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The question of how to organise for the introduction of a new service involving the interaction of humans and technologies is both crucial and challenging. Convergence between the community of practice using the technology and the design of the technology is crucial for the technology to become meaningful and usable. While processes of convergence are challenging in themselves, they become more complex if several communities of practice are going to use and collaborate around/through the technology. The co-presence of different communities of practice is a common situation when delivering public welfare services. In particular, the development of welfare technology is a context rich in potential frictions, making convergence challenging. By mobilising the concept of transparency, we analyse the process of implementation of remote night monitoring and highlight how transparency is related to different aspects. Such analysis reveals that processes of convergence are related in this context not only to frictions shared with other settings, but also to specific frictions related to matters of concern in welfare services. This leads us to discuss whether digitalised care services can be argued as still having a human side or not.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Scandinavian Journal of Management, we explore its becoming in a context where internationalism is used to evidence claims about journal quality. Through an analysis of editorial voices, we show how internationalism positions journals as ‘a view from nowhere’, making them party to a ‘God trick’. Acknowledging the situated nature of all knowledge instead provides a means of disturbing geographies of power that shape how knowledge is created, performed and transformed in journals and expanding the range of others that ‘management’ represents. We trace the beginnings of a feminist new materialist theoretical shift in the journal, which we argue is crucial in providing hope regarding what management can do and engaging with our ethical response-abilities as knowers.

Each of the chapters in this volume, from the introduction to this end(ing), engaged in a conversation about producing knowledge in, about, with "organization studies" at a time when we (us, the human inhabitants of this Earth) are facing calamitous conditions, probably leading to our/its destruction, and (some more than others) are wondering what is to be done. As members of the management and organization studies (MOS) scholarly community, all the authors in this project are deeply concerned about the "knowledge" our common field is producing as "legitimate", for it seems not only inadequate for addressing those calamitous conditions but also that this kind of knowledge may be implicated in reproducing the harms we all decry. The aim here has not been to critique the field on the basis of what it produces but to acknowledge conditions perpetuating the production of those forms of knowledge more generally, and to offer positive alternatives which may make a difference in what is produced, perhaps contributing to a better world‚ over and over again. The message this chapter and all other chapters hope to convey is the possibility of "thinking, saying and doing otherwise". But can we truly question the very notion of "the human" supporting "legitimate knowledge"? Can we truly focus on producing processual knowledge with indefinite aims? In other words, is the becoming of an organization studies produced with feminist new materialisms possible? Responding to those questions, and following the original proposal for this volume, this chapter is the voice of the collectivity articulating 'the-world-and-beyond' as envisioned in each of the prior chapters. Taking this approach resonates as well with new materialisms: "'a doing with' which cannot be a 'doing alone' -more like a world of on-going assembling".

This article provides an overview of the discussion animating the track “Doing research in technoscience as affective engagement” organised at the VIII STS Italia Conference. By acknowledging the inheritance of feminist STS scholars in expanding the theoretical scope of care beyond its traditional sites, this session was devoted to exploring knowledge production as a matter of care as well as a form of affective engagement and entanglement with multiple Others while doing research. Two contributions were presented. The first ethnographically investigates Canadian blood donation practices by drawing on Haraway’s SF figure to develop what the speaker calls ‘Sanguine Figuration’. The second presentation relies on research of women’s animist practices amongst horses in Swiss Alps through a filmmaking practice influenced by Haraway’s work on the natureculture continuum and situated knowledge. Both studies embody efforts to develop non-representational research practices and experimental approaches showing the affective entanglement between researchers and researched, subject and object. Further, these contributions have highlighted the importance of conceptual creativity and imagination in building an apparatus that enables accounting for affective engagements in doing research in STS.

Interoperability and convergence are two key features of any working sociotechnical infrastructure that includes a plurality and multiplicity of communities of practice using technologies. However, as information systems scale up and the heterogeneity of users increases, it becomes challenging to actualise interoperability and convergence. When it comes to welfare services, the development of interoperable information systems and converging communities of practice is key to the quality and efficiency of services, both for practitioners and users. This paper elaborates on these concepts and their practical relevance by presenting and discussing data from a research project on ageing and welfare technology in Sweden. A participatory approach is meant to act as methodological support for the actualisation of interoperability and convergence even though socio-organisational and political constraints cannot be fully overcome once for all.

