Middletech: software work and the culture of good enough
An ethnographic story of neither the tech giant or the flashy startup, but the run-of-the-mill Middletech: a place where software is built to be just “good enough” to function and workers create and sustain a complex culture of good enoughness.
The book will be available with Princeton University Press in the spring of 2024
I am an Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland. I am an ethnographer of digital technologies, looking at contexts of usage as well as production, and I frame my research within science and technology studies in particular. My previous book, “Becoming Intimately Mobile,” (Peter Lang: 2012), ethnographically researched hospitality networks (Couchsurfing.com), and ride-sharing websites (Mitfahrgelegenheit.de) in order to understand how platforms that mediate intimacy and trust between strangers are designed and used. I am also a musician with the band Paula & Karol and mother. I live in a small village in eastern Switzerland.
My other work