• Corpus ID: 197972579

Nomadic cultures beyond work practices

@inproceedings{Carvalho2017NomadicCB,
  title={Nomadic cultures beyond work practices},
  author={Aparecido Fabiano Pinatti de Carvalho and Chiara Rossitto and Airi Lampinen and Luigina Ciolfi and Breda Gray},
  year={2017}
}

• Aparecido Fabiano Pinatti de Carvalho, Chiara Rossitto, +2 authors B. Gray
• Published 2017
• Sociology

In this issue we explore the conceptual, analytical and design challenges inherent in the notion of “Nomadic Culture”. The papers included highlight how research on mobility has contributed to the CSCW community, while pointing to unsolved problems, future challenges and research agendas. We see this collection of papers as developing a more holistic perspective on nomadic culture, and connecting this scholarship with recent research on sharing and exchange platforms as sites of work. This intervention contributes to an understanding of nomadic culture by providing a more contemporary perspective on the social and cultural aspects of workplace sites and coworking practices. Chiara Rossitto et al. 6 1 Extending the concept of nomadic practices Research on nomadic practices has become an established tradition within CSCW since the first studies on the matter. The workshop “Beyond Mobility: Studying Nomadic Work”, organised at ECSCW 2007, was a milestone in this regard. It investigated the rapid emergence of nomadic work practices and, at the time, it argued for an understanding of the “dynamic practical achievement involved in making, making the most of, and working in different places” (Rossitto et al., 2007). Ten years later, at the ECSCW 2017 workshop “Nomadic Cultures Beyond Work Practices”, we revisited the notion of nomadic practices in light of recent research and empirical changes, such as the spread of wireless connectivity and the rise of the so-called ‘gig economy’. In so doing, we explored the notion of Nomadic Culture as the entanglement of economic, social, cultural and technological practices that enables and constitutes nomadicity. The pieces composing this special issue are the results of the position papers presented in the ECSCW 2017 workshop, under this perspective. 1.1 Summary of contributions The issue starts with Avram’s (2017) auto-ethnographic account of her nomadic practices during a sabbatical year. As she reflects upon how she accomplished work seamlessly at different places, and analyses her motivations to engage in work at those locations, she raises questions regarding the affordances and hindrances linked to nomadic practices. After all, are nomadic practices to be seen as a bug, or a feature of contemporary work/life? Avram’s account illustrates the tensions stemming from being part of a nomadic culture that seeks to make the most of work and life. She draws attention to issues of acceptance and to tradeoffs, which seems to be predominant in such cultures, although overlooked most of the time, as suggested by de Carvalho (2013). Korn et al. (2017) illustrate in their paper how organisational support is key for the development and maintenance of nomadic cultures. This issue, although previously raised by Chen and Nath (2005), has not been deeply addressed in the literature. In outlining the nomadic culture existing within a German university, the authors explore issues of pervasive commuting practices, and institutional frames in the accomplishment of collaborative work. The article calls for further research on the matter, which is indeed one of the pressing issues for future CSCW research on nomadic practices. Jarrahi and Sawyer (2017) go back to problematizing nomadicity, by discussing the paradoxical affordances of liminality as a defining character of the notion. The authors discuss how nomadicity goes beyond spatial movements and spans issues of contextual shifts, temporal incongruities, separation and independence from organizations’ physical and digital boundaries, etc. Their Nomadic Cultures Beyond Work Practices 7 contribution strengthens the articulation of the notion of nomadicity refined by CSCW researchers over the years (see e.g. Ciolfi and de Carvalho, 2014; Humphry, 2014; Liegl, 2014; Rossitto, 2009). Ciolfi and Lockley’s (2017) contribution moves the focus to how the blurring and/or separation of work and non-work activities in nomadic cultures are managed. While their contribution overlaps slightly with those from Avram and Jarrahi and Sawyer, it brings to the fore a totally different perspective on these issues. It shows, in fact, how strategies applied to dealing with the potential blurring of work and life within nomadic cultures are highly personal and connected to technological infrastructures. Issues of technological infrastructure are further discussed in the following piece by de Carvalho et al. (2017b), which addresses how infrastructuring (Pipek and Wulf, 2009) is an important concept for understanding and fostering nomadic cultures. The authors report on a study carried out on nomadic practices of social activist communities, introducing a theme as yet not fully explored by research on nomadicity. In particular, the focus on the nomadicity of an event