Entangled Artifacts: The Meeting Between a Volunteer-run Citizen Science Project and a Biodiversity Data Platform

Abstract

Based on an empirical study of the citizen science initiative Biodiversity Galiano and the biodiversity data collection platform iNaturalist, this paper presents an analysis of the meeting between the technology adaptation processes of grassroots communities and the contemporary software development process. Where previous work has developed a theoretical account of how grassroots communities form around shared activities and assemble ecosystems of tools, we investigate how the contrasting means and ends of end-users and software developers shape and constrain this assembly process. We apply the activity-theoretical concept of Common Interactive Objects to analyze the role of iNaturalist as a key tool in the artifact ecology of Biodiversity Galiano on the one hand, and as the central product of its developers on the other. We find that this dual role for the platform creates tensions that both motivate and constrain the adaptation work within Biodiversity Galiano, and argue that in this respect our case is reflective of the general experience of grassroots communities who rely on platform software. CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; Empirical studies in ubiquitous and mobile computing.

Enacting Entanglement: CreaTures, Socio-Technical Collaboration and Designing a Transformative Ethos

“…Frauenberger argues that our intimate entanglement with digital technologies is challenging the foundations of current HCI research and practice (2019), which Pradhan (2021) takes forward into a CSCW analysis of AI and older people's care. Other approaches to applying the idea of entanglement include Kou and Gui (2018) looking at the phenomenon of Quantified Self and Tchernavskij and Bødker (2022) talking of entangled artefacts. Through this work, we can hear a different way of thinking arise, yet it does not crystalize into discussion of a different ontological starting point.…”