Hospitality, Improvisation and Gestell: A Phenomenology of Mobile Information

Abstract

This paper reports on longitudinal research into the implementation and use of the first mobile vehicle mounted data system (VMDS) at a UK fire service. Using insights from Claudio Ciborra's work, the paper develops a phenomenological ontology for conceptualising the co-constitutive relation between organisational practices and information technology mediated practices. The paper sets out how the brigade's mobile data system can be understood in terms hospitality, improvisation and Gestell. It is argued that despite the seemingly innocent and potentially mundane replacement of paper-based practices by electronically mediated mobile information and communication, the VMDS is associated with significant and far-reaching outcomes, both empirical and ontological, within the brigade and for the modernisation of fire service provision across the UK. We suggest that the dynamic of hospitality between guest and host provides a way to think through and beyond the deployment information infrastructures as enframed by a technological mood. The paper concludes with some general implications for a phenomenology of information technology.