On becoming a PhD: just who is being domesticated in the writing

The PhD as a space for creative writing is sometimes considered risky, however if the coherence is able to be argued then creative writing can be included. This is a page from the thesis, it was written in bradley hand script over an image of a cell phone. The intent being the sense of closeness, the companion species that a mobile phone might be seen as. Studying materiality made the materiality of how work was presented important.

On becoming a hybrid
I got it as a gift, but I had to get it a sim card & establish a contract with a service provider, take it home, plug it in, charge it… Wait…wait…hours of waiting… Read the manual. Personalise it; choose my language (English & predictive test) enter ph. no.s (I’ve outsourced my memory). Send a message to family & friends so they know my no., set the calendar, clock, choose a background, select preferred ring-tone & volume. Try them all out. Reply to half the friends & relations. Set the alarm clock. Put in appointments. Phew. Look at the manual to work the camera, learn how to save & send photos, & bluetooth them to my computer. What is Bluetooth anyway? Read the manual online… Check with service provider about overseas roaming to send or call from Aus to NZ on a NZ ph., (0011649… need 2 check for service provider coverage, remember to keep ph. with me or risk my relationship, check for missed calls, oh & for unread txts. I hate the demands of why didn’t you answer your phone….
I become conscious of costs & having to feed it by prepay, & ensure its power supply is maintained. Learn to clear messages, sent & received otherwise it tells me “memory is full, clear messages from any box”. I continue to transfuse it with money, negotiate the credit card with the service provider, keep clearing messages, plug it in when its flat…
I still don’t know how to use it for email or internet, play games, or as a radio, I could download music to it, pay for parking, check movies … I discovered it can also be a torch by manipulating the camera flash, and it’s a calculator, plus a notepad… I’m loving it. It’s old technology already & I only use it for a fraction of what it makes possible!
Now I wouldn’t be without it; got my keys, my cash my mobile… oh and my charger if going away a few days. I’d be bereft without it, how would I get in touch with people? How would I know their no.s? What if I’m running l8? Or the car breaks down?
I’ve bought it a cute cover; to stop her getting knocked about. Oh, and you noticed the charm? she's just cuter with it on…. Well yes, I’ve had pets that are less demanding. Well at least the Tamagotchi & goldfish were, mmm the cats, well yes, this is about as financially demanding as the cat I suppose… but hey now me and my cell go everywhere together. I even chose my handbag with the outside pocket so she's always at hand while also having her own space…

I’m the one domesticated!

(And as for being domesticated, the computer word doc and pdf doc required so many more accommodations on my part, having to choose a font that would stay stable across both PC and mac was problematic- thanks to Andrew LAvery of Academic consultancy, that particular issue got sorted somewhat.)

Thanks extended to Donna Haraway who described stories of materialised refiguration; stories where metaphor and materiality implode. She provided the provocation to think of how technologies are not so much separated from our existence. In addition she provoked consideration for the realtionships we might have/I might have with companion species.
Thanks as well to Bruno Latour for writing in ways that demonstrate that freedom and creativity need not be excluded from academic writing, a genre he refers to as scientification. He prompts consideration for symmetry in the analysis of our relationships with beings human or otherwise, that they might be interrogated on an equal footing (so to speak).
Thanks also to Karen Barad for her writing of identity and agency reflecting ongoing reconfigurations,

and the sure knowledge that boundaries do not sit still.

Refs of specific interest:
Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3), 801-831. doi:10.1086/345321
Haraway, D. (2008). When species meet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Latour, B. (1996). Aramis: Or the love of technology (C. Porter, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

The art of writing

Here's the evidence of thesis writing being a distributed activity. The image portrayed is a graph created of movements on my mouse captured in 23 minutes of writing my thesis summary. The free software comes form iograph.
Writing is a distributed activity: the movements of the mouse attest to this. In is finger tapping movements on a key pad, as well as the lighting of pixels on a screen,and captured as a pdf file, or printed as ink on the page.
And the electricity, and plastic and metal gadgetry that is the laptop...
In addition text being distributed is also evident in that we, you as the reader and myself as the writer, have a shared meaning as to what these alphabet symbols mean and how on being strung together particular recognizable configurations are read as words, and in sentences particular meanings can be made.
And this occurs to the extent that Cooren writes of the spoken word as puzzling in that we assume the centrality of a speaker when myriad beings are involved and demonstrates that when we speak, many other voices are speaking as well.

In thesis writing there is also the distribution that involves myself as a student, a supervisor, and myriad other beings in a chain from here to there involving the institution I am enrolled at.
And a library and world wide web of readings that informs what i write of...and the twittersphere that introduced me to iograph.
And the research undertaken that prompted my thinking about how different communication and computer technologies alter how we see the world, and how we are seen, how we are shaped as well as shaping.

The textual format that can be traced not only in current time but which can also be traced downstream to the evolution of writing, and upstream with where such writing might lead with meanings made and paths then taken.

From something so little as a scribble of a graph i can make meaning... if I am willing to.
In arguing the textual form as distributed, this is also an example of actor-network theory at play, there are myriad beings involved, human and otherwise, and they are often silenced.
Such distribution is not only geographical but also 'folds time' or as Michel Serres (1995, cited in Latour, translated by & Venn, 2002 ) describes it, grasping a ‘garland of time’ as Michel Serres (1995)
Or I might have used the Deleuze and Guattari's metaphor of a thousand plateaus and reference to rhizomatic ways of learning (discussed last week by Dave Cormier in chage11#) except they didnt go so far as naming the technological so strongly in an ecological systems approach, nor giving voice to so many other actors.
The forward by Latour on Cooren's book that discusses discourse as a distributed activity also contributed to this post.

Current discussions in #change11 seem annoyed by the metaphors that make theorizing accessible to some and less so to others. What is made more or less strong, whose realities are being voiced, whose could or should be, are also ANT issues.
That rhizomes or garlands make it clearer for me, someone brought up more in a garden than in an academic house, is something I'm grateful for.

Refs
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London, England: University of Minnesota Press.
Latour, B. (2010). Who is making the dummy speak? In F. Cooren (Ed.), Action and agency in dialogue: passion, incarnation and ventriloquism (pp. xiii-). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamin.

are we there yet?

