Trajectories, social worlds, and boundary objects: A framework for analyzing the politics of technology

Many people recognize that politics plays a central role in sociotechnical change. Despite this recognition, however, there is little discussion in the human factors literature about what the term `politics' actually means, and how it can be studied. In this article, we propose a definition of politics, based on symbolic interactionism, a sociological tradition that emphasizes the close relationship between human agency and social structures. We illustrate the use of the approach, and some of its key concepts, through a case study of a human factors intervention in the trial of an intelligent manufacturing system in Australia.