Future War for Fun and Profit: Authority, Bureaucracy, and Masculinity in Defence Industry Software Development
Abstract
Technological innovation is at the heart of many discussions of understanding military practice, and it is increasingly important to understanding the relationship between states, militaries, and civilian actors such as a corporations and citizens increasingly shaped by militarization. One group of technologies affected and whose development has been conditioned by these discussions is simulation software.
Based upon four months of participant observation research at a defence contractor and software development company in Calgary, Alberta, this study explores how contingencies of professional practice in the software industry, authority, corporate hierarchy and reporting practices, gender, and the nature of simulation contribute to developing products for military use. This study suggests that these contingencies not only reproduce and reinforce certain gendered, authoritative, and professional stereotypes during production, but that understanding these stereotypes and their linguistic, aesthetic, and structured facets contributes to understanding the relationship between militarization and the production of technology.
Description
Keywords
Anthropology--Cultural, Military Studies
Citation
Collins, R. (2016). Future War for Fun and Profit: Authority, Bureaucracy, and Masculinity in Defence Industry Software Development (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26252