Its close...chs 1,2,3,4,5 are done, as is 7...
ch 6...what i actually did, now needs writing
Shouldnt be a difficult chapter
except
here's where i get to feel judged
did i do sensible stuff...yes it needed studying
did i do it sensibly?
mmmm....maybe i picked something bigger than i should have
Seth Godin's advice was overwhelm the small space.
Why oh why did i study change????
'Tis a bit late to decide studying what's in motion, 'the blur', is unwise now.
mmm but big things need questioning too...keep telling myself im just doing one aspect inside of the bigger stuff...and in an ANT study, scale becomes irrelevant- big little, near far...adding awareness of the myriad actors, and the movements between them, is the point...
In studying a new thing, there isnt a literature base, so it had to pull widely (dammit)

Another q though: will i be totally excommunicated from academia if others view what i have studied unethical...

no wonder my writing is feeling blocked

ethical stuff

in ANT there are multiple realities, i just need to be in the same one as the markers....
Or at least have markers who can appreciate that right and wrong, good and bad are subjective positions; and that sometimes adapting and tinkering inside of reasonable parameters might be more impt than being sanitised, sterilised out of existence.

Maybe this chapter is networking the thesis, the ethics committees, the organisation, the supervisor etc etcc??? The laptop the endnote, the delicious, etc etc, the research participants...the reader...the marker...

Can i be that overt about it...that playful?
or do i just pick up my boring and write it....as Heather would say

nope- this chapter is going to be fair dripping with the first person "I"

Here's some Foucault at his readable best...

"I cant help but dream about a kind of criticism that would try not to judge but to bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life: it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind,, and catch the sea foam in the breeze and scatter it. It would multiply not judgements but signs of existence; it would summon them, drag them from their sleep. Perhaps it would invent them sometimes- all the better. All the better. Criticism that hands down sentences sends me to sleep; I'd like a criticism of scintillating leaps of the imagination. It would not be sovereign or dressed in red. It would bear the lightening of possible storms."
Foucault 1994, p. 323.

Never knew Foucault had such a motivational streak. Many thanks, again, to Kamler and Thomson for citing him.
And I note his approach is congruent with that of Latour: the genre of writing needs life breathed through it.

Multiple realities; Philosophising with Deleuze and Latour

Deleuze (1993) suggests origami as a model for the sciences of matter.

"Microperceptions or representatives of the world are those little folds that unravel in every direction, folds in folds, over folds, following folds… and these are minute, obscure, confused perceptions that make up our macroperceptions. " (p.86).

A humbling perceptual (re)alteration to my thinking occurs; Sherry Turkle's current views of texting are not so much wrong, as caught in a fold, and I in a different one. I might as well be in a different universe, our realities being worlds apart, our worlds being folded differently.

Subjectivity might then be understood as a topology of the folds.

Deleuze's concept of the fold not only allows me to think creatively about the production of subjectivity, but also about the possibilities for, and production of, ‘non-human’ forms of ‘subjectivity’.

An approach also seen within Latour's actor-network theory. In the ANT literature this is also to be taken as more than a perceptual consideration, it is the reality acted upon, and realities are multiple.

The mobile phone, the young person using it, myself as researcher, the counsellors providing a texting service, the ips providers... all facets of the same cloth, variable seen, variably made visible, variably acted on.

Ref
Deleuze, G. (1993). The fold: Liebniz and the baroque (T. Conley, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

An exercise in world making; ontological politics at play :)

It is not a case of “either or” but of “and, and”.

But it’s not the original, it’s just a facsimile!”. How often have we heard such a retort when confronted with an otherwise perfect reproduction of a painting? No question about it, the obsession of the age is for the original version. Only the original possesses an aura, this mysterious and mystical quality that no second hand version will ever get. But paradoxically, this obsession for pinpointing originality increases proportionally with the availability and accessibility of more and more copies of better and better quality.

In discussing “The Migration of the Aura – Exploring the Original through Its Facsimiles” (2008) Latour explores an area that is patently contentious.
Bruno Latour says unequivocally the existence of something precedes its essence; the question is, does it? While I disagree with Kvond who appears to argue against this proposition with reference to art, yet his argument to my mind demonstrates exactly what Latour says. The minutae of detail, the pressure of the paint on the page, the texture of brushstrokes and the variability in paint pigmentation...are all 'things' preceding essence. Essence came in the aggrargation of such things in a time and place and viewed in a context, or so I understand Latour. But what then of other 'things'?
I find myself comparing these arguments of authentic art to the stories I have heard when talking of the shift of phone counselling to text. And am also reminded of the historic stories captured on moving conversation to phones. But to stay with counselling for the moment, is its 'essence' lost when the medium changes? The logic from Latours argument, is that it cant be as essence is always preceded by existence.
And now i get tangled up in knots, for what of the photo vs the painting? The reproduction has no pressure on the page, the pigmentation and colour 'enhancement' alters the rendition, the size becomes immaterial, the context within which it is shifts...how many have commented on the smallness and darkness of the Mona Lisa. The original compared with a multiple hord of facsimilies is altere and sometimes rendered a dissapointment. Klimt's mother and child becomes more known than its original source, the three ages of women C.1905. Edited enhancement for popular release? If essence is in the existence, what is loved by the masses becomes a projection.

Latour takes the argument further from photography to plastic surgery. I would anticipate the argument to be its not better or worse but different, that translation creates a new entity.

Hidden behind the commonsense distinction between original and mere copies, lies a totally different process that has to do with the technical equipment, the amount of care, the intensity of the search for the originality that goes from one version to the next. Before being able to defend itself for re-enacting the original well or badly, a facsimile is discredited beforehand because it is associated with a gap in techniques of reproduction. A gap based on a misunderstanding of photography as an index for reality.

Instead of arguing a better or worse, there is space for arguing not the either or, but the "and,and". The photo is different. "Photographs of paintings are not respected as aura entrenched primarily because the change in recording surface and technique is understood to present a change in marked causal histories" responds Kvond. The photograph brings with it, its own aggragations, one of which is multiplicity for popular demand, which is noted by Latour as contributing to the originals own value.
In counselling then, is there an essence? Is being there in the moment an essence? One that cannot be replicated in the absence of synchronised connectivity? Is texting a poor facsimilie? The line of argument explored would suggest the answer is no. Instead it is different. The essence is in it's existence, not an antecedent event, but in it's being performed. Does the reproduction in another form lessen its value? Perhaps. The processes of translation from one medium to another may fail to capture the 'things' of importance , what then can be added or removed? Is it essential to counselling that it be 'in the moment' that it be synchronised not asynchronised? Far from becoming “sterile” counselling so reconstructed becomes more accessible. So where does the crime lie? I suggest it lies in the gap where the index for reality is misunderstood. Text counselling far from being barren or sterile is serving a purpose attested to by those who continue to make use of it.
It provides an option, the value of which is evident in its being used and in its ongoing development and ongoing translations.

