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Paper short abstract:

Practice theory analyses have made use of established concepts from STS to describe the role of materials in practice, yet how suitable are these when synthesised with practice theory? This paper will seek to present some initial ideas on a family of concepts categorised as integration.

Paper long abstract:

The significance (and energy intensity) of the ever-expanding ecologies of IT devices is undeniable, and important especially when considering the sustainability of everyday life (Røpke and Christensen, 2013). How can we capture and describe the effect of these multiple and complex objects (from apps to tablet computers) and their roles in multiple social practices? Established terms developed within STS such as inscription (Akrich, 1991), domestication (Silverstone et al., 1992) and normalisation (Hand and Shove, 2007) prove to be somewhat static and inflexible when it comes to explaining the profusion and increasing complexity of tablets, smartphones and related objects in-use.

In response, this paper develops and explores concepts of integration, using the tablet computer as an example with which to consider how such an object in-use is integrated within differing practices and alongside coexisting technologies (apps, other technologies, infrastructures). The complexity and multiplicity of the tablet computer presents a number of specific challenges: What is the tablet computer? What is its role in-use? Of which practices does it become a part? Using empirical material from interviews with a selection of tablet owners, I hope to present some initial ideas about how we might better describe and thus, understand how such complex objects are integrated within different social practices.