Linda Paxling
Situated knowledges is a concept that challenges traditional views of a value-free, positivist and universally translatable objectivity (Haraway, 1988). The concept redefines objectivity in research as local and partial perspectives where an objective vision in singular is impossible. Situated knowledges together with critical making foregrounds the agency of the students and their ethical responsibility (Corrius, 2016). Thomas and Brown (2011) suggest that changing a knowledge system based on facts, and a continual referral to the question “what is the information”, means a reframing of knowledge where context becomes more important and a question of “where is the information” is foregrounded. This reframing is similar to the concept of situated knowledges and Haraway’s reformation of objectivity. By understanding the context of a physical object, knowing the objects’ historicity and how its meaning has travelled over time through places, cultures, people and other objects we can provide a thicker description of its meaning. Also, as Haraway (1988) proposes, we need to include ourselves in this knowledge production. The traditional fact-based objectivity suggests accruing facts from a place of nowhere, a strong held position in the academia and elsewhere which has created a hierarchy of knowledge systems and an exclusion of the many.
3. The course 3.1 A description of the course Media technology at Blekinge Institute of Technology is the umbrella discipline for four undergraduate programs - digital games, digital visual production, digital audio production and digital infrastructures. The undergraduate program is placed within the department of Technology and Aesthetics at the Faculty of Computing. A conscious effort has been made by the teaching department to include design practices and technoscientific studies for the purposes of strengthening the relations of theory and practice and preparing the students for a paradigm marked by continual change, a wealth of knowledge resources, and new social structures with ubiquitous connectivity. In 2016 a new course for second-year undergraduate students was developed with the aim of using critical making as a pedagogy. Critical making was introduced in union with situated knowledges and the course name Situated Making was formulated. The course was held during ten weeks between November 2016 and January 2017. During the first five weeks modules with specific assignments were given. The remaining five weeks were used for in-depth prototyping and reflection and creating a video as the final assessment. The number of students attending was 110. The focus of the method is the reflective process of making and construction. The physical prototypes made in the process are of interest specifically for the purpose of visualizing critique and reflection. Ratto (2011a) suggests three different stages for a critical making project involving literature review and creating material prototypes, collaboratively design, building technical prototypes and reconfiguration and reflection. The course content diverged from these stages in that the students worked individually with a physical object of their choice throughout the course. A list of the course modules is presented in table 1 below.
513