A naked kiwi and making things public

Just musing on making things public. The Johari window identifies 4 quadrants regarding self disclosure. 1. Whats known to me and known to others (obviously no new knowledge here). 2. Whats known (about me)to others but not known by me (my supervisor seems to think I write well...if he keeps saying it, i may come to believe it, but it may also be that affirmations make it so or at least increase the confidence with which I write, saying the opposite could always make it worse...). 3. Whats known to me and not to others (the data analysis and combinations of learning that are unique to me, and also some things that are better kept in the box!) 4. Whats not known by others or myself (the area of new knowledge, to be discovered...the phd) But the Johari window was really only related to knowing oneself better. What of 'other things'? 

Arguably,  there are some things that maybe shouldn't be public (for further ref see Susan Leigh Star who talks of such risks in terms of social justice and vulnerabilities were they made known). And there are some things that need to be told (sensitive research via Renzetti and Lee). Latour writes of whats hidden; what's blackboxed, what's normalised but is really a construction. Behind every initiative there are masses, myriad other things holding in place, tugging, pulling.  These myriad 'others'  Latour refers to as actors - they act - pushing, pulling, some are human, some are otherwise. 

In this pulling and shoving there is also no beginning, our connections always place us in the middle of things chronologically and geographically. In citing Samual Butler, Latour also reminds us/me that  the absence of movement and the absence of voice, is also political, for silence - seen as a virtue may be because it renders us agreeable to some of our fellows... What remains said/unsaid....what is performed & not.

Latour has also performed what's usually hidden in an art gallery exhibition looking at making things public. This brought together three modes of representation usually kept apart: How to represent people? Politics. How to represent objects? Science. How to represent their collective gathering? Art. Latour provides direction for considering how things curated (deliberate) and aggregate (deliberate and otherwise).  What holds such  assemblages together  such shapes...provides imetus for considering disputed 'things' also. To this end, there is reason to consider not only what pulls things together but what also pulls or tugs or attempts to unravel...or to hold fast, to resist...and that such things too may be human and otherwise. To tell  the ontological politics then of what is  both shaped and shaping (not that we have full knowledge of everything involved). And what of whats not included but pushed away, or 'othered'? 

I spent one of Auckland's glorious days inside the Auckland museum and its exhibition of secrets. I also revisited this exhibit this very wet day online. The exhibition provides a different reality to that usually experienced in the museum. This performance was of the inner workings revealed an exhibition in its own right of the behind the scenes work. I have chosen to describe the performance of secrets at the museum alongside actor-network theory and make use of reassembling the social for providing some structure to this. The first scene is of crating and uncrating, a provocation then to thinking outside of the box in which such works were displayed. This involves appreciating that which is unknown. The opening on arrival is described as always a revelation. Long-hidden objects emerge, reviving memory and invoking  silent questions of nonvocal actors -  What am I? Where do I come from? How did I get here? Why have I been hidden for so long? What stories do I tell? The objects on display in a museum represent but a fraction of the total collection and invites viewers to therefore consider what is seen beneath what is normally portrayed -  the iceberg, not the tip. This opens up further questions of involvement and of what was deemed noteworthy. The second scene is called registration, but its really of accounting, what's in and what's out, reminding me of Latour's first source of uncertainty where groups and their makeup are/might be disputed. Every object that passes through the doors – coming or going – must be accounted for. A political act of what fits and what doesn't..."Does it fit our collection policy? Our times? Does it need special conservation work? Are there any legal or copyright issues in displaying it? And when the museum decides that something is past its use-by date – known as “de-accession” – the whole process has to happen in reverse..." The third scene extends on this, What's grouped together? Who decides? Whats the structure of the performance in other words, how are things to be taken or 'other'taken? As a source of Latourian uncertainty, this reflects distributed agency. Who are the actors involved? The fourth scene is of the way things were. The museum isn’t 'just a big display case' it’s also a working space. Many objects are old (stating the obvious) and fragile or damaged when they arrive. "The job to preserve them, sometimes even improve them, so they can be exhibited, studied, interpreted and enjoyed isn’t always easy. Some exhibits are simply beyond repair. Others have been mistreated or neglected. And some are so unusual or rare that knowing how to treat them is a challenge in itself. And then there’s the question of whether to repair something at all – perhaps the damage or the missing parts tell their own story, every bit as important as an object in “perfect” condition. Or that the 'story' as told is no longer one that is wanted to be told. The museum conservator’s role is "to balance all these considerations and stay true to the purpose of the collection or exhibition." In this there is a marked similarity with ANT research, what's uncovered involves work, how this is then treated to let actors speak for themselves, as well as consideration for how the very telling also alters. The fifth scene considers storage, "Not just any old storage, of course, because everything has its own special needs. There are very large objects, very old and delicate objects, very precious objects – and living objects too. The temperature and humidity of our storage systems has to be strictly controlled and monitored. Just as important is that we can find and access an object when it is required for research or display." The treatment of what's stored is practical as well as ethical and political and philosophical. How is content to be treated, what damage might display do, what might enhance, whats in, out, here or there... The sixth scene is of artefacts in terms of books and papers. The exhibition details 2 kilomentres of manuscripts and archives, thousands of maps, words and pictures, ideas and knowledge and inspiration. Books are described as not sitting on shelves in isolation; they interconnect with the real world. I am reminded of much that i write being stored, of the mindmaps made and connected to, and of those not and of the millions of words written and the small percentage of these that are given life within a thesis. In the exhibit is the story of a golden frog (supposedly) stolen...and recovered...or not. The story told is that the display stolen was never the real thing. My mind wonders if anything is as it seems. And there's a sense of de ja vu for this web based cybertrip, trips on itself in act seven and repeats the 5th scene. Whats available through a different search onsite are stories of the naked and the dead. No-one knows how the kiwi, or at least this particular one, lost its feathers. As the kiwi itself says, plucked if I know... whether on school based travels, or moths or insects, or whether it should be kept to show deletrious effects or of positive aspects...providing opportunity to an audience to make meaning out of what is shared. Here is a sense of Latour's third source of uncertainty for actors too have agency, the links seem to twist on themselves, what's intended and what occurs differ, there are intended and unintended effects, unanticipated as well as unknown effects. 

