Open this publication in new window or tab >>2017 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
"Världen vid dina fingertoppar om du känner datorn": Aktörsskap, Informations- och Kommunikationsteknologier och Funktionshinder
Abstract [en]
This thesis focuses on the relationships between agency, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and people with disability (in various ages). The aim has been to create an understanding by describing and analysing, and as such, to develop knowledge of how people with disabilities experience agency, ICT, and disability in their everyday lives. The frame of reference is inspired by disability studies, feminist studies and science and technologies studies (STS). The empirical material was collected in, Norrbotten (Sweden’s northernmost region) and Muscat (the capital area of the Sultanate of Oman) by an autobiographical account, audio-visual material, drawings, interviews, observations, and reading of textual documents. The thesis consists of six papers. The main findings outline that agency, ICT, disability, and gender are part of intra-actions between material entities (such as bodies, technologies, etc.) and practices. The thesis also explores that disability in Sweden and Oman are understood in a variety of ways. Additionally, it presents that the combination of the notions of interference with situated knowledges can contribute with alternative methodological insights about the interference of disability, gender, ICT, the participants’ and researchers’ experiences and understandings to make accountable knowledge claims. Moreover, the thesis presents that material entities (bodies and technologies) and practices are part of different modes of ordering disability which bear effects on the lives of people with disabilities. It additionally disentangles that materialities such as the Internet intra-act with other material entities (for instance, bodies) and practices which enact various forms of agency which bear effects on the everyday lives of people with disability and their ways to participate. Finally, the thesis outlines some implications that an intra-acting understanding of the use of Internet can contribute with in research which focuses on disability, participation, and agency.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Luleå: Luleå University of Technology, 2017
Series
Doctoral thesis / Luleå University of Technology 1 jan 1997 → …, ISSN 1402-1544
Keywords
Agency, Disability, Information and Communication Technologies, Intra-action, Material-discursive, Material Semiotics, Modes of ordering, Situated knowledges
National Category
Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics
Research subject
Human Work Science
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-60909 (URN)978-91-7583-783-3 (ISBN)978-91-7583-784-0 (ISBN)
Public defence
2017-03-01, A 109, Luleå, 13:00
Opponent
Supervisors
2016-12-092016-12-052019-09-11Bibliographically approved