Methods for Intervention

Abstract

By focusing on gender analysis and feminist design of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), this special section brings together three strands of expertise: Science and Technology Studies (STS), Studies and computing. 1 A commonality among these three disciplines is a shared interest in interventions to improve the world we live in. Nevertheless, particularly Studies and computing seem difficult to combine, partly because of their different epistemologies. Whereas deconstructivism, the challenging of categories and dichotomies, is an important target of many Studies (and STS) researchers, most ICT researchers have a positivist stance toward science (Forsythe 2001; Weber 2004) as ICT developers need clear categories and choices to construct ICTs (Maass et al. 2007, 23). The presentations at the Gender & ICT Symposium 2009 in Bremen, Germany, from which the articles of this special section originate, showed that STS provides theoretical concepts, tools, and theories that may help bridge this gap.