In reviewing this, where might this story lead, what will the reader make of it? A very Latourian moment occurs as the exhibition comes 'fullcircle". The fourth source of uncertainty is an awareness of 'things' being matters of concern rather than matters of fact, and the knowledge that things could also be assembled differently or 'other'wise. And in ending is the fith source of uncertainty as there are risks inherent in writing down meanings, as if there were but one... I am again indebted to Artichoke for bringing to my attention the museums display, and well worth repeat visits.

what is knowledge; then what is learning; then what might be the shape of teaching CCK08

"Knowledge is, on this theory, literally the set of connections formed by actions and experience." (Kop & Hill, 2008)

This is a very actor-network way of thinking.
That knowledge happens in relation; in connection.

If we accept this as true, then how might we reconfigure teaching?
What is it we need to teach?

What becomes important?
The ability to discern the networks inside of which 'knowledge' is constructed.
The abilities to judge 'knowledge' in terms of how it explains or stands up in various applications.
The ability to cross networks.

These are contentious teaching and learning skills.
And more.
Power becomes central.

Foucault's knowledge/power inside of learning theory?
Bruno Latour's actor-network theory put to teaching about learning?

This has potential for radical transformation of education as we know it.
What would be taught would be critical engagement.
There is no need for learning facts, the emphasis shifts to what can be done with knowledge in relationship and how is that knowledge constructed in relationships.

Chaos and anarchy and power and control.

At its most base, a connectivist approach emphsises
"its not what you know, but who you know."
This is not tongue in cheek.
This is a radical approach to take on teaching and learning.

Who you connect with, what happens in those connections has been described in the writing of Johansson, F. (2006). The Medici effect. What elephants and epidemics can teach us about innovation. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Crossing networks creating opportunities for new knowledge to occur.


But what is truly radical here is the critical engagement with how knowledge is constructed and maintained. This is about power.
As such a connectivist theory of learning would, to my mind, be positioned within critical educational pedagogy.

I find myself disagreeing with Kop and Hill (2008). In their conclusion they argue,
"A paradigm shift, indeed, may be occurring in educational theory, and a new epistemology may be emerging, but it does not seem that connectivism’s contributions to the new paradigm warrant it being treated as a separate learning theory in and of its own right. Connectivism, however, continues to play an important role in the development and emergence of new pedagogies, where control is shifting from the tutor to an increasingly more autonomous learner."
What I think they have failed to take into account is the very serious business of what happens when knowledge is seen as and taught as being constructed in relations, applied in relations, and that this occurs inside and outside of formal educational institutions.
There is potential in this for a paradigmatic shift.
The balance of power gets shifted, or at least shaken, for a start.

This was brought on after an almost two week break from engaging in CCK08, and a very light reading of the paper by Kop and Hill
I could be totally wrong.
But its worth thinking about.

technology does not have its own trajectory

Who killed Aramis; everyone and no-one.
She dies because of a lack of love; a lack of commitment.
She was not negotiated.
The gap between technology and the social just collapsed for me.
They are one; the one does not happen without the other.
Technology/social.

In my data collecting of counselling changes with the advent of txt, I am noticing the expectation that txt will do it by itself, and it doesn't.
There is 'a collective drift of good intent'.
Yet service costs are vulnerable.
Support, like all support, inconsistent.
The innovation is ongoing- from mobile phone palmcorder to computer then through YORA...
Negotiations are partial and ongoing.(Arent they always?)
This fragility goes unnoticed.
How does the service adapt to suit the medium, how might the medium alter to suit the service.
Txt counselling; the wrapper or the present; all there is or nothing.
Adapt or perish.
Negotiating a middle ground.


How do I <3 u
let me no. the ways
>1
<160

(^-^)

7 memes for (successful) PhD / thesis writing

Borrowing heavily on the writing of Irene Goodman (author of 7 steps for highly successful authors) as well as ideas from thesis authors I have known and have read...rather than from any personal experience of completion :)
and therefore with very limited credibility but with a lot of interest in completion and therefore reading about such things...

1. Dont give up.
Bruno Latour in Aramis also identifies this critical factor in the making of a project, to hold it together, one must not stop holding it together.
2. Write.
Got nothing to write about?...Put readings (which you write about in the notes section) into the endnote library, blog about writing it, rearrange the data collected- might be construed as data analysis if the words aren't too scary... make writing enjoyable, an hour of journal reading and entering same into endnote while at a cafe is one of my strategies for making writing pleasurable,
I also practice the writing style of authors I enjoy or who have the profound ideas... seems to help new understandings flow. However, this is the opposite to Irene Goodman's advice, hers is to find your authentic voice and stick with it. I'm not there, yet.
3. Schedule the thesis into your life. Mine takes up a lot of my life. Apparently highly effective authors are disciplined writers and will treat the writing as their work. Enjoyable or not, they will write. They will also have a life.
For some it works same time every day.
For others its the reading when the kids are awake (as its easier to pick up and put down) and writing when they are asleep.
I settle for what feels like all the time outside of the day job and sometimes inside of the day job. It actually isnt this. But its an omnipresence that I am happy with. If I didnt like it, this would be a serious problem.
4. Plan.
I have a few.
There is what I tell myself is pure fabrication that I write for the annual review.
Then there's the one that I am comfortable with, based in what Sherry Turkle calls a triumph of tinkering. Citing Claude Levi-Strauss on bricolage, she describes an arranging and rearranging "Bricoleurs approach problem solving by entering into a relationship with their work materials that has far more the flavor of a conversation than a monologue".
Where the writing of a composition comes first and then the plan; a softer style of bottom up rather than top down.
I do plan to finish, i have semi inflexible dates in my head, this years for data collecting, but its also got some writing, and some rewriting. Next year is for writing also, but its an analysis focus, in the absence of funding the year after is the end point as it will be the writing and the rewiriting. Tinkering and polishing. There is still an end insight I have heard stories of those who might polish and edit down to the blank page. I do not intend to be one of the,m. I am aware that I can get lost in wordsmithing and I take heart from Latour, "a good thesis is a finished one".
5. Want it.
Other factors in your life may have to move around this one, which comes first? The thesis or the job? The personal fitness or the thesis? The social life or the thesis? What do you still want at the end of the thesis? My family. I know my bottom line.
6. Stay with, and work, what works for you.
Supervisor, methodology, friends, subject and even the technology. Having the advantage of actor network theory is a convoluted double take, I can look out there with it, and i can also look in here with it; this is a retake on the first suggested strategy; it takes work to make it coalesce.
7. Here to there
Write to your audience. Terry Evans (co-author with Carey Denholm of Doctorates Downunder : keys to successful doctoral study in Australia and New Zealand. Camberwell, Victoria, ACER Press, 2006.) told me its an incredibly selfish undertaking writing for oneself, one's supervisor and one's markers. 3 readers guaranteed. They want to know that you can take it (and them) from here to there. New knowledge. coherently.

