Gendered users for inclusion or exclusion? Addressing gender in user theory towards inclusive socio-technical change

BORTZ GABRIELA; DENUNCIO ANABELLA

Cholula

Congreso; 4S/ESOCITE Second Joint Meeting; 2022

ESOCITE / 4S

The origins of critical user theories in Science Technology and Society (STS) go hand in hand with the first feminist approaches to STS. Since the early ‘70s, pioneer studies spotlighted neglected spaces, actors (users, women, mothers) and technologies (from domestic appliances to reproductive devices) (Schwartz Cowan, 1976; 1987; Maines, 2001). Subsequent STS studies captured user diversity, gendered division of labor, power relations in technology development (Kline and Pinch, 1996; Casper and Clarke, 1998; Oudshoorn and Pinch, 2003) and the inscription/de-scription of gender representations in technology as enabling/inhibitors of gender relations and practices (Akrich 1992; van Oost, 2003). Since the turn of this century, amidst claims to democratize S&T, scholars and practitioners explored how technologies may contribute to overcome social, material, and political structural inequality restrictions. While discursively praising user inclusion as a ‘good practice’, ‘technologies for inclusive development’ (TID) ranged from processes of distributed decision-making and empowerment to paternalistic schemes and unwanted effects that reinforce exclusion patterns.This paper aims to revisit user theories in Innovation Studies and in STS under a gender lens to understand inclusion/exclusion dynamics in technology development. In interaction between a theoretical review and instrumental TID case studies, we analyze different forms in which the gender dimension is addressed in the literature and in TID initiatives to understand the relation between user involvement and ‘inclusive’ outcomes. We explore how bringing gender perspectives in user analysis pioneered the understandings of inclusion/exclusion, and how TID studies may contribute to advance gender equality in turn.