"It’s about Business not Politics”: software development between Palestinians and Israelis
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review
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"It’s about Business not Politics” : software development between Palestinians and Israelis. / Boulus-Rødje, Nina; Bjørn, Pernille; Ghazawneh, Ahmad.
ECSCW 2015: Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 19-23 September 2015, Oslo, Norway. Springer, 2015. p. 43-61.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review
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TY - GEN
T1 - "It’s about Business not Politics”
T2 - European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
AU - Boulus-Rødje, Nina
AU - Bjørn, Pernille
AU - Ghazawneh, Ahmad
N1 - Conference code: 14th
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - This paper focuses on the collaboration in an Israeli-Palestinian tech start-up company. We investigate the strategies enacted by the IT developers for managing the political dynamics and making collaboration possible under the highly challenging political conditions. We found that one of the key strategies was explicitly separating the work domain of software development from the domain of politics. We argue that the IT developers manage to collaborate by displacing the political conflict through strategies of non-confrontation instead of engaging in translating conflicting agendas against each other. By insisting on keeping politics outside of the workspace, the IT developers adopt a strategy of keeping the collaboration together by keeping politics and work apart. However, we found that despite the attempts to manage the sub-group dynamics, politics constantly invade the workspace and challenge the collaboration. Significant resources are invested into managing the regimes of differentiated identity cards, permits, and checkpoints, all of which have consequences on the employees’ freedom or restriction of mobility. Thus, we argue that the IT development domain is inseparable from and deeply dependent upon the political domain.
AB - This paper focuses on the collaboration in an Israeli-Palestinian tech start-up company. We investigate the strategies enacted by the IT developers for managing the political dynamics and making collaboration possible under the highly challenging political conditions. We found that one of the key strategies was explicitly separating the work domain of software development from the domain of politics. We argue that the IT developers manage to collaborate by displacing the political conflict through strategies of non-confrontation instead of engaging in translating conflicting agendas against each other. By insisting on keeping politics outside of the workspace, the IT developers adopt a strategy of keeping the collaboration together by keeping politics and work apart. However, we found that despite the attempts to manage the sub-group dynamics, politics constantly invade the workspace and challenge the collaboration. Significant resources are invested into managing the regimes of differentiated identity cards, permits, and checkpoints, all of which have consequences on the employees’ freedom or restriction of mobility. Thus, we argue that the IT development domain is inseparable from and deeply dependent upon the political domain.
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-20499-4_3
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-20499-4_3
M3 - Article in proceedings
SN - 978-3-319-20498-7
SP - 43
EP - 61
BT - ECSCW 2015
PB - Springer
Y2 - 19 September 2015 through 23 September 2015
ER -
ID: 144788824