If you are/were writing a thesis what would be your 7 memes?

memes (a virus for the www?)
Memes; the word rhymes with dreams and is short for mimemes, from the word mimetic. Infectious ideas; a micropersuasion, spread from person to person.

The gift relationship

If I give you something are you better or worse for it?
In part this is decided by what the gift entails, is it wanted, needed, adventitious ... but another aspect is that in giving and receiving the process brings its own costs.

Rather than debating the goodness or badness of such cost, arguably the most wicked problem of left vs right politics, I intend to stay within an actor-network approach in describing the relationship. I will use the language of actor-network theory in describing what occurs, hence participants will be referred to as actors. This is not to imply any pretence or staged performance, simply put actors refer to participants with agency. This discussion is also informed by my reading of Titmuss' 'The gift relationship'.

The gift takes place with no ongoing relationship between the actors.
The norm in this voluntary telephone counselling relationship is that the actors have no prior and no ongoing relationship. The actors do not personally know each other and have never, and will never, meet. The policy of the organisation is to to maintain the confidential nature of the service and not establish dependent ongoing relationships.
However, exceptions might occur; by chance a caller and a counsellor may know each other; by chance a repeat call is made when the same counsellor is on; or if the caller is a longtime caller there may be a limited prior relationship where conversations have occurred previously or there have been notes made of the call. With email, txt and Internet postings there may be artefacts, transcripts, of prior conversations.

There is no reciprocity; there is no certainty of a gift in return, present or in the future. The counsellor neither requires or wishes for a gift in return. There is no obligation on the recipient to provide a gift in return. It may be that there is some expectation of the time spent having been worthwhile, but this is not a requirement for the gift given. And, remains unknown unless a caller expresses thanks.

The nature of the gift, whether beneficial to the recipient actor, is unknown. The presumption on the part of the counselling actor is that being heard and listened to has value. There may be information, even advice suggested. Whether this is of benefit or harm is unclear and may be considered a contested notion; counselling forms are themselves subject to being contested. Inside of a Rogerian counselling approach, giving advice that fosters dependency may be considered unhelpful. However, raising awareness of options, and assisting in clarifying are seen as useful strategies.
At its best, to the receiver the gift could be life itself. There are some experiences disclosed by recipients of telephone counselling that support this. However, the feedback for those for whom the service has been unhelpful, harmful, fatal even, remains unknown.

In analysing some of the roles gifts play in society Titmuss looks at aspects to do with the social psychology of gift giving. He discusses the gift relationship as a generator of identity, gifts being one of the ways an image of self can be generated in both one's own mind and in that of others. Gifts are also tools of aspiration for and protection of status and control. For example, gifts as 'conspicuous waste shaming recipients'. The gift may also create a gratitude imperative in compelling recipricosity or controlling the behaviour of the recipient. The gift exchange being a technique for the regulation of shared guilt.

However, in the gift of time evident in voluntary counselling such issues have limited relevance. Anonymity in the counselling relationship, created by conditions which do not support ongoing relationship or knowledge of counselling having been given or recieved by any person external to the event destroys the arguments regarding shared guilt, control, shame or imperatives. What may still hold relevance is that gift giving by the counsellor actor may in that person's mind support a sense of self as generous and or helpful to others. It is also possible that listing such community volunteerism in one's cv may also create a favourable impression and imagined advantage.

A typology of those who donate counselling time at this agency.
1. Paid , counselling time sold for what the market will bear. Counselling not percieved as a gift.
2. Paid professional, who provides counselling time to sustain income on regular basis.
3. Pay induced volunteer, expect payment for volunteering, a form of profit or disturbance money. Individual sponteneity not a dominant characteristic eg employer requiring time that the employer pays for time be donated to a voluntary organisation of the actors choosing. This seems to meet a collective target of such an employer ; a "greening" of the company".
4. Responsibility donor (recipient pays before or after having received counselling by 'giving in kind' out of a sense of obligation).
5. Significant other credit donor (can be viewed as an insurance scheme of donating in advance or after the effect for significant others one wished had access to such a service).
6. Captive volunteer; compelled via social group but would not otherwise have volunteered. eg student for course credit, eg community service requirement of a court order or on the advice of a lawyer.
7. Fringe benefit voluntary donor; tangible reward though non monetary eg recieving minimal reward such as a certificate in counselling accredited by the organization may have external validity, eg on cv.
8. Voluntary community donor; this type being the closest approximation in social reality to the abstract concept of giving freely. The primary characteristics of such donations being:
the absence of tangible immediate rewards in monetary or non monetary forms,
the absence of penalties, financial or otherwise, (so no reward and no punishment)
and the knowledge among donors that their donations are for unnamed strangers without distinction of age, sex, medical condition, income, class, religion or ethnic group.

With regard to the voluntary community donor, Titmuss states that no donor type can be said to be characterised by complete disinterested altruism. There must be some sense of obligation, approval, and interest; some awareness of need and purpose of the blood gift; perhaps some organised rivalry in generosity; some knowledge of need- of others unable to donate, and some expectation that a return gift may be needed and received at some future time.
Nevertheless, in this gift relationship (giving of oneself voluntarily for telephone counselling there is no formal contract between giver and receiver of counselling, no legal bond, no overt power over, no domination, constraint or compulsion, no sense of shame or guilt, no gratitude imperative, no need for penitence, no money, and no explicit guarantee of or wish for a reward or a return gift. The giving of time is an act of free will; an exercise of choice; of conscience.

