View source for ANTH245 2007-10-01

{{ANTH245_2007_NAV}}

= Business =
* The Midterm is available on Blackboard
* Please send in your responses on time

= Recap =
* What is Coding?
* The process of converting texts into codes
** A kind of transduction
** A kind of reductionism
** informal &rarr; formal
* A : B :: Text : Code :: Discourse : Ontology
* The reduction of A to B is structuralism

= Segue =
* Structuralism = Cognitive Science
* Just as information culture represents text as code, CogSci represents activity as plan
* Activity = ritual, work, ''practice'' = parole, event

= Intro =
* We are now officially ''turning the tables'' -- from "culture as information" to "information as culture"
* We will explore continuities and discontinuities between the two approaches
* Path:
*# Computer as metaphor
*# Computer as tool
*# Computer as artifact
*# Next week: Expanding the scope

= Suchman 1983 =

== Background ==

* Description of Lucy Suchman
* One of the pioneers of "corporate anthropology," but from a critical perspective
* Sets the method:
*# Office as ethnographic site -- "village"
*# Computer as core artifact -- the "[[wikipedia:Tjurunga|churinga]]"
*# Work as ritual
*# What are the symbols and myths?
*#* discourse, planning tools, documents
*#* Management and Labor 

== Procedures ==
* What is the problem?  The status of formal procedures.
** The "natives" view procedures as a ''description'' of work
** But the anthropologist sees things otherwise 
** Note that here the denial of the native point of view does not strike as ethically problematic (as it did with Rappaport)

= Suchman 1988, part 1 =
* The planning model in AI
* Plans as reality
* But plans can't explain action
* Consciousness and unconsciousness
* Reversal

= Suchman 1988, part 2 =
* Whiteboard as "cultural model" (Colby)

= Forsythe 1993 =
* Knowledge engineering
* Representation of work
* Compare to coding

= Representation =

= Conclusion =