Reading:: Appropriating Technology

Appropriating Technology: How We Make Digital Tools Our Own

By Pierre Tchounikine

I won’t go into too much detail on this review, since I had the good fortune to review the manuscript and blurb the book — but if the book’s premise interests you, follow the link and click on “Open Access” to download it as a free PDF!

In the preface, Tchounikine explains: "Appropriation is the process by which technologies become instruments for us—that is, basic means, basic resources that we use without any conscious explicit effort in the course of our personal and professional activities." (p.vii). He understands appropriation as a "constructive and developmental process" that involves an interplay among "psychological, social, and technical dimensions." Although he draws on established concepts such as affordances, he mainly relates three frameworks: structuration, activity theory, and genre theory (pp.20-21). In relating these, he takes an emancipatory perspective (p.30). 

In doing so, he considers what it means to work with technology from a social and cognitive perspective and with multiple mediators.

For those who conduct research using these frameworks, Chapters 3 and 4 are of special interest. In Ch.3, he reviews activity theory and specifically considers mediation by an ecology of artifacts. In Ch.4, he considers users in terms of individual development, bringing in genre and ZOPED. 

The book is very HCI-ish in the same sense that Kaptelinin & Nardi's joint work is — it sets up a larger question, draws on different frameworks, then moves to accessible research accounts to illustrate and deepen the points. I personally like this style quite a bit. I also appreciated how the book focused on individual development — although many of us have tended to push for a more collective perspective on technology use, especially those of us influenced by Yrjo Engestrom’s work, individual development is still important, especially in thinking through how people appropriate a technology that they use across encounters, organizations, and activities. 

If you’re interested in how we use technologies, or just in how people pick up new time management tools, definitely pick up (or download) this book.