Dissertation Research: Libre Software: Nation and Innovation in the French Non-Proprietary Software Movement

专注于在法国普及非专有（ESTA）软件，这个社会和行为科学论文改进补助金照亮了计算机技术在跨国行动主义的新兴战略和政治用途，同时也探索它们是如何通过国家话语，焦虑和历史的影响。 开源（也称为“开源”或“自由软件”，例如Linux）重新组合了世界各地的各种倡议和议程;然而，在法国，它已成为一个突出的政治和文化事业。 这个项目调查了法国社会活动家如何催化对计算机技术政治化愿景的支持，通过问：（1）关于法国社会民主化潜力的主张如何借鉴和融入长期存在的技术创新和公共服务的国家概念？ (2)复兴运动致力于振兴法国的“公共利益”，这与法国在国际上重新定位的努力有何共鸣？ 为了回答这些问题，联合PI将与法国四个最活跃和最成熟的反恐怖主义协会合作，这些协会都设在巴黎，并被选中以捕捉这一运动中的人员和任务的横截面。 她将采用参与观察（在志愿协会，与NPS相关的聚会，在线辩论和合作），深入访谈，网络分析，并分析网站，在线档案和媒体代表与法国的网络安全有关。本研究将干预文献，特权的跨国潜力的计算和计算机网络的民主和/或企业的扩张，通过查看一个案例中，当地的演员，通过在线和面对面的互动相结合，特别是国家框架和影响，影响计算机技术。 为此，该项目将（1）绘制出法国社会民主的关系、活动和辩论;（2）阐明社会民主的宣传和普及实践如何通过技术赋予民主化愿景以意义;（3）跟踪法国社会民主的“公共利益”概念如何暗示国家的某种愿景。 除了绘制非专有软件生产和宣传的多样化领域之外，该项目还将从人类学的角度促进对计算的跨文化理解，技术创新的国家和跨国层面，以及互联网在文化和政治活动中的作用。计算越来越被理解为研究和教育的基础设施;然而，社会科学家才刚刚开始调查计算机技术的文化和政治层面。 这项研究将照亮计算的文化，通过考虑网络的演员，索赔和做法的基础，并通过技术发展的扩散，民主化的愿景构成。通过追踪“极客反主流文化”是如何通过广泛的社会运动来维持、折射或否认的，这项研究将展望计算机技术可能催化更广泛的战略性使用计算机技术的趋势的条件。 此外，它将阐明分层的国家和跨国领域的计算机扫盲的意义，划定如何和谁的具体做法计算可能确实是成功的或民主化，以及哪些群体可能在这些举措中代表性不足。 该项目将为理解围绕计算机技术并日益依赖计算机技术的政治化行动主义如何促进或限制不同群体参与科学研究或教育提供基础。

Focusing on the popularization of non-proprietary (NPS) software in France, this Social and Behavioral Sciences Dissertation Improvement Grant illuminates the emergent strategic and political uses of computer technology in transnational activism while also exploring how they are inflected through national discourses, anxieties and histories. NPS (also called "open source" or "free software," e.g. Linux) regroups a variety of initiatives and agendas worldwide; however, in France it has been made into a prominent political and cultural cause. This project investigates how the French NPS activists catalyze support for a politicized vision of computer technology, by asking: (1) How do claims about the democratizing potential of NPS in France draw on and feed into longstanding national conceptions of technological innovation and of public service? (2) How does the NPS movement's commitment to invigorating the "public good" in France resonate with efforts to resituate France internationally? To answer these questions, the co-PI will work with four of the most active and well-established NPS associations in France, all based in Paris and selected to capture a cross-section of persons and missions in this movement. She will employ participant observation (in voluntary associations, NPS-related gatherings, on-line debates and collaborations), in-depth interviews, network analysis, and analysis of websites, online archives and media representations related to NPS in France. This study will intervene in literature that privileges the transnational potential of computation and computer networks for democratic and/or corporate expansion by looking at a case in which local actors, through a conjunction of online and face-to-face interactions, inflect computer technology with specifically national framings and effects. To do so, this project will (1) map out the relationships, activities and debates around the NPS in France; (2) illuminate how the practices of the NPS advocacy and popularization give meanings to the vision of democratization through technology; (3) track how the NPS notion of "public good" in France implicates a certain vision of the nation. Beyond mapping the variegated field of non-proprietary software production and advocacy, this project will contribute an anthropological perspective to cross-cultural understanding of computing, national and transnational dimensions of technological innovation, and the role of the Internet in cultural and political activism. Computing is increasingly understood to be the infrastructure for research and education; yet, social scientists have only begun to investigate the cultural and political dimensions of computer technology. This research will illuminate the cultures of computing by considering the networks of actors, claims and practices that ground, and are constituted by, the vision of democratization through the diffusion of technological development. By tracking how a "geek counterculture" is maintained, refracted, or disavowed through a broad social movement, this research will foreground conditions in which NPS can potentially catalyze a broader trend of strategic use of computer technology. Further, it will illuminate the meanings of computer literacy in stratified national and transnational spheres, delineating how and for whom specific practices of computing might indeed be successful or democratizing, and which groups might be underrepresented in such initiatives. This project will provide groundwork for understanding how politicized activism around, and increasingly relying on, computer technology, can advance or limit the participation of diverse groups in scientific research or education.