A space odyssey of cyber-physical marketization

Windahl, Charlotta; Mason, Katy

Abstract

This paper reveals how the reproduction of ‘appropriate space’ is designed - in to cyber-physical market offerings through the marketization process. Drawing on a longitudinal ethnographic study of the extended reality tumour evolution project (XRTEP) – involving a popup room, HoloLens technologies, a donor body, a digital ‘body’ twin and spatial-temporal clinical data – we reveal how the contestations of normalised practices from outside the world of markets (from genomics, clinical medicine, architecture and digital design), designed-in the reproduction of ‘appropriate’ moral space (Lefebvre , 1991: 59), to an innovative learning product. Starting from the premise that technological innovation is a marketization practice – making the market and the technology in relation to each other, simultaneously, through co-produced, coordinated activities and contestations – this paper contributes to extant understanding of marketization by revealing (i) the reproduction of appropriate space as a central element of cyber-physical products, (ii) the marketization process as a means of conceptualising and designing-in ‘appropriates spaces’ with its own moral order, and (iii) the marketable object as a carrier of moral orders and transformed sociomaterial practices.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: European Group pf Organization Studies
• Start Date: Jul 4, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024
• Deposit Date: Mar 3, 2025
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed