Understanding the role of technology in work practices – for design? The story of ”European” CSCW research

Abstract

[Based on the opening keynote in CSCW2025, Bergen 20.10.2025] Thanks for the organizers for the invitation, pleased and honored to serve here in this role. My talk will tell a story of European CSCW research, although, as Mark Ackerman has said, "Europe" in this regard is less a place than a state of mind1. When CSCW got started as a research area some 40 years ago in US, there were several different approaches who were interested in computers and cooperation, and one of them was keen to know, what happens in real life work practices and studied it using ethnographic methods. That approach found a fertile ground in European CSCW research, and it became the mainstream here. It had followers also in US, but it remained just one among many, and later, when the majority of US CSCW research community shifted orientation, the European community continued working along the same old lines. Now, when CSCW conference is visiting Europe first time, the organizers thought that it would be useful to take a look into the history of the European research.