Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines relationships between governance technique and legal pluralism. Since the 1992 end of its civil war, El Salvador has been a site for intensive implementation of “local democratic governance” programs funded and administered by foreign development agencies. These “democratization” programs, however, operate in a country with a history of diverse democratic movements mobilized by political oppression, war, and harsh inequality. This presentation explores the role of technical measures, reports, and other documentary technics in translating, mediating and circulating different ideas and models of civic participation, law, and justice in democratic governance programs in El Salvador. These technical practices are more than merely instrumental. They are meaningful in variable ways for actors involved in democratization projects, from development professionals and government bureaucrats to active citizen groups or uninvolved peripheral community members. I describe how conditions of hope animate people’s investment in political projects in ways that grant these metrics and technics great power, even de facto legality. These measures and techniques thus play an important role in enabling and disabling different forms of legal pluralism in a locale; in fact, they are often designed to have such an effect. I contend that studies of law and democracy have much to gain by paying greater attention to the interplay among various democratic hopes mediated, and sometimes enabled, by technical representations and instruments. This paper draws from fieldwork among democratic governance projects in El Salvador, as well as research among participating agencies and NGOs in the U.S.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper reviews different approaches for explaining, measuring and assessing the importance of class. It proposes to recapture the concept of the division of labour to analytically separate the technical, economic, and social aspects of class, and to show their interrelations. It then embarks in the task of conceptualising one of these domains, the technical division of labour, focusing on the complexity of occupational activities. Complexity is defined as a combination of the functional specialisation and abstract content of the activities, operating within market and ecological constraints. This conceptual framework is then applied to the construction of a new Index of Technical Complexity, which enjoys high levels of content, construct and criterion-validity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The objectives of this study are: 1) assessing how self-identified lesbian and bisexual young women perceive potential risk of HIV infection and how they minimize that risk, 2) identifying where these young women get information about HIV prevention and whether the information is helpful. Our project consists of 10 interviews with lesbian and bisexual women ages 16-22 concerning their perception of HIV risk and use of safer sex practices. Results suggest many respondents believe lesbians and bisexual women have no or low risk of HIV infection through sexual activity with women and do not utilize safer sex practices because of this belief. Key findings indicate these young women found prevention strategies cumbersome to sexual encounters (one stating that “its a technical problem”) and that little information was presented to them through school, family, or other sources. Information about HIV/AIDS, when present, was often abstinence based, targeted toward heterosexual sexual activity, included no strategies for prevention other than abstinence, and was often fraught with inaccuracies and inconsistencies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Using the mobile game as an example, this theoretical paper argues that a better understanding of the mobile phone as a social medium should be based on a balanced review on the technical, commercial and social arrangement of particular mobile communication services. It shows how the interplay between the technical configurations of mobile technology and users’ perception of technical attributes in particular social environments influences the actual use pattern of mobile services. It then reviews how the commercial environment and market arrangement in the U.S. mobile game industry shape the content and user base of mobile games. It is argued that researchers should investigate how technical configurations and market-driven business models shape the usability and usefulness of mobile technology at both societal and user levels before they frame research questions on the possible effects of the use of the technology. And the study of such effects should be based also on the social features embedded in mobile services that fulfill different functions and form different relationships. Such a balanced understanding should facilitate the imagination of new scenarios in mobile gaming that could inform the design and implementation of next generation technical and commercial systems of mobile entertainment services.

Publication Type: Invited Paper