Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions
Abstract
This 2007 book considers how agencies are currently figured at the human-machine interface, and how they might be imaginatively and materially reconfigured. Contrary to the apparent enlivening of objects promised by the sciences of the artificial, the author proposes that the rhetorics and practices of those sciences work to obscure the performative nature of both persons and things. The question then shifts from debates over the status of human-like machines, to that of how humans and machines are enacted as similar or different in practice, and with what theoretical, practical and political consequences. Drawing on scholarship across the social sciences, humanities and computing, the author argues for research aimed at tracing the differences within specific sociomaterial arrangements without resorting to essentialist divides. This requires expanding our unit of analysis, while recognizing the inevitable cuts or boundaries through which technological systems are constituted.
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Algorithmic action is inherently situated - systems can have unintended outcomes when deployed in real social and organizational contexts.
“Algorithmic action is inherently situated - systems can have unintended outcomes when deployed in real social and organizational contexts [40, 67].”
From The Due Process Deficit: Auditing AI Governance in U.S. Higher Education (2026) · cites this paper as [67]
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Lee, H. R., Šabanović, S., Chang, W.-L., Nagata, S., Piatt, J., Bennett, C., & Hakken, D. (2017) · Proceedings of the 2017 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction · doi:10.1145/2909824.3020237 · Cited by 212 · see citing works
Malafouris, L. (2019) · Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1007/s11097-018-9606-7 · Cited by 181 · see citing works
“…anthropological interest in the comparative study of materiality, materials and techniques (Ingold 2012, 2013; Knappett 2005; Knappett and Malafouris 2008; Latour 1990, 1992, 1999; Suchman 2006) which it blends with perspectives from postphenomenology (Idhe and Malafouris 2018; Verbeek 2005).”
BackgroundSociotechnical Approaches to the Study of Information Systems
Sawyer, S., & Jarrahi, M. H. (2022) · Computing Handbook · doi:10.1201/9780429171529-98 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
Sociotechnical Approaches to the Study of Information Systems
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Distributed Epistemic Responsibility in a Hyperconnected Era
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Insolvent: How to Reorient Computing for Just Sustainability
Becker, C. (2023) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/14668.001.0001 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
Workplace 'learning' and adult education: Messy objects, blurry maps and making difference
Fenwick, T. (2010) · European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults · doi:10.3384/rela.2000-7426.rela0006 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Jones, R. A. (2017) · Social Studies of Science · doi:10.1177/0306312717704722 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Enabling ‘AI’? The situated production of commensurabilities
Jaton, F., & Sormani, P. (2023) · Social Studies of Science · doi:10.1177/03063127231194591 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Conceptualising Contestability: Perspectives on Contesting Algorithmic Decisions
Lyons, H., Velloso, E., & Miller, T. (2021) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3449180 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
The Due Process Deficit: Auditing AI Governance in U.S. Higher Education
Teleki, M., Choi, A. S. G., Duray, A., Liu, H., Zhang, J., Dong, X., Da Silva, D., Koenecke, A., & Caverlee, J. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency · doi:10.1145/3805689.3812328
- Authors
- Suchman, L.
- Corresponding author
- Suchman, Lucy
- ORCID
- Suchman, Lucy
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2006-12-04
- OpenAlex
- W4230787006
- Cited by
- 1,120
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 145 · 2025: 108 · 2024: 95 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 92 · 2021: 60 · 2020: 70 · 2019: 62 · 2018: 69 · 2017: 45 · 2016: 60 · 2015: 37 · 2014: 48 · 2013: 48 · 2012: 25
- FWCI
- 19.91
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Cybernetics and Technology in Society
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Information Systems Theories and Implementation
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Posthumanist Ethics and Activism
- Keywords
- human-machine interaction, human agency, performativity, sociomateriality, human-machine relations, technical systems, essentialism, unit of analysis
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