Key Concepts in Science and Technology Studies is an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies through concepts that are also used in other areas, from design to organization studies. The book is relevant for students at bachelor and master level as well as for doctoral students and researchers who are approaching the field for the first time and need some initial guidance. It is designed to be an agile tool that provides accessible and authoritative knowledge of essential topics in the field of STS.

Demographic changes associated with contemporary society are often framed as a 'care crisis' where the aging population is portrayed as threatening the financial security and the future of younger generations. To rationally intervene in these issues, welfare states - particularly in Nordic countries - increasingly rely on digital technology as a 'remedy' and 'promise' of more effective and efficient public governance operating through technopolitical care practices and logics. Technological solutions such as AI, algorithms, apps and robotics are incorporated into elderly care and aligned with care work where the digitization of processes accompanies an intensification of datafication of elderly welfare care. This analysis is aimed at identifying and discussing how the welfare state is transformed through a practice of classification and its logic of standardization, a practice of taskification grounded on time-paced service logic, and a practice of categorization relying on a logic of prioritization. These three practices and logics embody tensions emerging where caring intersects with data sourcing, that is, where the datafication of elderly welfare care lies. Feminist posthumanism allows approaching them by resisting both techno-utopian and techno-dystopian claims about the datafication of elderly welfare care.

By applying a posthuman perspective to the analysis of care for older people (COP), we analyse the agential cuts (together/apart) enacted by humans (mainly caregivers and older people) and more-than-humans (a camera intra-acting with other objects) whose agential entanglement configures and reconfigures the political economy of the caring apparatus. Our study identifies 'targeting', 'monitoring', and 'aligning' as interrelated caring practices, thus contributing to advance a posthuman understanding of welfare technology, and advancing a critical use of the possibilities enacted by technologies.

This book elaborates on the concept of response-ability. Although the notion is becoming popular in organization and management studies to talk about the ethical dimension of academic practices and research work, it has been formulated outside this discipline with Joan Tronto, Donna Haraway, Vinciane Despret, and Karen Barad as key authors. This book honors the foundational contribution of these scholars and their legacy. This book adopts a feminist posthumanist definition of response-ability as an iterative and emergent process that unfolds within embodied relations and through academic practices. A response-able academic practice intertwines personal reflexivity and critical analysis of the politics underlying our ways of knowing and doing in academia. Furthermore, a response-able approach requires us, as researchers, to pay attention to the consequences of our research practices through which multiple encounters are made possible (or impossible). By offering empirical examples and theoretical elaborations, this book invites students, researchers, and practitioners to find ways of embodying response-ability when generating knowledge. With the exception of Chapter 1, no part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at https://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license. Any third party material in this book is not included in the OA Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. Please direct any permissions enquiries to the original rightsholder.

In this chapter, we introduce and define the concept of response-ability through the cartographic lens of feminist posthumanism to encourage a renewal of subjectivities and practices in management and organization studies (MOS). The origins of the concept lie in fields outside MOS, with Joan Tronto, Donna Haraway, Vinciane Despret, and Karen Barad as key figures in its development. Response-ability as a concept gained traction in MOS through theoretical exploration and onto-epistemological experimentation. In this chapter, after the cartographic reading of the concept and before presenting the structure of the book, we elaborate on what response-able academic practices are and what their ethics of engagement entail. These two subjects are key to appreciating the book overall.

In this paper, we elaborate on how the future older person is characterised and what future ageing entails in relation to welfare technologies highlighting which actors, social and material, affect innovation governance and discussing who does not. Starting from a distinction between public, private, and academic perspectives we discuss how companies, public sector organisa- tions, and research-oriented actors construct future ageing through sociomaterial practices in the welfare technology arena. We base our reasoning on an ethnographic study conducted during the 2017 edition of the yearly MVTe-Mötesplats Välfärdsteknologi och E-hälsa Swedish event (in English: Meeting place for Welfare Technology and e-Health). We use the concept ‘welfare technology practices’ to describe how actors perform future ageing by producing and reprodu- cing a scenario where the positive effects of technology are assumed and the plurality of future older selves is overlooked. We problematise this view by reflecting on ageing as a complex so- ciomaterial process that calls for welfare technology practices and policies open to a pluralistic view of the future as futures. This study may inspire research that further explore how future ageing is constructed as well as support the development of welfare technology practices for addressing current blind spots.

