Bush Pump

I particularly liked Hine’s discussion of the ‘bush pump’ and its ‘fluidity’ of identity. Wow. I guess I never thought of technology as having fluidity of identity before, ever. I understand the idea of our individual identity that is constantly changing, affected by the environment, external and internal. We talk about such concepts in gender studies classrooms. And yet, the bush pump, of which existence I have never heard before, just like humans, can vary and have flexibility in definition. Establishing a meaning of a bush pump requires putting it in a context. I find it fascinating and true. Markham’s example of how people view Internet drives the point home: users view the world wide web as “a tool, a place, and a way of being”.

Over the last few weeks all the readings we’ve had for this class made for me one shared point: research is interpretative. Hine, Markham, and Law confirm my theory with their discussion of methods in social science and how they “shape the ways in which it is possible for us to think”. In my previous post I wrote about the importance of having access to as many existing views and opinions as possible, only so one can progress with his/her own interpretation and develop an individual idea, perhaps, slightly advanced in the end. Sometimes these individual developments become precious scientific discoveries. Sometimes they are just thoughts. I am becoming convinced that any research, because it is interpretative, subjective, and has to be understood within the researcher’s context, leads to a progress of interpretation of ideas. That in itself is valuable. Yay, bush pump!