Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research

Kangasoja, J. (2002). Selling promiseware and securing the public good. The dialectics of constructing an information infrastructure for the future city, Paper presented at the conference of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology; York, UK

Technology design is practical work of envisioning and creating alternative futures. This paper stems from a need to conceptualize resources of imagination at play in observed processes of negotiation, argumentation, and decision-making related to the infrastructure emerging with the proliferation of telecommunications networks. In the light of a case study from Finland, I discuss this process as the dialectics of selling promiseware and securing the public good.