"It’s about Business not Politics”: software development between Palestinians and Israelis

Publikation: Bidrag til bog/antologi/rapportKonferencebidrag i proceedingsForskningfagfællebedømt

This paper focuses on the collaboration in an Israeli-Palestinian tech start-up company. We investigate the strategies enacted by the IT developers for managing the political dynamics and making collaboration possible under the highly challenging political conditions. We found that one of the key strategies was explicitly separating the work domain of software development from the domain of politics. We argue that the IT developers manage to collaborate by displacing the political conflict through strategies of non-confrontation instead of engaging in translating conflicting agendas against each other. By insisting on keeping politics outside of the workspace, the IT developers adopt a strategy of keeping the collaboration together by keeping politics and work apart. However, we found that despite the attempts to manage the sub-group dynamics, politics constantly invade the workspace and challenge the collaboration. Significant resources are invested into managing the regimes of differentiated identity cards, permits, and checkpoints, all of which have consequences on the employees’ freedom or restriction of mobility. Thus, we argue that the IT development domain is inseparable from and deeply dependent upon the political domain.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TitelECSCW 2015 : Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 19-23 September 2015, Oslo, Norway
Antal sider19
ForlagSpringer
Publikationsdato2015
Sider43-61
Kapitel3
ISBN (Trykt)978-3-319-20498-7
ISBN (Elektronisk)978-3-319-20499-4
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2015
BegivenhedEuropean Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work - University of Oslo, Oslo, Norge
Varighed: 19 sep. 201523 sep. 2015
Konferencens nummer: 14th

Konference

KonferenceEuropean Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Nummer14th
LokationUniversity of Oslo
LandNorge
ByOslo
Periode19/09/201523/09/2015

ID: 144788824