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Paper short abstract

The untold story of this talk is how power structures and personal ethical beliefs — including those of STS researchers — build up the basis of, and frame the interactive processes that lead to the implementation — or at least dominance — of “shared” success definitions in complex projects.

Paper long abstract

In an interdisciplinary project success is often defined differently by different actors. This makes sense, because different disciplines and practice communities go hand in hand with different definitions of that what constitutes a valuable result in their own community. Nevertheless, there is one phenomenon around which everyone gathers. The untold story of this talk is how power structures and personal ethical beliefs — including those of STS researchers — build up the basis of, and frame the interactive processes that lead to the implementation — or at least dominance — of “shared” success definitions. That is, in the interactive interplay of interdisciplinary project groups, STS researchers themselves must be considered individuals acting politically with their own agenda, looking for ways to implement their own definitions of success, either in collaboration with or in opposition to the others.

Drawing on my own experiences in a small-scale transdisciplinary visualisation project involving neurosurgeons, computer graphics specialists, and STS researchers, I will critically examine my own power-base for my political actions. Ironically, among other things the results of qualitative, STS-influenced approaches to the field gave me the opportunity to influence the other actors in favour of my own definition of success. I only openly acknowledged this at a late stage of the process. And, of course, I told the story in other ways, too: for example, I used narratives such as 'dis/empowerment for participation”, or “qualitative research as tool for understanding”. But perhaps even fundamentally, the project interactions are politically driven acts, too.