Dexter time: the space, time, and matterings of school absence registration

Abstract

Working with a posthumanist approach, this article explores how the computer software Dexter, used for the registration of students' absences and presences, is part of the production of different practices of time, place, space, and matter in Swedish schools. The empirical material engaged with comes from two schools, and the students involved are in grades 7–9. The article creates knowledge on how the digital registration of students' presences, absences, or late arrivals is dependent upon material-discursive practices. The “bodily presences” of students are continually destabilized in relation to Dexter, showing that school absences and presences are (re)shaped depending on relations of spacetimematter.

Keywords:

• school absence
• spacetimematter
• computer software
• posthumanism
• empirical engagements

Acknowledgments

My sincerest thanks to Eva Reimers, Ann-Marie Markström, and Karin Gunnarsson for challenging discussions of the article, to Klara Arnberg, Helena Hill, and Linn Sandberg for encouraging comments at an early stage of the writing process, and to Paulina Semenec for her helpful generosity. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for productive remarks and Constance Ellwood for the proof reading.

ORCID

Linnea Bodén http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4197-304X

Notes

1. The concept of intra-action is ontologically different from the more commonly known interaction, where interaction presupposes a pregiven split between the components while intra-action points at the mutually constitutional nature of the entanglements of the event.

2. All the names of places and people are pseudonyms. However, the name Dexter is not. Because of the widespread use of Dexter, using the actual name will not compromise confidentiality.

3. Over 80 % of municipalities in Sweden use similar software (Bodén, 2013).

4. The intraviews in my study can be described as a methodology used to question the anthropocentrism of the conventional qualitative interview. I performed the intraviews together with Dexter and teachers, where the software was regarded as an equally important “speaker” (cf. Bodén, 2014).