Winter 2026 Reading Group: Lucy Suchman Essays / Human-Machine Reconfigurations

General Discussions
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Updated with our plan

Priming us for the fourth edition of our reading group with Social.coop. Let’s read over 4ish sessions over the winter :snowflake: !

:spiral_notepad: Notepad

Schedule

:date: Wed Feb 4: Kick-off

:date: Wed Mar 4 - Located Accountabilities Essay luma.com/ifzu83zy

:date: Wed Apr 8 - Human-Machine Reconfigurations Part 1/3 luma.com/o9fgefth

  • Focus on : Chapter 1: Readings and Responses (pg 8-23)
  • Recommend: First third (pg 1-107) of Human-machine reconfigurations : plans and situated actions.

:date: Wed May 6 - Human-Machine Reconfigurations Part 2/3 luma.com/e11hxh7z

  • Focus on : [chapter to be confirmed]
  • Recommend: Second third (pg 85-175) of Human-machine reconfigurations : plans and situated actions.

:date: Wed Jun 3 - Human-Machine Reconfigurations Part 3/3 + Paper on AI luma.com/upxfktwy

  • Focus on : [will pick a more recent paper on AI]
  • Recommend: Last third (pg 176-186) of Human-machine reconfigurations : plans and situated actions.
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(I’m new. Is this being discussed elsewhere? I wouldn’t mind at least following along if it’s going to happen.)

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Hi @jamie – oops this is on me, I need to put it in our calendar. I think we may start first week of February due to my late timing :slight_smile:

Kickoff event: CoSocial Reading Group: Intros for Lucy Suchman and plan · Luma

Cosocial’s calendar is here: CoSocial · Events Calendar
A note: You can “subscribe” on luma OR you can also press the little RSS button on the lower right side of the page (beside “Add Event”) to get an ics link to put into your calendaring app)

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Hi, All! Looking forward to discussing the essays tomorrow :slight_smile: . Here’s an alternate link to “Do categories have politics?”: https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/ENS/CSCW/2013/papers/Suchman-ECSCW93.pdf

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(I’ve had to duck out of this one with another project taking priority.)

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We had an awesome conversation yesterday, went deep on “Do Categories have politics?” so will talk about the other essay next time! Updated the top with our plan and made events :slight_smile:

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I had no idea there was a reading group! I’ll do my best to be ready for the upcoming one.

ETA: nope, I have a conflict at that time. Maybe next time.

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Hello! Unfortunately I will not be able to make the discussion session today. Sorry for the short notice but I hope you have a nice discussion.

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ah, we will miss you @shon.

Though I think that means it is just you and me @tasha – want to push it back a week and see if anyone else can join?

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Update: We’re skipping this call and will take up the same readings next month/slot, I’ll update the events accordingly!

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Final update: we just held our last session !

Some thoughts on where to go next:

  • We will take a break for the summer
  • We want to reconnect with social.coop about reading together at Sept 20 cowork ? Social.coop x Cosocial Cowork (6th edition) · Luma
  • Noticing our group got very small by the end this time
  • Reflecting on format?
    • we’ve mostly read non-fiction, and this is academic
    • maybe polling more for next pic?
  • Video idea?
    • wasn’t that interesting to many
  • What about: alignment with BookWyrm project ? Ask the librarians !
  • Is there a thing of interest in cosocial to read or explore together?
    • Tech cooperatives and cooperative digital infra
    • Cooperativism
    • AI => e.g. the Hypha report : coops + AI
      • Cory Doctorow’s book
      • social.coop’s Aaron leading that llm convo, nice tie-in
    • ATProto + Mastodon + Matrix stack after seeing this https://european.social/