"We do not talk about this" : Problematical silences in eGovernment

• The Swedish public sector is currently in a process of transformation, often referred to as eGovernment. In this paper stories are told of problematic silences in an eGovernment implementation project in a Swedish government agency. eGovernment is discussed as something that is articulated differently by a range of actors in various locations. This enables articulations of multiple eGovernment and the multiple articulations can also be a means to contest dominant and possibly problematic articulations of eGovernment. The dominant discourse of eGovernment is the rationalisation of the public sector as a means of saving public resources. The improvement of quality and availability of public services, and to improve democratic processes are central in the dominant discourse. In this discourse there is a silence about the dismissal of employees in the public sector. There is neither talk about how the public sector is an important labour market for women nor how the rationalisation will affect the employees. Employees’ knowledges are not considered as being a resource for strategic IT-planning, and thus they are not invited to participate in the further design of IT-systems. The purpose of the paper is to explore the participation of the administrative officers in an eGovernment implementation project, and the meanings of eGovernment articulated in the project. Ethnographic methods were used in the collection of empirical material, and central ideas in participatory design and feminist technoscience were used in the analysis. The main argument is that the administrative officers participated in an ambiguous way. They were central actors but were at the same time marginalised within the organisation. The ambiguity regarding how they participated is related to different and more inclusive articulations of eGovernment in the project. The paper is concluded with a discussion concerning how alternative articulations of eGovernment can offer alternatives to the dominant eGovernment discourse.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

eGovernment

public sector employees

silences

feminist technoscience

participatory design

Informatics

Informatik

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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