Individual cultural identity and technology adoption

Abstract

By recognizing that technology adoption is a social process, the sociotechnical literature has advanced from traditional models of technology. This perspective, however, disregards the individual and we, therefore, do not yet know how individual characteristics such as an individual’s cultural identity affects how they use technology. I use the cultural contracts theory to bring in an individual-level perspective, and anchor technology adoption as a deeply individualized process. Out of the thirty-eight South African urban farmers I identified for the research, I chose ten urban farmers, aiming for variation among them, to look at the ways in which they interact with and use technology. Primarily because urban farming has the potential to boost agricultural economic activity while also improving food security. Through ten phenomenographic interviews I identified four cultural identity archetypes of Strategist, Adaptavist, Innovationist, and Traditionalist that point to a continuum; and the dimensions of cultural identity that make up the archetypes. The archetypical continuum can be used by practitioners to plan interventions that span the technology adoption phases. This work improves the cultural contracts theory by adding a non-signing cultural contract, and demonstrates that technology adoption is (re) negotiated on an on-going basis along a continuum.