Virtually all of this organisation's telephone counselors fall into this category. Tangible rewards can be said to be minimal,or negative: a certificate in personal development and in counselling. This comes with substantive personal cost of money, time, and personal involvement.

While the typology shows that there is variation in the in the concept of volunteer, gradations of motives, and behaviour show extremes.
In comparing this study of a gift relationship, especially where there is deep emotive field as with blood donating, the giving of time in telephone counselling characterised by the involvement with the welfare of others is also seen to be inextricably moulded by cultural and moral values. (Now Latour isnt going to accept this, from whence do these agents come exerting pressure....however, I can look at how my own thinking was developed, I can consider the influence of my parents, my grandparents, my friends and identify that those I respect value volunteerism, altruism, community service. I might also discern the shaping of such values by discussing the influences on actors that I have the privilige of interviewing.)

evocative objects

In reading Sherry Turkle's (2007) book, Evocative objects. Things we think with. I am provoked; the essay on cell phones has yet to be written. In its absence i write the chapter myself. Fanfiction for the Fanfact world?

Objects speak in ways that destroy the simple stories of relating. This theme is enlarged upon in the writing of Bruno Latour (1996). In my own story, i too find complexity; a not so simple story of relating. In Turkle's book, each narrative is paired with a short excerpt drawn from theory, talking philosophy down to earth. The excerpt I have chosen is taken from Annmarie Mol's, "The body multiple."

...a philosophical narrative. If we focus on foregrounding the practices inside of which objects are handled, the far reaching effect is reality multiplies. If practices are foreground there is no longer a single passive object, instead objects come into being, and disappear, with the practices in which they are manipulated. This begs the question of how they are related. For even if objects differ from one practice to another, there are relations between these practices. Far from being fragments, these objects hang together, somehow. The question rather than uncovering some truth, is how are objects handled in practice. The objects handled in practice are not the same from one site to another; so how does the coordination between such objects proceed? And how do different objects that go under a single name avoid clashes and explosive confrontations? And might it be if there are tensions between them, various versions of an object sometimes depend on one another.
"If it is not removed from the reality that sustains it, reality is multiple."
Paraphrasing Ann Marie Mol, The body multiple. Ontology in medical practice.

My cell (mobile phone) is a bridge crossing distance, time, relationships and is integral in my transition.
She helps me manage my life, my engagements and disengagements.

The first cell (phone) was a present, then the present got a present, dressed up and personalised both on the inside (with her own directory of contacts, ringtones to differentiate mine from others...and also on the outside. A pretty cover to shelter her from an inclement environment such as being dropped, or the tortures of being stuffed in a pocket,a handbag or chucked in the car. Personalisation also decreased the risk of mistaken ownership; accidental or by theft.

I found she extended my reach; no more waiting by a phone for a call. Such a quaintness associated with memories of aged love.
Though the expectations of being forever available to the reach of others became a source of contention. "I tried to call you, turn your phone on." I wanted to throw her off the harbour bridge. I liked the convenience of calling out, I resented the intrusive beck and call nature it placed on my relationship. "Leave me messages that would make me want to hear you, i would reply. But I kept her; the ph. that is. And the relationship :)

She evolved, I still use prepay, and so there are reasonably frequent times when she's not topped up and i cant call or txt. Her charge holds fairly well- a few days at least, and her reception is considerably better than earlier incarnations. She's evolved, newer renditions have made her smaller, though her functionality is considerably enhanced. My functionality too has increased. I am more intune with her, I keep her on, she's almost always with me: keys, money, cell phone.
I am dependent; I have handed over part of my brain to her, she is now part of my external memory: for phone numbers, addresses, hairdressing appointments.... She is my surrogate timekeeper, alarm, clock, mini sized torch, camera... And security blanket.

I had a miscarriage while away on a writing retreat, and my cell became my best friend. Supported, she enabled me. I could stay in contact with the people i cared about, and who cared for me, as i got myself home the 200km needed. She contributed to my safety but also bridged love and belonging.

For my daughter, her cell too provides a sense of belonging, enhancing what it is to be human. Always tethered Turkle says, but there is also a knowing; a comfort that others are there. Anytime, always. She has friends, many of them, affirmed by a contact list. Security comes in a slim purple chic package of sophistication and aesthetic beauty. I feel safer in trusting the cell connection that our daughter can go further; do more. Tethered risk enhancement.

My cell has taught me a new language, txt. 160 characters or less shapes each message. I use even fewer:
c u soon.
am l8.
call me.
Am at *bucks
Each txt demonstrating variations on a theme:
I don't want to speak to you but will leave you a message.
I don't want to speak to you; either you or this message is of less financial value, than the pittance a call would cost.
I don't want to speak to you, but i need you to get it right- i txt what i want you to remember: there's the shopping list, the address, the time, there is no room for denial.
I want to know what you're doing, I remind you of my 'presence'. Do you respond? Do i still matter? i want you to know that i matter, im here, i care, i want you to care, notice me!

4 me 2 txt takes 2 hands, and reading glasses. I know im old when I txt. A default grammatical correction corrects me now in the use of my first language; i becomes I, but she does not know what to do with im. I choose to ignore the niceties of language construction. My sentences get shorter. My words shorten, was ok not short enough? K. My punctuation worsens and predictive txt brings a whole new level of confused relating.
"Dad has alot me rain"
Half a world away an answer, huh?

My cell is moody, she can be quiet in meetings, if I engage with her according to her rules. There is need to demonstrate the correct etiquette to make this happen. Neglected, she has a life of her own. She can at inopportune times draw attention to herself; our initial appointment with the school principal was interrupted by the attention seeking chirruping incoming txt message. At other times she spontaneously elects not to function. I nurture her, feed her with prepay, charge her up. In an act reminiscent of open heart surgery I open her up investigate her internal workings, take the battery out, remove her sim card, put her back together, watch for life to spring forth. She needs my care. And I am careful of her (one of her relatives was killed in a horrible washing machine incident). Smallness paradoxically increases some vulnerabilities but decreases others. She has learned to manage me better.
Our symbiotic relationship works. I am/We are technically co-dependent. Technologically enhanced, I am provocatively cyborg Donna Haraway (1991) expands on this shifting quality of the human species. A hybrid of machine and organism; we are shaped in relation to each other.

Having fun in the funhouse, with mirrors reflecting on mirrors on mirrors, I thought I had a cell phone, but now she has me.
"You think you have an organizer, but in time, your organizer has you" (Turkle, 2007, p. 310).
And you, reader...you thought you were reading a blog?
Has it taken you?
Reality is multiple.

