Workshop User-Producer Relations in Technology                         

1-3 April 2009, Soeterbeeck, Ravenstein

In an attempt to move beyond technological and social determinism, many STS scholars, especially in the Netherlands, study user-producer relationships. Suggestions have been made that stimulating user-producer interactions and involving or even empowering users (and other ‘relevant social groups’) in the production process will automatically lead to ‘better’ products. What ‘better’ means is not always clear – it may mean the process has been more democratic, or that products are more acceptable to the market or to ‘the’ users, or that the resulting technologies in some way improve society by improving the environment, health or socio-economic equality. Nonetheless, the question remains whether improving the relations between users and producers will indeed lead to ‘better’ products and technologies?

During this workshop, neither users nor producers will be considered as homogeneous groups. Depending on the technology being studied, users can be individual consumers, workers or citizens; or members of advocacy groups or social movements, such as patient or environmental organisations. Producers cover a variety of roles, including designers, policymakers, governments, firms or innovative users. Depending on the definitions of users and producers, their relations will change. Moreover, users and producers have various resources, knowledges and positions to draw upon when interacting about a potential innovation; and both users and producers are configured by the commercial, innovative or institutional system and context of which they are part. Various theoretical traditions within science and technology studies, such as innovation studies, Social Construction of Technology (SCOT), Actor-Network-Theory (ANT), script and domestication theories, have different ways of thinking about and dealing with the relationships between users and producers and the context in which those relationships take place. They also conceptualise users differently: as relevant social groups, as involved actors, users-as-innovators, as configured users or as meaning-producing agents. We will also consider recent work in new media studies, about the blurring between consumers and producers in the production of content, whether it be re-mixing, mash-ups or prosumption. We will discuss these and other differences and similarities in studying user-producer relations during this workshop.

As well as lectures by leading scholars in this field, the workshop will include close reading of key texts and skills training activities, including the role and conduct of focus groups. Confirmed speakers include Samantha Adams (Erasmus), Stuart Blume (emeritus, Universiteit van Amsterdam) and Jacqueline Broerse (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam). 

The registration form for the workshop is available online. Please register by 13 February 2009.

Costs for WTMC members:

- meals 10 EUR per day

Costs for everyone els

- fee: approx. EUR 370

- accommodation: EUR 50 (incl. breakfast)/night. Soeterbeeck and Hotel de Keurvorst in Ravenstein have reserved hotel rooms for

   the participants of this workshop; arrival 1 April  - departure 3 April 2009

- meals: EUR 35 for lunch and diner/day

If you have any questions related to this workshop, please contact Marjatta Kemppainen:   u.m.kemppainen@utwente.nl for practical things, or Sally Wyatt: sally.wyatt@vks.knaw.nl for content-related issues.