The relationship between democracy and design has been the topic of significant discussion in the design community. It is also at the core of participatory design that relies on the principle of genuine participation. According to this, users are not mere informants but legitimate participants in the design process. A great deal of participatory design, however, is driven by instrumental logics rather than participatory and democratic principles. In analysing these power relations, science and technology studies (STS) provides the starting point to introduce the concepts of ‘engineering an atmosphere’ (i.e. the process) and ‘engineered atmosphere’ (i.e. the outcome). These concepts problematise the principles and modes of participatory design, highlighting the tensions between economic and social agendas and top-down and bottom-up interactions. This problematic can be shown in the way that new teachnologies are targeted at older populations, necessitating an interrogation of the processes underpirnning the design and development of technological products and devices. It is important to reflect on who is included and who is excluded from technological design and innovation, which is always, and necessarily so, a fluid process.

In this paper, we present a close reading of work in ubicomp of applications for older people. Starting from three lines of enquiry defined in the inaugural issue of this journal, we discuss how ubicomp research has presented the relationship between technologies and older users. We base our reasoning on a review of papers published in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing(1997–2014). The lines of enquiry refer to paradigms (functional vs. sociotechnical), users(stereotype and involvement), and contexts (indoor and/or outdoor). These themes address the presentation of SUITCASE project (SUstainable Integrated & Territorial CAre SErvices). This is a two-year research on care services for older citizens within the smart home construct. We develop an initial framework that not only provides a cohesive view of technologies for older people, but also serves as a salient guideline for reflective design which extends beyond the target population. This framework may also address future design projects, funding schemes, and editorial policies.

This article is a critical interdisciplinary study of biohacking as a specific case of transhumanism and its goals of enhancement and age intervention. It focuses on the organising principles underlying the biohacking movement's relationship to ageing and technoscience. The argument traces how the historical and scientific body technologies of molecularisation, functional age, optimisation, and quantification made possible the biohacking vision of the ageing body as amenable to modification, enhancement and improvement beyond its natural limits. Conclusions consider the wider implications of biohacking by pointing out four important issues that frame our cultural ambivalence about ageing: the tension between biohacking's supposedly liberating enhancement technologies and their obeisance to a tyranny of self-disciplinary practices and the authority of bio-data; the social meaning of biohacking hierarchies of human value, based on modifiable fitness and enhanceable performance; the implications of the biohacking program for gendered ageism; and the ethical limits of biohacking, not only in terms of potential harms to a person but what it can mean to exceed the natural limits of life.

Ageing is not only a chronological matter. The following contributions at the crossroad of STS, material gerontology, design, and medical sociology offer alternative views on ageing and care. Ageing emerges as a boundary object through which authors explore the relationship with technologies and technology-based processes and practices. Authors point out that becoming older is a sociomaterial process and emphasize the importance of thinking with care when designing technology as well as the relevance of the socio-technical imaginary in conceptualizing older people.

In this chapter, by metaphorically extending the meaning of the word "manspreading", on one hand we describe how the term "feminist" in "new feminist materialism" has been placed "under erasure". On the other hand, we show how the feminism has been always already all set for disturbing the discursive male order of new materialism. We foreground three main feminist ethico-onto-epistemological assumptions: decentering the subject, (re)materializing all bodies; intra-acting responsibly. Correspondingly, we articulate three alternative forms of politics - a politics of location, a politics of re-materialization, and an ethical politics of response-ability - which, we deem, embody the generative and affirmative posture of new feminist materialism and pave the way for a different knowledge production practice in Management and Organization Studies.

This chapter provides an overview of the book while introducing the main concepts of a posthumanist epistemology of practice theory. In particular, the Introduction articulates the framework of the entire book which is aimed at raising a series of radical epistemological questions about what research practices entail, how such practices—in their variety—generate knowledge, and what are the ethico-onto-epistemological implications of decentering the human beings as the main actors of the research agencement.