Isaac Ortega Alvarado
This paper discusses and provides some pointers for assessing elusive things and their mediations of complexity, as part of conceptualisation work. The paper addresses the ‘elusive things’ in emerging socio-technical innovations as a category for assessment. The arguments in the paper focus on the processes of conceptualisation – in other words, the definition of things as designed in ideal states and realistic implementations. The discussion of elusive things is brought up in technology assessment. Technology assessment is characterised as a process for the anticipatory evaluation of emerging technologies. The initial assumption is that the assessment of technology in the early stages of innovation is conducted on aspects that invoke what a technology could be, but not its formal definition. In the process of defining what a technology is and what can be made, the enactment of technology assessment contributes to the conceptualisation of technologies and turns them into objects of social and political contingency. The paper engages with literature about design and technology assessment, particularly argumentations related to how technology assessment is conducted and its relation to different actors’ participation in social processes. As a result, elusive things are unpacked as a political ontology with a definitional tendency that motivates inquiry into the characteristics of a technology. More importantly, limitations that emerge about possible technologies must not be assessed only as technical barriers to overcome but also as results of the organisation of actors and their capacities to input, influence, or contribute to the conceptualisations of the technology. From the discussion, it is argued that decisions on what is left out and the process to get to those decisions are dependent on the socio-technical context in which the technology emerges. The conclusion offers a working definition to deal with elusive things as part of technology assessment.
Keywords: Elusive things, socio-technical innovation, technology assessment, definitional processes