Experimenting for transformation: the case of technologies for inclusive employment

People with a disability face exclusion when trying to find employment and remain employed. A transformation towards more inclusive employment is long due. Increasingly actors in policy, researcher, industry, and citizens are exploring the potential of technologies for inclusive employment of people with a disability. However, the success of attempts at using technology for inclusion has been hit and miss. Part of the reason for this is the complexity and unpredictability of the problem. There are many different people involved in workplace exclusion who all might all represent different values and have different solutions for the problem. At the same time, it is unclear which technological innovations work well for inclusion and which ones don’t. In this thesis, I take this situation as a starting point for experimenting with different approaches for transformation. I take theoretical insights from fields like Disability Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Actor-Network Theory and combine them with methodological insights from Reflexive Monitoring in Action and Situated Intervention. Building on notions from these fields, I analyse the setup a Learning Evaluation of 7 experimental pilots that all experiment with inclusive technologies. Taking on the role of reflexive- and situated monitor, I follow how these experiments attempt to navigate dichotomies, people coming together and forming associations, and the many insecurities and discomforts that come with aiming for transformation. In chapter 1, I introduce the notion of scripts; tracing the scripts and re-inscriptions that take place in the experiments to move beyond dichotomous understandings of disability and technology. In moving beyond the prosthetic-transformative dichotomy I show how shaping the socio-cultural environment around a technology is what matters for inclusion. In chapter 2, I reflect care practices that take place in the workplace. I show how care can take place in two layers of care; the care out there in the workplace and the care we as researchers bring. I then show how it is important to keep these layers in tension and how a position of being alongside can be helpful to do so. Moreover, I propose that being alongside can provide space for vulnerabilities and uncertainties of both researchers and stakeholders. In chapter 3, I show how practice-informed, empirical work can contribute to more broad scale transformation. I adopt insights from sustainability transitions and show how they can be enriched by a more in-depth empirical exploration of experiments. I introduce the notion of associations as a way to stay close to practice and show what is already working for inclusion in the workplaces. In chapter 4, I extend this notion further to the policy domain and show how one of the experiments face challenges when trying to scale-up what had worked in the experiment. I conclude that a pluralistic perspective is important in trying to transform practices, especially for allowing room for multiple action perspectives. In chapter 5, I experiment with novel ways of materializing technologies for inclusion. I follow the development of a socio-cultural manual, as a way to capture the sensibilities in from the first 4 chapters and help make this knowledge travel to other situations.