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

聚焦于非专有(NPS)软件在法国的普及，这篇社会科学和行为科学论文改进格兰特阐明了计算机技术在跨国激进主义中的紧急战略和政治用途，同时也探索了它们是如何通过国家话语、焦虑和历史产生影响的。NPS(也称为“开源”或“自由软件”，例如Linux)在世界范围内重新组织了各种倡议和议程；然而，在法国，它已经成为一项突出的政治和文化事业。本项目通过以下问题调查法国核动力源活动家如何催化对计算机技术政治化愿景的支持：(1)关于法国核动力源民主化潜力的主张如何借鉴和支持长期存在的国家技术创新和公共服务概念？(2)核动力源运动致力于振兴法国的“公共利益”，如何与法国在国际上复兴的努力产生共鸣？为了回答这些问题，联合和平倡议将与法国四个最活跃、最成熟的核动力源协会合作，所有这些协会都设在巴黎，被选来捕捉这一运动中不同阶层的人和使命。她将利用参与者观察(自愿协会、与核动力源有关的聚会、在线辩论和合作)、深入访谈、网络分析以及对与法国核动力源有关的网站、在线档案和媒体陈述进行分析。这项研究将着眼于一个案例，即当地行为者通过在线和面对面的互动，使计算机技术具有具体的国家框架和影响，从而使计算和计算机网络具有跨国潜力，从而促进民主和/或公司的扩张。为此，该项目将(1)规划围绕法国核动力源的关系、活动和辩论；(2)阐明核动力源宣传和普及的实践如何赋予通过技术实现民主化的愿景以意义；(3)跟踪核动力源在法国的“公共利益”概念如何牵涉到国家的某种愿景。除了绘制各种非专利软件生产和宣传领域的地图外，该项目还将从人类学的角度促进对计算、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的跨文化理解。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。这项研究将通过考虑行为者、主张和做法的网络来阐明计算文化，这些行为者、主张和做法奠定了通过传播技术发展实现民主化的愿景，并由这些愿景构成。通过追踪“极客反文化”如何在广泛的社会运动中被维持、折射或否定，这项研究将展望核动力源潜在地催化更广泛的计算机技术战略使用趋势的条件。此外，它还将阐明在国家和跨国领域分层的计算机扫盲的意义，说明具体的计算做法如何以及对谁来说确实是成功的或民主化的，以及哪些群体在这类举措中的代表性可能不足。该项目将为理解围绕并日益依赖计算机技术的政治化激进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.