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To bike or not to bike: Cycloactivism in a perspective of actor-network theory
Fendrychová, Kristýna ; Stöckelová, Tereza (advisor) ; Brož, Luděk (referee)
In this diploma thesis I focus on the formation of urban cycling including heterogeneous participating actors - people, discourses, technologies, infrastructures and other materialities. I examine cyclists' relationships with their environment and describe asymmetries connected with the dominant status of automobilism in urban environment, and strategies for contesting this situation. I also focus on cyclo-activist discourse which plays an important role in the empowerment of cyclists in urban traffic. Mobilizing arguments of critical theory and the "right for the city" concept cyclo-advoacy strives to include as many citizens as possible in debate about public space and in this way support pro-cycling developments. From the perspective of actor-network theory (ANT) this strategy has limits due to its operation with stabilized social science categories and I argue that ANT could contribute a more nuanced arguments to cyclo-advocacy with detailed description of connections between cyclists and urban environment, focus on embodiment and emotions and highlighting the role of materialities. It could thereby provide a stronger argument for furthering the pro-cycling development. Key words: urban cycling, automobilism, actor-network theory (ANT), cycloadvocacy, critical theory, materiality
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Bicy-colonization: A symmetrical ethnography of the development project Kola pro Afriku (Czech Bikes for Gambian Schools)
Werner, Jan ; Stöckelová, Tereza (advisor) ; Brož, Luděk (referee)
This study is a symmetrical ethnography of the Czech development project Kola pro Afriku (Czech Bikes for Gambian Schools), which involves the collection, repairs, modification and shipment of old Czech bicycles to The Gambia. Once there, they are distributed to partner schools and offered to communing pupils. In my research, I mainly focus on the pivotal technology of the project, bicycles, and their performances. Drawing on classic ethnographies of development and (most importantly) on studies based on the actor-network theory (ANT), I gradually explore the bike collection process, their modifications and repairs, their shipment to The Gambia and their local operations. When doing so, I focus on the social topology of the bicycles and its transformations in the timespace. In this regard, the bicycles gradually appear as junk (i.e. a dysfunctional relict of stabilized networks), as a fluid collectivity and as individually fluid. Thereby, this study shows that technology transfers may lead not only to changes in the set of relations, of which the given object consists, but in the very modes, in which those relations arise. It is precisely these topological transformations that significantly contribute to the functioning of the project Kola pro Afriku. Key words: development cooperation,...
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"White cane, yes. Dictaphone, yes. But everything is already in Apple." The technification of blindness in the symmetrical approach of ethnography
Haspeklová, Sára ; Stöckelová, Tereza (advisor) ; Zandlová, Markéta (referee)
In the thesis I ethnographically study the process of interconnecting and mutual influencing of human and non-human entities in case of the visually impaired persons and the compensation devices based on computer technology. I examine this process, which I call "the technification of blindness", in symmetrical terms. The main theoretical inspiration for the study is the interplay of technology and the health-inconvenienced body and its consequences which are based on the Actor-Network Theory and related material-semiotic tools of social-science research. My aim is to analyse processes which enable/not allow to manage everyday activities to visually impaired persons in the Czech Republic, while they are using computer technologies and their relation with wider processes of accessibility. I trace mutual influencing of human and non-human entities on a specific configuration of visually disabled body with specifically modified personal computer, and with a touch-screen smart-phone. The study shows how the specific form of portable electronic and computer-based devices, which are specially adapted to seeing users, is what excludes blind and visually impaired persons from the interaction with computer technology. Such a cooperation and visual orientation of blind persons is allowed only thanks to...
