Theory, Frameworks & Methods

My work spans many contexts but is always connected to the central theme of interrelated organizational, social, and ICT structures in political and social justice processes. I have worked over to position myself as a sociotechnical researcher who conducts a multi-level analysis that yields nuanced explanations of the situated sociotechnical infrastructures and socio-political change. My insights provide comprehensive accounts of the social, political and material contexts in which ICTs are being used by political actors. It sheds light on how shared ideologies are enacted as resourceful rearrangements of sociotechnical structures. Hence, allowing us to understand how ICTs and organizations are appropriated and repurposed under precarious circumstances caused by political unrest in the case of Honduras, natural disaster in the case of Puerto Rico, and structural inequality in the case of immigrants in the United States.

As our understanding of how activists use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) becomes increasingly sophisticated, we need multidisciplinary approaches to yield more nuanced explanations. I have developed a combined framework that brings together Social Movement and Information Studies theories. The framework bridges academic disciplines by integrating McAdam et al.’s Contentious Politics Model with approaches on Sociomaterial, Affordances, and Information Behavior. The framework has three levels of analysis. A macro-level that describes state’s sociotechnical infrastructure, shedding light on its centralization and equality. A meso-level, that characterizes the relationship between tasks, people, structures, and ICTs; thus, examining the social and technical mechanisms that support mobilization. A micro-level, that exposes the relationship between collective meanings and ICTs, thus describing how the symbolic becomes practice and how practices are enacted through ICTs.