and its infrastructure, rather than on the workers, brings a completely new perspective to issues concerning the accomplishment of work in, and across, different locations. Finally, Rossitto et al. (2017) introduce in their paper another emerging trend concerning research on nomadic cultures. The authors turn their attention to issues of social innovation through sustainable nomadic communities. Specifically, they outline how sharing and caring are two predominant values underlying the socialcultural practices at the Hoffice. Hoffice – a merger of Home and Office – is a self-organising network that has emerged as a participatory response to the challenges of flexible and nomadic work arrangements. The remainder of this editorial introduces the outcomes of our ECSCW 2017 workshop while seeking to set up an agenda for future research on nomadicity. We start by elaborating the notion of nomadic culture, we then proceed to discuss issues of nomadic practices in current scenarios, such as the “gig economy”. We conclude by presenting proposed future directions for research on nomadicity beyond entrepreneurship narratives, beyond encounters with the technology, and beyond working at several locations. 2 Elaborating on nomadic culture The notion of nomadic culture was first introduced by Chen and Nath (2005), who located it in the domain of work where they see such a culture enabling the achievement of competitive benefits through workers’ use of ubiquitous computing technologies. Their definition of nomadic culture emphasises those “artifacts, beliefs, and basic assumptions” that underpin organisational culture (2005: 56). In a later article, they suggest that the development of “an effective mobile work environment” is one of today’s challenges; they thus emphasize the Chiara Rossitto et al. 8 need to study those issues that foster successful mobile work from the sociotechnical perspective (Chen and Nath, 2008). They emphasise the interdependence of social and technical systems, but only insofar as they “must be jointly optimized in order to determine the best overall solution for the organization” (2008: 41). By expanding Chen and Nath’s account of nomadic culture, we draw attention to the broader ecology of nomadic practices including, for instance, family-related and various life matters. This provides an opportunity to discuss the various tradeoffs between organisations and the workforce, and the reciprocal demands, adjustments and accommodations inherent in nomadic work practices and life styles (see e.g. de Carvalho et al., 2017a). Thus, we argue that the notion of nomadic culture entails both the cultural and technological components that shape everyday practices. For example, as short and long-distance mobility become central features of work and life, these mobilities are no longer lived only as instrumental means of moving from A to B. They also involve the turning of the in-between spaces into “liminoid spaces of transition” – that is, social and cultural contexts in and of themselves (Vannini, 2010). As a variety of mobile services, apps and devices have become a pervasive presence in everyday life, a range of dedicated, public or semi-public places are being set up to enable work on the move, or at a variety of locations. This includes, for instance, “COffices”, airport lounges and designated areas, as well as emerging trends like the Hoffice community that self-organizes pop-up coworking days. This relates to the set of practices inherent in turning one’s home into a workplace to be shared with other people, including strangers. These trends change the meanings of work (and life) places, times, social ecologies and associated social relations. Yet, as the application of mobile computing moves at a fast pace, and working “anytime, anywhere” (Kleinrock, 1996) becomes the practiced norm rather than merely a vision, scholarship on nomadic practices seems to have lost its momentum. With a few exceptions (Ciolfi and de Carvalho, 2014; de Carvalho et al., 2017a; Rossitto et al., 2014), it seems that HCI and CSCW research are more interested in technological innovations rather than in practice-oriented agenda examining contemporary nomadic lives (see, for instance, Weilenmann and Juhlin, 2011). Our workshop at ECSCW 2017 revisited research on mobile CSCW by connecting the range of nomadic practices emerging from the use of technology (i.e. place-making, place-managing, planful opportunism, etc.) to the personal, socio-economic and political contexts in which such practices are enacted. Various studies have illustrated how nomadicity can be regarded as an emergent and dynamic process unfolding as people engage in an ecology of practices for the mobilisation of their workplaces (Brown and O’Hara, 2003; de Carvalho, 2014; Luff and Heath, 1998; Perry et al., 2001; Rossitto et al., 2014; Weilenmann, 2003). These practices are highly technologically-mediated, not Nomadic Cultures Beyond Work Practices 9 least via the promise of enabling individual empowerment and flexibility (Gray et al., 2017). The effect is a constant reconfiguration and management of work/life boundaries (ibid.), and of motivational factor