Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives) [Paperback]

Lucy Suchman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 4, 2006 | ISBN-10: 052167588X | ISBN-13: 978-0521675888 | Edition: 2

This 2007 book considers how agencies are currently figured at the human-machine interface, and how they might be imaginatively and materially reconfigured. Contrary to the apparent enlivening of objects promised by the sciences of the artificial, the author proposes that the rhetorics and practices of those sciences work to obscure the performative nature of both persons and things. The question then shifts from debates over the status of human-like machines, to that of how humans and machines are enacted as similar or different in practice, and with what theoretical, practical and political consequences. Drawing on scholarship across the social sciences, humanities and computing, the author argues for research aimed at tracing the differences within specific sociomaterial arrangements without resorting to essentialist divides. This requires expanding our unit of analysis, while recognizing the inevitable cuts or boundaries through which technological systems are constituted.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"As Margules challenges traditional evolutionary biology, and as symbiogenesis challenges the Darwinian notion of descent with modification, so Suchman positions herself to challenge both the old human-tech dichotomy and the rhetorical device of the cyborg. She gives us a beginning place for a new discourse...." - Brenda Laurel and Rob Tow, Science

Book Description

This 2007 book provides a way of understanding how human actions and technological artifacts are intertwined. The author shows how leading edge technologies can rest on very old-fashioned assumptions, while more modest initiatives suggest innovative approaches to technology design and use.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (December 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052167588X
• ISBN-13: 978-0521675888
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #898,441 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book February 10, 2012

By Peter Gullberg

Format:Paperback

It's not for the faint for heart. It takes quite some effort to read it, probably even more for people like me, who don't have English as their native language. But it's a BRILLIANT book on understanding interaction in general. This book has been very useful for my understanding on human-machine interaction, and language communication in general. It has been very useful in my research and in designing user experiences.