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

Nina Boulus-Rødje; Pernille Bjørn; Ahmad Ghazawneh

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-20499-4_3

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

Nina Boulus-Rødje, Pernille Bjørn, Ahmad Ghazawneh

Abstract

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.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	ECSCW 2015 : Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 19-23 September 2015, Oslo, Norway
Number of pages	19
Publisher	Springer
Publication date	2015
Pages	43-61
Chapter	3
ISBN (Print)	978-3-319-20498-7
ISBN (Electronic)	978-3-319-20499-4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20499-4_3
Publication status	Published - 2015
Event	European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work - University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Duration: 19 Sept 2015 → 23 Sept 2015 Conference number: 14th

Conference

Conference	European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Number	14th
Location	University of Oslo
Country/Territory	Norway
City	Oslo
Period	19/09/2015 → 23/09/2015

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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

Boulus-Rødje, N, Bjørn, P & Ghazawneh, A 2015, "It’s about Business not Politics”: software development between Palestinians and Israelis. in ECSCW 2015: Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 19-23 September 2015, Oslo, Norway. Springer, pp. 43-61, European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Oslo, Norway, 19/09/2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20499-4_3

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title = "{"}It{\textquoteright}s about Business not Politics”: software development between Palestinians and Israelis",

abstract = "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{\textquoteright} freedom or restriction of mobility. Thus, we argue that the IT development domain is inseparable from and deeply dependent upon the political domain.",

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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.

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

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