Abi Ghanem, Dana | United Kingdom

Dana Abi Ghanem is a doctoral candidate at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. She completed her undergraduate studies at the American University of Beirut where she majored in Environmental Health. She later went on to complete a Masters of Science in Environment and Development at the Institute for Development, Policy and Management at the University of Manchester.

With a background in environmental sciences and development studies, Dana’s current research interest lies within the STS tradition and focuses on the co-construction of users in the processes of renewable energy technology implementation. Her PhD research focuses on the dynamics involved in the implementation and installation of renewable energy technologies on buildings and how these in turn ‘inscript’ the users. Her work explores the user representations taking place during the implementation process and develops a socio-technical perspective for analysing the diffusion of renewable energy technologies.

Project at IAS-STS: Urban sustainability and Renewable Energy Technologies: How users matter

According to Oudshoorn and Pinch (2003), traditionally users have always been considered an important element in the process of technology diffusion and assimilation. As such, forums and associations were organised in order to educate users on the benefits and use of technological innovations. However, this approach placed users at the receiving end, portraying them as passive recipients of science and technology. In recent years, scholars within the tradition of science and technology studies (STS) have been increasingly concerned with the role of users in the development of technology. In general, the interest is in how users consume, modify, resist or reconfigure technology. There is a growing body of literature that is concerned with the ways in which the concept of the ‘users’ is constructed and represented in technological development and implementation. Innovators of technology are sometimes faced with various challenges, such as configuring users to insure the success of their product (Woolgar, 1991) and designing technological artefacts that can “script” users into particular modes of action and behaviour (Akrich, 1992). Therefore, an important question is how are users identified or constructed and who is involved in this process of identification? Moreover, how do designers, developers and other actors think of the users?

In the implementation of renewable energy technologies (RETs), various constructions of the user take place that aid the way policy makers, energy experts, and developers undertake implementation projects. On the one hand, analysing RETs in the implementation phase provides an opportunity to research technology during its deployment and use (Akrich, 1992); however, such an exercise requires a shift of focus from the conception to the adoption of technology and as a result a change of the practices concerning the artefact (Rohracher, 2003). In the case of RETs, adoption practices change to include an array of activities from housing developments to neighbourhood regeneration projects. Moreover, they involve a different set of actors that come from various backgrounds and can have differing interests and agendas. The aim of this research, therefore, is to analyse how are users constructed and the various processes that are used for this purpose. Such an analysis would provide an opportunity to move away from determinist views on RETs diffusion and essentialist notions of users’ identities.

In studying how users are constructed at the implementation level of RETs in England, my research focuses on the actors involved in these application projects – such as planners, project managers, housing developers, energy consultants and policy makers – and the various user constructions made during these processes. The study uses various methodologies within science and technology studies, and will build on case studies of RETs implementation at the neighbourhood and household level. The research will constitute an analysis of the dynamics of the actor-networks surrounding RETs in today’s England, the way users are constructed in the RETs debate (by various user groups at different policy levels), and the consequences these have on the actual implementation of RETs.

References

AKRICH, M., 1992. The de-scription of technical objects. In: Bijker, W. and Law, J. (eds.) Shaping Technology/Building Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

OUDSHOORN, N. and PINCH, T., 2003. How users matter: the co-construction of users and technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.

ROHRACHER, H. 2003. The role of users in the social shaping of environmental technologies. Innovation, 16(2): 177-192.

WOOLGAR, S, 1991. Configuring the user: the case of usability trials. In J. Law, ed. A Sociology of Monsters. London: Routledge