Sociotechnical Spaces: Guiding Politics, Staging Design

Abstract

The chapter addresses how insights from the social shaping tradition and political process theory may contribute to an understanding of the sociotechnical design and implementation of change. This idea is pursued through the notion of “sociotechnical spaces” and its delineation, with respect to the analysis of two distinct cases, namely, Business Process Reengineering (BPR), and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in the light of “film-less” radiological prac-tice, respectively. The chapter elaborates on sociotechnical space as being an occasioning as well as a result of sociotechnical choices and processes, and points to how socio-material and discursive practices may render such spaces open to problematisation and action. It is sug-gested that the notion of sociotechnical spaces helps generate a sensitising guide for research-ers and practitioners, and thus may serve as a constructive means with which to localise poten-tial political concerns in processes of change. The paper tentatively points to some analytical implications and to challenges and possibilities for the “bridging” between spaces, which may otherwise be rendered analytically distinct.