References
Latour, B. (1996). Aramis: or the love of technology (C. Porter, Trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Haraway, D. (1991). "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature New York; Routledge.
Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: ontology in medical practice. London: Duke University Press.
Turkle, S. (2007). Evocative objects. Things we think with. London; MIT Press.

Things we think with

We find it familiar to consider objects as useful or aesthetic, as necessities or vain indulgences. We are on less familiar ground when we consider objects as companions to our emotional lives or as provocations to thought. The notion of evocative objects brings together these two less familiar ideas, underscoring the inseparability of thought and feeling in our relationship to things. we think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with.

(Turkle, 2007, p.5)
In the selection of essays edited by Sherry Turkle, each object brings together intellect and emotion, in each case, the author focuses not on the instrumental power or purpose but on the object as companion in life experiences. Turkle points to how a train is connecting emotional worlds and the mental space between computer keyboard and screen as creating erotic possibility.

I look at my daughter as her face lights up when she sees Finnish band HIM playing in NZ in March and secs later the mobile phone too is lit up, the appointment calandar loaded and txts sent. Its 11.00 at night in real time but for txt this doesn't matter. No family will be distrurbed, just the recipient- and if they did not want to receive txt they could have this component turned off, or on silent...we have discussed this before. (The teenager that lurks in her has 'all the answers.')

"We live our lives in the middle of things" says Turkle.
Turkle, with a psychoanalytic background emphasizes the emotional component. She makes links to Freud saying : the shadow of the object fell upon the ego.
And i think to myself, yes. The ego of young people seems held or contained in txting, a vulnerability less fragile. This is what my first interviews with a telephone/txt counsellor seems to endorse. When someone txt counselling sends an SMS txt that says I cant talk, there is the possibility that it is too hard emotionally.
Latour describes the sociotechnical involvement but not of such drives as ego. I recall cj's reminder that I should eschew structures, and I am back to following the actors on this one (I cant see them naming their practice as shaped by ego defence mechanisms and stories told need no imposed meanings ...)

She also cites Walt Whitman who said "a child went forth everyday/ and the first object he look'd upon, that object he became."
With my daughter I see the object and she have already morphed; extended as cyborg.
With foresight cj reminded me of Latour and the 'delegation of work to things not being simple'.

the strength of weak ties

"Strength does not come from concentration, purity and unity, but
from dissemination, heterogeneity and the careful plaiting of weak ties."

(Latour, 1997).
Plaiting the weak ties is the metaphor used in making a more durable entity: "...resistance, obduracy and sturdiness is more easily achieved through netting, lacing, weaving, twisting, of ties that are weak by themselves, and that each tie, no matter how strong, is itself woven out of still weaker threads..."
In applications of communications and computer technologies for counselling, there appears to be some strengthening of the weak ties; another actor is enrolled. Lifeline has launched txt messaging, and using an Internet based website for postings through a web page targeting young people with depression. This seems to add a little more substance to a 'novel' practice, the larger and arguably more conservative organisation seems to add a veneer of respectability to a method of counselling considered suspect by others.
I really want to follow this lead... it is a new endeavour for lifeline, being launched 3/12/07. Youthline's text service began December 2004 and Internet postings much earlier with the launch of the Urge website. One aspect argued by the CEO OF Youthline in an October 2007 press release was about not reinventing the texting wheel. The competitive funding model to my mind, continues to put services up against each other. The potential is that threads unravel.

A further musing installment on the question: what is occurring as counselors (re)shape their practice; and what is practice doing back?

Drowning in description

I lost the plot.
And revisited Bruno Latour

Professor — So… I take it that you are a bit lost?
Student — Well, yes. I am finding it difficult, I have to say, to apply Actor Network Theory to my case study in organisations.
Professor — No wonder— it isn’t applicable to anything!
Student — But we were taught… I mean… it seems like hot stuff around here. Are you saying it’s really useless?
...
Professor — [ANT's] a theory, and a strong one I think, but about how to study things, or rather how not to study them. Or rather how to let the actors have some room to express themselves.

So, no more discourse analysis.
Except...
I'm a slow learner.
The discourse analysis was a means to considering how txt is shaped by the cell phone. That being invisible to each other requires questions of identity and of clarification. That the first letter is default capitalised, that there are 160 characters incl blanks so messages are constrained.
(so why do people write txt as short as poss? They rarely use 160, seems the average would be between 50-70)
Back to following the actors....

Professor — ... I would abstain from frameworks altogether. Just describe the state of affairs at hand.
Student — ‘Just describe’. Sorry to ask: but is this not terribly naïve? ...
P — Because you think description is easy? ...I have, myself, always found this incredibly demanding.... we go, we listen, we learn, we practice, we become competent, we change our views. Very simple really: it’s called field work. Good field work always produces a lot of new descriptions.
S — But I have lots of descriptions already! I’m drowning in them. That’s just my problem. That’s why I’m lost and that’s why I thought it would be useful to come to you. Can’t ANT help me with this mass of data? I need a framework!
P —‘My Kingdom for a frame!’. Very moving; I think I understand your desperation. But no, ANT is pretty useless for that. Its main tenet is that actors themselves make everything, including their own frames, their own theories, their own contexts, their own metaphysics, even their own ontologies… So the direction to follow would be more descriptions, I am afraid... if your description needs an explanation, it’s not a good description, that’s all. Only bad descriptions need an explanation. It’s quite simple really....I have never seen a good description in need of an explanation. But I have read countless numbers of bad descriptions to which nothing was added by a massive addition of ‘explanations’! And ANT did not help…

I just revisited cj's advice on data collecting, its succinct:

stay broad, eschew structures

back to following the actors...

