Karen Barnett
Karen is currently completing her PhD at QUT Carseldine on older people's use of computers and the Internet for social inclusion and continuity of identity. In analysing a wide variety of data sources for this project, the concepts of 'actors, scenes and actions' have been critically important.
Karen's academic interests in relation to the thesis are mainly in the area of ageing, gender, and social aspects of technology use. She has also worked as a research assistant on several projects, and has taught in Introductory Sociology, Social Inequality and Difference, Sex, Gender and Society, and Social Inquiry.
Published papers include:
(2000). Habitus and home: making space for the personal computer.in 'retirement'.
[CD-ROM] Conference Proceedings, Habitus 2000, Perth, September.(2001) with B. Adkins. Computers: community for aging women in Australia.
Women & Environments 50/51: 23-25.(2001) with B. Adkins. Social inclusion: computer practices enabling older people's 'virtual mobility' between homes and communities.
[CD-ROM] TASA 2001 Conference, Sydney December.Karen writes about her thesis:
I am using an ethnomethodological ethnography to investigate older people's computer use as a case of social inclusion. The methodology operationalises Bourdieu's theory of fields to draw together 'interests' that are critically important to understand the case. I did field work with two groups of 'senior' computer users, and conducted face-to-face interviews with older computer users in their homes. I also conducted email interviews with other users, using these as examples of 'turn taking' communication about their experiences. I also used examples of documents from government sources and older people's interest groups as types of communicative interaction that identify the differences in 'motives' that encourage computer use.k.barnett@qut.edu.auIn my thesis I am working on three forms of analysis. The first focuses on the documents as examples of older people's 'positioning' and action in scenes in a discursive context. The second chapter is more traditionally an ethnographic exercise investigating the presentation of the self, through observations of interaction in computer classes, and interviews in the homes, where computers, and the work they produce, are displayed. The third chapter investigates the interaction between myself and the email participants, drawing on Goffman and the idea of 'co-presence' achieved through 'telephone and the mails', and Sacks on turn taking to investigate 'presentation of the self' as older people speak of, and demonstrate, their competence with IT.