"It’s about Business not Politics”: software development between Palestinians and Israelis

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 -