Research possibilities in social networked spaces

Research possibilities in social networked spaces is an area i have been thinking about with regard to my own study on texting, internet message board postings and email counselling. In gaining ethical approval and in not wanting to damage an online community in any way, i am looking at self reported experiences rather than actual client experiences. I was beginning to get quite despondent about the research validity and reliability. When research occurs how do we know that everything involved is not contrived, if I want to study handwashing then self reporting is obviously going to give a different measure than observations. The presence or absence of reality was getting torturous. Sherry Turkle and Donna Harraway have convinced me that the borders of reality/unreality are blurred. I began to consider that all research is contrived to some extent, it all leaves a footprint, alters the events.... and then i began to think so the best i can do is virtual research in a virtual world. If i were an ethnographer in 2nd life then i might have observations, but again is it of any value, can it be useful for others in a terrestrial life... Fortunately some reading got me out of this funk. Bruce Mason's article Issues in virtual ethnography reminded me of actor network theory (as if i could forget....but had!) Latour says: follow the actors. So whether they are in this reality or a virtual one doesn't matter ....trace the connecting. Its of no real issue inside of ANT as to whether its a real person- its an actor, just stay with the actor in or out of whats called reality, trace the connecting through cyberspaces.
ANT is described in similar terms to a CSI programme, trace connections, let the evidence speak, doesnt need to be human (or a live human...) to be given voice. So I thought i would check out the soon to be released CSI that traverses 2ndlife:

holding on and letting go

Do an internet search for Leunigs holding on and letting go cartoon, its a special piece advising one to hold on as one might a day old chicken, or a live fish, or the queens handbag....and that letting go is a whole new area to be managed in another cartoon, another day.
In making change happen, the hype isnt enough.
No matter how evangelical the early adopters might be, this isnt enough.
No matter how sparkly the innovation, the sparkle does not create its own S shaped curved trajectory.
To make change happen in Health promotion there is a mantra about making the healthy choice, the easy choice.
Sometimes this is about letting go- recognising habits, letting go of whats comfortable, identifying goals, creating opportunities for doing things differently ...
Leunig's cartoon wisdom on how to hold on points to this.
Latour, Callon, Law all point to this. Actor network theory identifies the 'work' involved but it still seems that the letting go is often bypassed when talking about change. I have just been reading futurelab 2006 on social software and learning networks. Little regard was given to what would have to be unmade, unattached.
Looking at what maintains the status quo is as important as strategizing implementation.

Impressionable human: reassembling IT, reassembles me

" ...impressive observations concern what we have learned about humans based on our interactions with robots rather than the other way around." so claims Adam Kolber
While he cites Sherry Turkle regarding what we learn about being human by studying robotics, i am also aware of what i learn about myself in studying IT. I am in danger of becoming too narssistic, my own reflecting on my own reflecting could see me becoming lost in navel gazing.

Today i am an impressionable human.
I attempted going to work, but the number of parking spaces in excess of the numbers of people needing to park created an opportunity for going to a cafe to read. So, reading Latour, Reassembling the social, I think I finally get it.
" The social has never explained anything; the social has to be explained instead."
Latour uses the analogy of a building site explaining that when seeing a construction site, there is the awareness that things could be different, or at least that they could still fail." Its not that i am socialised to be good , bad or indifferent about my work, there is no social stuff making me behave this way rather than that, but there is an assemblage of factors, all which leave traces that must be accounted for if they are to be considered as having influence.
The social construction of what is 'real', involves being able to discern or to deploy the associations.
In a footnote, (p.95) Latour cites Deleuze as saying "Relativism is not the relativity of truth but the truth of relation."

It is these relations, these constructions, associations, assemblages that creates what is real (for a time). What is discerned may be part of this, may even bolster or strengthen some of the ties that bind.
But all of this can also unravel, and as Latour identifies p. 103. this is a difficult spot.

Who killed Pandora? A partial perspective

The picture of Pandora by Rossetti is held by the Liverpool museum

Pandora: Or my love of technology (borrowing heavily from and acknowledging the influence of Bruno Latour's Aramis).
The following is a lightweight ANT (actor-network theory) informed analysis.

A starting point is called for, and maybe I am being a little node-centric but I have to start somewhere, and Latour suggests: Follow the actors.

The actors (and I could have called these actants so there was less assumption re human or not, and no intention is made of gender excluding language). These include-
myself (obviously)
Pandora (a rather nebulous entity, a piece of software, a treasure, who by the way is not dead, just dead to me and to others who live outside of the USA)
The actors that created her (again, a superficial analysis so somewhat limited in naming entities). Tim Westergren is one founding father.
The juggernaughts of copyright enforcement (faceless, nameless at this point, certainly I can in my partial perspective cast these as villains)
cj, the person who led me to Pandora

A point of passage, my ibook, or any computer with broadband. Without this, my connection is literally impossible.

Some archeology and chronology
Pandora existed without me, she still does, but we are no longer together :(
I was enticed, cj described her so I went visiting and became enamored, seduced and enrolled, inscribing not on paper but online, a prenuptial agreement offering limited durability, reads as free trial, and then a need for an American address for a sustained relationship (my best friends brother obliged, two more actants)(Susan Leigh Star might call this some invisible work, Law might suggest a little subversion, others maybe a little translation on the instructions, maybe a workaround, nudging here and there to make accommodations and enrollment possible, preventing her asphyxiation momentarily). And I enrolled others.

I have the artefact of my amusingspace Nov 2006 weblog to point to.
And our relationship was somewhat real for a time.
Then somewhat abruptly the relationship was terminated.
Not because I want this, and not it seems because Pandora wants this. Nor Pandora’s makers.
Again, I have artefacts to point to, an emailed Dear Pandora visitor letter.

The juggernaughts of copyright would seem to require the makers of Pandora to look for IPS addresses where residency is not consistent with the address provided. I presume another actant of a software search engine let loose in the 'blackbox' that contains Pandora, can seek and destroy. There is also the actant of USA based legislation to suggest copyright infringement. Presumably there are fiscally driven actants driving this.

The copyright juggernaughts require Pandora to disengage certain assemblages, myself included.
Perhaps our alignment and disengagement was inscripted, thou shalt not covert American Goddesses, no USA citizenship, no marriage. The juggernaughts placed pressure on Pandora’s makers and have suggested her continued existence is contingent on the policing of her relationships. Her future love affairs needs be xenophobic until such times as further negotiations allow such prejudice to be reduced.

This relationship changed me. I learnt of musicians and artists that I otherwise would not have. I bought CDs based on my relationship with Pandora. As much as I thought I could use her, she also used me. We enjoyed and enhanced each other. A symbiotic sociotechnical love affair, and to paraphrase Latour, this relationship was as solid as it gets.
I will get over it, and believe she's already over me.
This relationship is more ephemeral than ever and is now love lost. Faint hope is held of more negotiations that will renew the relationship.
My first love as cyborg is beyond my grasp.