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A Watch To Watch: Ethnography of User's Experience with Apple Watch
Zavoral, David ; Stöckelová, Tereza (advisor) ; Abu Ghosh, Yasar (referee)
This thesis builds upon ethnography of Apple Watch user experience and explores its connections with Apple's different branding strategies such as official website advertisements for Apple Watch Series 4, Supplier Responsibility Progress Report (2019) and Today at Apple sessions held in Apple Stores. I draw on sociomaterial approaches with special emphasis on John Law's (2004) method-assemblage and the feminist critique of ANT managerial vision that allow me to conceptualize corporate practices as means of enacting singular and coherent commercial out-thereness and absences. The goal of this thesis is to explore possible connections between the user's experience and the corporate branding strategies which craft a series of commercial realities in order to translate the needs of other actants and enroll them in its corporate network. This paper also argues that ambivalence is central to this process as corporate branding is being constantly reshaped and reconfigured by both the branding strategy itself and the actants involved. Chapter I provides a semiotic analysis of advertisements inspired by Woolgar's (1990) concept of moral universe. The second chapter follows with examining the Progress Report which provides information on the production processes that are completely absent in exclusively...
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Bicy-colonization: A symmetrical ethnography of the development project Kola pro Afriku (Czech Bikes for Gambian Schools)
Werner, Jan ; Stöckelová, Tereza (advisor) ; Brož, Luděk (referee)
This study is a symmetrical ethnography of the Czech development project Kola pro Afriku (Czech Bikes for Gambian Schools), which involves the collection, repairs, modification and shipment of old Czech bicycles to The Gambia. Once there, they are distributed to partner schools and offered to communing pupils. In my research, I mainly focus on the pivotal technology of the project, bicycles, and their performances. Drawing on classic ethnographies of development and (most importantly) on studies based on the actor-network theory (ANT), I gradually explore the bike collection process, their modifications and repairs, their shipment to The Gambia and their local operations. When doing so, I focus on the social topology of the bicycles and its transformations in the timespace. In this regard, the bicycles gradually appear as junk (i.e. a dysfunctional relict of stabilized networks), as a fluid collectivity and as individually fluid. Thereby, this study shows that technology transfers may lead not only to changes in the set of relations, of which the given object consists, but in the very modes, in which those relations arise. It is precisely these topological transformations that significantly contribute to the functioning of the project Kola pro Afriku. Key words: development cooperation,...
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To bike or not to bike: Cycloactivism in a perspective of actor-network theory
Fendrychová, Kristýna ; Stöckelová, Tereza (advisor) ; Brož, Luděk (referee)
In this diploma thesis I focus on the formation of urban cycling including heterogeneous participating actors - people, discourses, technologies, infrastructures and other materialities. I examine cyclists' relationships with their environment and describe asymmetries connected with the dominant status of automobilism in urban environment, and strategies for contesting this situation. I also focus on cyclo-activist discourse which plays an important role in the empowerment of cyclists in urban traffic. Mobilizing arguments of critical theory and the "right for the city" concept cyclo-advoacy strives to include as many citizens as possible in debate about public space and in this way support pro-cycling developments. From the perspective of actor-network theory (ANT) this strategy has limits due to its operation with stabilized social science categories and I argue that ANT could contribute a more nuanced arguments to cyclo-advocacy with detailed description of connections between cyclists and urban environment, focus on embodiment and emotions and highlighting the role of materialities. It could thereby provide a stronger argument for furthering the pro-cycling development. Key words: urban cycling, automobilism, actor-network theory (ANT), cycloadvocacy, critical theory, materiality
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"We are in Korea, everybody is ready to change": Ethnography of Plastic Surgery in the Republic of Korea
Mudruňková, Kateřina ; Stöckelová, Tereza (advisor) ; Klepal, Jaroslav (referee)
The purpose of this thesis is to identify practices that constitute plastic surgery in current Republic of Korea with emphasis put on relationships between participating human beings, materials and technologies. It focuses on practices proceeding inside and outside the clinic of plastic surgery. In accordance with M. Lock's concept of local biology this thesis introduces Korean plastic surgery as a set of practices shaped by mutual interaction of local technologies and Korean bodies. The actor network theory approach (ANT), which emphasizes relational open-ended forming of entities, is applied to examining various aspects of plastic surgery. This approach also provides new ways of exploring how the entities and practices described in the medical anthropology as medicalization, medical tourism or local biology are produced. Key words plastic surgery; Republic of Korea; Actor - Network Theory (ANT); bodily practices; local biology; beauty ideal; medicalization.
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