, H., Eds.; SAGE Publications: London, UK, 2008; pp. 516–525. [Google Scholar]
- Star, L.S. This is not a boundary object: Reflections on the origin of a concept. Sci. Technol. Hum. Values 2010, 35, 601–617. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Brown, J.S.; Duguid, P. The Social Life of Documents. First Monday, 1–6 May 1996. Available online: https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/466/387(accessed on 5 August 2020). [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Clarke, A.; Star, S.L. The social worlds framework: A theory/methods package. In The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies; Hackett, E.J., Amsterdamska, O., Lynch, M., Wajcman, J., Eds.; The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2008; pp. 113–138. [Google Scholar]
- Strauss, A.L. A social world perspective. In Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 1st ed.; Denzin, N., Ed.; JAI Press: Greenwich, NY, USA, 1978; pp. 119–128. [Google Scholar]
- Strauss, A.L. Social worlds and legitimation processes. In Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 4th ed.; Denzin, N., Ed.; JAI Press: Greenwich, NY, USA, 1982; pp. 171–190. [Google Scholar]
- Strauss, A.L. Continual Permutations of Action; Aldine de Gruyter: New York, NY, USA, 1993. [Google Scholar]
- Becker, H.S. Art Worlds; University of California Press: Berkley, DC, USA, 1982. [Google Scholar]
- Latour, B. Science in Action; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1987. [Google Scholar]
- Schön, D.A. Educating the Reflective Practitioner; Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, DC, USA, 1987. [Google Scholar]
- Gibson, J.J. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception; Houghton Mifflin: Reading, MA, USA, 1979. [Google Scholar]
- Faraj, S.; Azad, B. The materiality of technology: An affordance perspective. In Materiality and Organizing; Leonardi, M.P., Nardi, B.A., Kallinikos, J., Eds.; Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 2012; pp. 237–258. [Google Scholar]
- Michelini, R.L.; Passalacqua, R.; Cusimano, J. Effects of seating arrangement on group participation. J. Soc. Psychol. 1976, 99, 179–186. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Cummings, L.L.; Huber, G.P.; Arendt, E. Effects of size and spatial arrangements on group decision making. Acad. Manag. J. 1974, 17, 460–475. [Google Scholar]
- Blaikie, N. Approaches to Social Inquiry: Advancing Knowledge; Polity: Cambridge, UK, 2007. [Google Scholar]
- Timmermans, S.; Tavory, I. Theory construction in qualitative research: From grounded theory to abductive analysis. Sociol. Theory 2012, 3, 167–186. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Glaser, B.G.; Strauss, A. The Discovery of Grounded Theory; Aldine: Chicago, IL, USA, 1967. [Google Scholar]
- Strauss, A.; Corbin, J. Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques; SAGE Publications: London, UK, 1990. [Google Scholar]
- Bryant, A.; Charmaz, K. (Eds.) The Sage Handbook of Grounded Theory; SAGE Publications: London, UK, 2007. [Google Scholar]
- Mason, J. Qualitative Researching, 2nd ed.; SAGE Publications: London, UK, 2002. [Google Scholar]
- Denzin, N.K.; Lincoln, Y.S. Introduction. The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd ed.; Denzin, N.K., Lincoln, Y.S., Eds.; SAGE Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA, 2005; pp. 1–32. [Google Scholar]
- Astalin, P.K. Qualitative research designs: A conceptual framework. IJSSIR 2013, 2.1, 118–124. [Google Scholar]
- Mills, A.J.; Durepos, G.; Wiebe, E. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research (Vols. 1–0); SAGE Publications, Inc.: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA, 2010. [Google Scholar]
- Reiter, B. Theory and methodology of exploratory social science research. Int. J. Soc. Res. Methodol. 2017, 5, 129–150. [Google Scholar]
- Chisnell, D. Talking to Strangers on the Street: Recruiting through Intercepting People. User Experience Magazine, 2016; Volume 15. Available online: https://uxpamagazine.org/talking-to-strangers-on-the-street/(accessed on 5 August 2020).
- Elstub, S.; Escobar, O. (Eds.) Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance; Edward Elgar Publishing: Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA, USA, 2019. [Google Scholar]
- Michels, A. Innovations in democratic governance: How does citizen participation contribute to a better democracy? Int. Rev. Adm. Sci. 2011, 77, 275–293. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Freeth, R.; Vilsmaier, U. Researching collaborative interdisciplinary teams: Practices and principles for navigating researcher positionality. Sci. Technol. Stud. 2020, in press. [Google Scholar]
- Nicolini, D. Zooming in and out: Studying practices by switching theoretical lenses and trailing connections. Organ. Stud. 2009, 30, 1391–1418. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Rough, J. Society’s Breakthrough: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in all the People; Author House: Bloomington, IN, USA, 2002. [Google Scholar]
- Zubizarreta, R. From Conflict to Creative Collaboration: A User’s Guide to Dynamic Facilitation; Two Harbors Press: Minneapolis, MN, USA, 2014. [Google Scholar]
- Star, S.L. The structure of ill-structured solutions: Boundary objects and heterogeneous distributed problem solving. In Readings in Distributed Artificial Intelligence; Huhns, M., Gasser, L., Eds.; Morgan Kaufman: Menlo Park, CA, USA, 1989. [Google Scholar]
- Sanders, L.M. Against deliberation. Political Theory 1997, 25, 347–376. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Mouffe, C. Deliberative democracy or agonistic pluralism? Soc. Res. 1999, 66, 745–758. [Google Scholar]
- Young, I.M. Inclusion and Democracy; Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 2000. [Google Scholar]
- Young, I.M. Activist challenges to deliberative democracy. Political Theory 2001, 29, 670–690. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Wang, J. Questions and the exercise of power. Discourse Soc. 2006, 17, 529–548. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- McCardle-Keurentjes, M.; Rouwette, E.A.J.A. Asking questions: A sine qua non of facilitation in decision support? Group Decis. Negot. 2018, 27, 757–788. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Molinengo, G.; Stasiak, D. Scripting, Situating, and Supervising: The Role of Artefacts in Collaborative Practices. Sustainability 2020, 12, 6407. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166407
Molinengo G, Stasiak D. Scripting, Situating, and Supervising: The Role of Artefacts in Collaborative Practices. Sustainability. 2020; 12(16):6407. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166407
Chicago/Turabian StyleMolinengo, Giulia, and Dorota Stasiak. 2020. "Scripting, Situating, and Supervising: The Role of Artefacts in Collaborative Practices" Sustainability 12, no. 16: 6407. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166407